Поллианна / Pollyanna - страница 12

At the top of the stairs Miss Polly said:

“For the rest of the night, Pollyanna, you are to sleep in my bed with me. I consider it my duty to keep you where I know where you are.”

“With you? – in your bed?” Pollyanna cried rapturously. “Oh, Aunt Polly, Aunt Polly, how perfectly lovely of you! And when I’ve so wanted to sleep with someone sometime – someone that belonged to me, you know.”

There was no reply. Miss Polly, to tell the truth, was feeling curiously helpless. For the third time since Pollyanna’s arrival, Miss Polly was punishing Pollyanna – and for the third time she was being confronted with the amazing fact that her punishment was being taken as a special reward of merit.[39] No wonder Miss Polly was feeling curiously helpless.

It was not long before life at the Harrington homestead settled into something like order. Pollyanna sewed, played the piano, read aloud, and studied cooking in the kitchen. But she had more time, also, to “just live,” as she expressed it, for almost all afternoon from two until six o’clock she could do everything she liked except the certain things already prohibited by Aunt Polly.

There were no children in the neighborhood of the Harrington homestead for Pollyanna to play with. This, however, did not seem to disturb Pollyanna in the least.

“Oh, no, I don’t mind it at all,[40]” she explained to Nancy. “I’m happy just to walk around and see the streets and the houses and watch the people. I just love people.”

Almost every afternoon Pollyanna begged for “an errand to run,” so that she could be off for a walk in one direction or another; and it was on these walks that frequently she met the Man. To herself Pollyanna always called him “the Man,” no matter if she met a dozen other men the same day.

The Man often wore a long black coat and a high hat. His face was clean shaven and rather pale, and his hair, showing below his hat, was gray. He walked erect, and rather rapidly, and he was always alone, and Pollyanna felt sorry for him. Perhaps it was because of this that she one day spoke to him.

“How do you do, sir? Isn’t this a nice day?” she called cheerily, as she approached him.

The man stopped uncertainly.

“Did you speak – to me?” he asked in a sharp voice.