Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/63

Rh Pollyanna quite gasped aloud.

"But think of the people and things you could see, Mrs. Carew."

"They would not interest me, Pollyanna."

Once again Pollyanna stared in amazement. The troubled frown on her face deepened.

"But, Mrs. Carew, I don't see," she urged. "Always, before, there have been bad things for folks to play the game on, and the badder they are the more fun 'tis to get them out—find the things to be glad for, I mean. But where there aren't any bad things, I shouldn't know how to play the game myself."

There was no answer for a time. Mrs. Carew sat with her eyes out the window. Gradually the angry rebellion on her face changed to a look of hopeless sadness. Very slowly then she turned and said:

"Pollyanna, I had thought I wouldn't tell you this; but I've decided that I will. I'm going to tell you why nothing that I have can make me—glad." And she began the story of Jamie, the little four-year-old boy who, eight long years before, had stepped as into another world, leaving the door fast shut between.

"And you've never seen him since—anywhere?" faltered Pollyanna, with tear-wet eyes, when the story was done.

"Never."

"But we'll find him, Mrs. Carew—I'm sure we'll find him."

Mrs. Carew shook her head sadly.

"But I can't. I've looked everywhere, even in foreign lands."