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Chapter IV. The Little Attic Room
Miss Polly Harrington did not rise to meet her niece.
“How do you do, Pollyanna? I – ”.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, I don’t know how to be glad enough that you let me come to live with you,” she was sobbing. “You don’t know how perfectly lovely it is to have you and Nancy and all this!”
“Nancy, you may go,” Aunt Polly said.
“We will go upstairs to your room, Pollyanna. Your trunk is already there, I presume. I told Timothy to take it up – if you had one. You may follow me.”
Without speaking, Pollyanna turned and followed her aunt from the room. Her eyes were filled with tears, but her chin was bravely high.
She was on the stairway now.
“Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly,” breathed the little girl; “what a perfectly lovely, lovely house! How awfully glad you must be you’re so rich!”
“PollyANNA!” ejaculated her aunt. “I’m surprised at you – making a speech like that to me!”
“Why, Aunt Polly, AREN’T you?” asked Pollyanna, in wonder.
“Certainly not, Pollyanna. How can I be proud of any gift the Lord has sent me?” declared the lady.
Miss Polly turned and walked down the hall toward the attic stairway door. At the top of the stairs there were innumerable trunks and boxes. It was hot. Pollyanna lifted her head higher – it seemed so hard to breathe. Then she saw that her aunt threw open a door at the right.
“There, Pollyanna, here is your room, and your trunk is here. Do you have your key?”
Pollyanna nodded. Her eyes were a little wide and frightened.
Her aunt frowned.
“When I ask a question, Pollyanna, I prefer that you should answer aloud not merely with your head.”
“Yes, Aunt Polly.”
“Thank you; that is better. I believe you have everything that you need here,” she added. “I will send Nancy to help you unpack your truck. Supper is at six o’clock,” she finished and left the room.
For a moment Pollyanna stood quite still. Then she turned her wide eyes to the bare wall, the bare floor, the bare windows and fell on her knees, covering her face with her hands.
Nancy found her there when she came up a few minutes later.
“There, there, you, poor lamb,” she crooned, drawing the little girl into her arms.
“Oh, Nancy, I’m so wicked,” she sobbed. “I just can’t understand why God and the angels need my father more than I do.”
“There, there, child, let’s have your key and we’ll get inside this trunk and take out your dresses.”
Pollyanna produced the key.
“There aren’t very many there,” she faltered.
“Then they’re all soon be unpacked,” declared Nancy.
“It’s such a nice room! Don’t you think so?” Pollyanna stammered.
There was no answer. Nancy was very busy with the trunk.
“And I can be glad there isn’t any looking-glass here, too, because where there ISN’T any glass I can’t see my freckles.”
A few minutes later, Pollyanna clapped her hands joyously.
“Oh, Nancy, look at these trees and the houses and that lovely church spire, and the river. Oh, I’m so glad now she let me have this room!”
To Pollyanna’s surprise, Nancy burst into tears.
“Why, Nancy – what is it?” she cried; “This wasn’t – YOUR room, was it?”
“My room!” stormed Nancy. “You are a little angel straight from Heaven!”
After that Nancy sprang to her feet and went down the stairs.
Left alone, Pollyanna went back to her “picture,” as she mentally designated the beautiful view from the window. The next moment she opened the window. She ran then to the other window and opened it too. Then Pollyanna made a wonderful discovery – against this window there was a huge tree. Suddenly she laughed aloud.
“I believe I can do it,” she chuckled. The next moment she climbed to the window ledge. From there it was easy to step to the nearest tree-branch. Then she reached the lowest branch and dropped to the ground.
She was at the back of the house. Then Pollyanna reached the path that ran through the open field.
Fifteen minutes later the great clock struck six. At the last stroke Nancy sounded the bell for supper.
One, two, three minutes passed. Miss Polly frowned. She rose to her feet, went into the hall, and looked upstairs. For a minute she listened; then she turned and went to the dining room.
“Nancy,” she said, “my niece is late. You need not call her,” she added. “I told her what time supper was, and now she will have to suffer the consequences. She must learn to be punctual. When she comes she may have bread and milk in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
At the possible moment after supper, Nancy crept up to the attic room.
She softly pushed open the door. The next moment she gave a frightened cry. “Where are you?” she panted, and flew to Old Tom in the garden.
“Mr. Tom, Mr. Tom, that blessed child’s gone,” she cried.
The old man stopped, straightened up and pointed at the slender figure on top of a huge rock.
