WHEN THE GAME PLAYED ITSELF
Pollyanna laid down her pen and rubbed her aching wrist. According to
the calendar it was the second day of June, but the thermometer told a
different story. The dining-room in which Pollyanna and Jimmy were
sitting was the coolest spot in the house, but even here the heat had
the sticky oppressiveness of dog-days. Through the bay window Pollyanna
could see that the morning-glories, which had been so up-and-coming at
breakfast time, now drooped their leaves dejectedly. They made her think
of a dog with his tail between his legs.
Pollyanna sat on one side of the dining-table, and Jimmy on the other.
The ends of the table were occupied by boxes of stationery, piled one
upon another, in glistening white columns. It was Jimmy who said that
they reminded him of marble tombs, and Pollyanna had frowned, and then
crossed a _t_ with a slashing stroke, intended to emphasize her
disapproval.
The white boxes contained wedding announcements. Those on Pollyanna’s
right held the announcements already addressed; those on the left were
awaiting their turn. And the only way Pollyanna could write legibly was
by fixing her attention desperately on each letter as she formed it, and
completely dismissing from her thoughts the astonishing disclosure
contained in those blank, bland envelopes.
“Mrs. Thomas Chilton announces the marriage of her niece——” Every time
Pollyanna reached this point she was overwhelmed by a sense of
unreality. Of course there was nothing extraordinary about wedding
announcements. They were among the things to be expected, especially in
June, and though they always looked interesting when one took them from
the postman, and Pollyanna dearly loved to be the first to open them,
they had never before impressed her as thrilling. But she had not yet
been able to read this particular announcement without feeling the
queerest little shiver running along her spine. It was astonishing what
a difference it made when Mrs. Thomas Chilton was announcing the
marriage of her niece, Miss Pollyanna Whittier to Mr. James Pendleton.
Pollyanna had protested against the wedding announcements on the score
of expense. “You see it’s not a bit necessary, Aunt Polly,” she had
said. “Of course everybody in Beldingsville will know about it, and we
can write to the people who live somewhere else, if we especially want
them to know. And the other folks are bound to find it out, sooner or
later.”
Aunt Polly had really seemed displeased. “What an extraordinary girl you
are, Pollyanna. As if the marriage of the only descendant of the
Harringtons was a matter of no importance?”
“I only thought those cards were so terrifically expensive, Aunt Polly;
and I hate to have you scrimping, and making your head ache, trying to
squeeze out dollars that aren’t there to squeeze. But, if we must have
announcements for the honor of the family, why then we must. I suppose
they would be lots cheaper if they were printed instead of engraved,
wouldn’t they?”
“Printed!” Aunt Polly fell back in her chair, with a despairing gesture.
“Pollyanna, sometimes I feel as if I’d made a failure of your bringing
up. There are some things you seem as incapable of comprehending as when
you were a child. Please understand that I would rather live on bread
and water the rest of my days than not have you married in the style
that befits your station.”
Accordingly the dining-table was piled with stationer’s boxes that warm
June day, and Pollyanna was rubbing her wrist. Jimmy, finishing an
address with a flourish, looked across the table to smile at her.
“We’ll be thoroughly advertised when these go out, young woman. Every
human being who has ever heard the name of either of us will be informed
of our rash step.”
The vagueness of Pollyanna’s answering smile indicated that her thoughts
were elsewhere.
“Jimmy, if I were going to write a book, it would be different from most
of the ones I’ve read.”
Across the table Jimmy’s eyes danced mischievously. “Are you planning to
take up a literary career again, Miss Whittier?”
Pollyanna laughed. Long before this she had told Jimmy of the stories
that had been typed so carefully, the stories that were meant to win
prizes, and then had worn out, travelling from editor to editor, and
coming back every time, like homing pigeons. She did not mind in the
least Jimmy’s teasing air. Indeed, she experienced a curious
satisfaction in his frequent lapses from the lover to the tease. Jimmy,
the lover, was still to Pollyanna a glorious stranger, a young
archangel, whose arms about her lifted her to a heaven of tremulous
ecstasy. But there is something reassuring, too, in feeling the solid
earth under one’s feet, and, when Jimmy teased her, he was so like the
freckled lad with whom she had played and quarreled and whose champion
she had been when he had no other friend, that it gave her a satisfying
sense of home-coming. Dearly as Pollyanna loved this wonderful new
Jimmy, it would have broken her heart to have parted altogether from the
mischievous, teasing Jimmy she had known so long.
“I may take up literary work again,” she replied with extreme dignity,
“and I may not. I haven’t quite decided how I shall use the time when
I’m not getting your meals or darning your socks. But, if I decide to
write a book, Jimmy, it will be unlike most books in one very important
respect. Most of them, you know, wind up with a wedding, as if that were
the end of things. And, Jimmy, it’s the other way about. It’s just
beginning—the beginning of everything.”
“You dear!” Jimmy said a little huskily.
Jimmy, the tease, had mysteriously vanished, and Jimmy, the archangel,
had taken his place. He came around the table, put his arm about her
shoulder, and bent his head till his cheek touched hers. Both of them
had completely forgotten the business of addressing the wedding
announcements. But when at last he kissed her, Jimmy gave a little
start, for Pollyanna’s eyes were wet.
“Pollyanna! What is it, darling? You’re not crying!”
“Just because I’m so happy. Jimmy, isn’t it wonderful to be so glad that
you don’t have to think of the reason why you ought to be!”
“I’ve got reason enough to last me all my life,” the young man asserted.
“I’ve got you.”
He sat down on the edge of her chair presently, his arm still about her,
and made his voice as business-like as possible under the rather
distracting circumstances. “Pollyanna, there’s a very important matter
on which I want your opinion.”
“Oh, very well.” Following his example, Pollyanna, too, became
tremendously business-like.
“I had a talk with Uncle John today,—you might call it half a talk, for
somebody interrupted us right in the middle. And, dear, for the present
he wants to continue the allowance he’s been making me ever since I
entered college.”
Pollyanna’s ears and eyes were very keen where Jimmy was concerned. The
note of distaste in her lover’s voice, together with the upright crease
between his brows, quite prepared her for what was coming.
“I don’t like the idea, Pollyanna. It’s a bit hard to make it clear, but
I suppose the explanation is that, ever since I was a little chap, I’ve
been dependent on people on whom I didn’t have the slightest claim, and
I’m deadly sick of it.”
“Mr. Pendleton—” Pollyanna was beginning, when Jimmy interrupted.
“Look here, little girl, you’ve got to call him Uncle John after the
fifteenth, so you’d better be practising.”
“Oh, all right! ‘Uncle John,’ then. I was just going to say that he
wouldn’t like to have you look at it that way. He feels that you belong
to him.”
“I know it, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings; but, at the same
time, I’ve been looking forward to taking care of you and myself on my
own earnings. It isn’t asking too much of you, is it, to be satisfied
with what I can give you?”
“Asking too much! Oh, Jimmy!”
When Pollyanna looked up at him like that, there was only one possible
thing for him to do, and Jimmy did it. After a long and rapturous
interlude he remembered what he had been trying to tell her.
“I think I’ve got it figured out in a way that will be satisfactory all
around. Uncle John’s feelings won’t be hurt, I won’t sacrifice my
self-respect, and your aunt will be provided for. My idea is to take the
allowance Uncle John gives me and turn it over to your Aunt Polly. We
won’t tell her what my salary is. We’ll simply say that we can spare
that amount easily, and your Aunt Polly will congratulate herself that
her niece has married such a successful young engineer.”
Pollyanna clapped her hands, as if she had not been an hour older than
on the day she found him first, sitting dejectedly by the roadside.
“Jimmy, you have the most wonderful mind. Then Aunt Polly can stay on in
this house, and everything will be perfect. I don’t believe Aunt Polly
would ever be quite happy in a little flat in a big city,—where no one
had ever heard of the Harringtons!”
“Then that’s settled.” Jimmy drew a breath of relief. “And please
understand, Miss Pollyanna Whittier, that I’m not asking you to share a
poor man’s lot all your days. I have every intention of becoming a
millionaire.”
Pollyanna rubbed her cheek against his sleeve. “I don’t know but it
would be nicer to share a poor man’s lot than a millionaire’s, if you
come to that.”
“It’s not the money I care so much about,” Jimmy explained. “Only, in my
profession, making money is a synonym for making a big success. I’ll
give you a chance to try both extremes, and then you can make up your
mind which you prefer. And if you would really rather be poor, we’ll
give all the money away.”
Pollyanna smiled delightedly at the fascinating prospect of giving away
a million dollars, and then advanced an idea of her own. “Jimmy, I’m
glad now that Aunt Polly lost part of her money, as long as we can make
her perfectly comfortable. Only think what a splendid training I’ve had
in being economical!”
Jimmy leaned over so that he could look into her eyes. “Still playing
the game, aren’t you, sweetheart.”
Pollyanna gave him back his look. “Why, Jimmy, if I’d never heard of the
glad game, I believe it would begin to play itself, because it seems as
if everything was exactly the way I wanted it to be.”
They sat for a long time thinking, planning, making little excursions
into a future, bright with every color of the rainbow, and coming back
to the present with the conviction that nothing could ever be better
than this perfect moment. And, late in the afternoon, Aunt Polly walked
in upon them.
“What a frightfully oppressive day!” sighed Aunt Polly, fanning herself
with an energy that was fatiguing to observe. “Oh, you have finished
addressing the announcements, have you?”
Pollyanna’s face flamed with conscious guilt. Jimmy looked down, to hide
the irrepressible laughter in his eyes.
“No, we haven’t really f-finished,” gulped Pollyanna. “You see we had
some rather important—important matters of b-business to talk over.”
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