Pollyanna Grows Up | Page 5

doctor's two long
drives over the hills had left no time for domestic conferences.
It was about half-past nine, indeed, when the doctor entered his wife's
sitting-room. His tired face lighted at sight of her, but at once a
perplexed questioning came to his eyes.
"Why, Polly, dear, what is it?" he asked concernedly.
His wife gave a rueful laugh.
"Well, it's a letter--though I didn't mean you should find out by just
looking at me."

"Then you mustn't look so I can," he smiled. "But what is it?"
Mrs. Chilton hesitated, pursed her lips, then picked up a letter near her.
"I'll read it to you," she said. "It's from a Miss Della Wetherby at Dr.
Ames' Sanatorium."
"All right. Fire away," directed the man, throwing himself at full length
on to the couch near his wife's chair.
But his wife did not at once "fire away." She got up first and covered
her husband's recumbent figure with a gray worsted afghan. Mrs.
Chilton's wedding day was but a year behind her. She was forty-two
now. It seemed sometimes as if into that one short year of wifehood she
had tried to crowd all the loving service and "babying" that had been
accumulating through twenty years of lovelessness and loneliness. Nor
did the doctor--who had been forty-five on his wedding day, and who
could remember nothing but loneliness and lovelessness--on his part
object in the least to this concentrated "tending." He acted, indeed, as if
he quite enjoyed it--though he was careful not to show it too ardently:
he had discovered that Mrs. Polly had for so long been Miss Polly that
she was inclined to retreat in a panic and dub her ministrations "silly,"
if they were received with too much notice and eagerness. So he
contented himself now with a mere pat of her hand as she gave the
afghan a final smooth, and settled herself to read the letter aloud.
"My dear Mrs. Chilton," Della Wetherby had written. "Just six times I
have commenced a letter to you, and torn it up; so now I have decided
not to 'commence' at all, but just to tell you what I want at once. I want
Pollyanna. May I have her?
"I met you and your husband last March when you came on to take
Pollyanna home, but I presume you don't remember me. I am asking Dr.
Ames (who does know me very well) to write your husband, so that
you may (I hope) not fear to trust your dear little niece to us.
"I understand that you would go to Germany with your husband but for
leaving Pollyanna; and so I am making so bold as to ask you to let us

take her. Indeed, I am begging you to let us have her, dear Mrs. Chilton.
And now let me tell you why.
"My sister, Mrs. Carew, is a lonely, broken-hearted, discontented,
unhappy woman. She lives in a world of gloom, into which no sunshine
penetrates. Now I believe that if anything on earth can bring the
sunshine into her life, it is your niece, Pollyanna. Won't you let her try?
I wish I could tell you what she has done for the Sanatorium here, but
nobody could TELL. You would have to see it. I long ago discovered
that you can't TELL about Pollyanna. The minute you try to, she
sounds priggish and preachy, and--impossible. Yet you and I know she
is anything but that. You just have to bring Pollyanna on to the scene
and let her speak for herself. And so I want to take her to my sister--and
let her speak for herself. She would attend school, of course, but
meanwhile I truly believe she would be healing the wound in my
sister's heart.
"I don't know how to end this letter. I believe it's harder than it was to
begin it. I'm afraid I don't want to end it at all. I just want to keep
talking and talking, for fear, if I stop, it'll give you a chance to say no.
And so, if you ARE tempted to say that dreadful word, won't you
please consider that--that I'm still talking, and telling you how much we
want and need Pollyanna.
"Hopefully yours,
"DELLA WETHERBY."
"There!" ejaculated Mrs. Chilton, as she laid the letter down. "Did you
ever read such a remarkable letter, or hear of a more preposterous,
absurd request?"
"Well, I'm not so sure," smiled the doctor. "I don't think it's absurd to
want Pollyanna."
"But--but the way she puts it--healing the wound in her sister's heart,
and all that. One would think the child was some sort of--of medicine!"

The doctor laughed outright, and raised his eyebrows.
"Well, I'm not so sure but she is, Polly. I ALWAYS said I