Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/92

72 This time it was the boy who gave a puzzled frown.

"Yard?" he queried, "in the middle of a street?"

"Yes—trees and grass, you know, with a walk in the middle of it, and seats, and—" But the boy interrupted her with a whoop of delight.

"Gee whiz! Commonwealth Avenue, sure as yer livin'! Wouldn't that get yer goat, now?"

"Oh, do you know—do you, really?" besought Pollyanna. "That sounded like it—only I don't know what you meant about the goat part. There aren't any goats there. I don't think they'd allow—"

"Goats nothin'!" scoffed the boy. "You bet yer sweet life I know where 'tis! Don't I tote Sir James up there to the Garden 'most ev'ry day? An' I'll take you, too. Jest ye hang out here till I get on ter my job again, an' sell out my stock. Then we'll make tracks for that 'ere Avenue 'fore ye can say Jack Robinson."

"You mean you'll take me—home?" appealed Pollyanna, still plainly not quite understanding.

"Sure! It's a cinch—if you know the house."

"Oh, yes, I know the house," replied the literal Pollyanna, anxiously, "but I don't know whether it's a—a cinch, or not. If it isn't, can't you—"

But the boy only threw her another disdainful glance and darted off into the thick of the crowd. A moment later Pollyanna heard his strident call of "paper, paper! Herald, Globe,—paper, sir?"

With a sigh of relief Pollyanna stepped back into a doorway and waited. She was tired, but she was happy. In spite of sundry puzzling aspects of the