Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/205

Rh "I am serious, Aunt Polly. I've been thinking. I—I wish I could earn some money."

"Oh, child, child, to think of my ever living to hear you say that!" moaned the woman; "—a daughter of the Harringtons having to earn her bread!"

"Oh, but that isn't the way to look at it," laughed Pollyanna. "You ought to be glad if a daughter of the Harringtons is smart enough to earn her bread! That isn't any disgrace, Aunt Polly."

"Perhaps not; but it isn't very pleasant to one's pride, after the position we've always occupied in Beldingsville, Pollyanna."

Pollyanna did not seem to have heard. Her eyes were musingly fixed on space.

"If only I had some talent! If only I could do something better than anybody else in the world," she sighed at last. "I can sing a little, play a little, embroider a little, and darn a little; but I can't do any of them well—not well enough to be paid for it.

"I think I'd like best to cook," she resumed, after a minute's silence, "and keep house. You know I loved that in Germany winters, when Gretchen used to bother us so much by not coming when we wanted her. But I don't exactly want to go into other people's kitchens to do it."

"As if I'd let you! Pollyanna!" shuddered Mrs. Chilton again.

"And of course, to just work in our own kitchen here doesn't bring in anything," bemoaned Pollyanna, "—not any money, I mean. And it's money we need."