Mrs Carew was very angry. To have brought herself to the point where she was willing to take this lame boy into her home, and then to have the lad calmly refuse to come, was unbearable. Mrs Carew was not in the habit of having her invitations ignored, or her wishes scorned. Furthermore, now that she could not have the boy, she was conscious of an almost frantic terror lest he were, after all, the real Jamie. She knew then that her true reason for wanting him had been – not because she cared for him, not even because she wished to help him and make him happy – but because she hoped, by taking him, that she would ease her own mind, and forever silence that awful eternal questioning on her part: “What if he were her own Jamie?”
It certainly had not helped matters any that the boy had divined her state of mind, and had given as the reason for his refusal that she “did not care.” To be sure, Mrs Carew now very proudly told herself that she did not indeed “care”, that he was not her sister’s boy, and that she would “forget all about it.”
But she did not forget all about it. However insistently she might disclaim responsibility and relationship, just as insistently responsibility and relationship thrust themselves upon her in the shape of panicky doubts; and however resolutely she turned her thoughts to other matters, just so resolutely visions of a wistful-eyed boy in a poverty-stricken room loomed always before her.
Then, too, there was Pollyanna. Clearly Pollyanna was not herself at all. In a most un-Pollyanna-like spirit she moped about the house, finding apparently no interest anywhere.
“Oh, no, I’m not sick,” she would answer, when remonstrated with, and questioned.
“But what is the trouble?”
“Why, nothing. It – it’s only that I was thinking of Jamie, you know, – how he hasn’t got all these beautiful things – carpets, and pictures, and curtains.”
It was the same with her food. Pollyanna was actually losing her appetite; but here again she disclaimed sickness.
“Oh, no,” she would sigh mournfully. “It’s just that I don’t seem hungry. Some way, just as soon as I begin to eat, I think of Jamie, and how he doesn’t have only old doughnuts and dry rolls; and then I – I don’t want anything.”
Mrs Carew, spurred by a feeling that she herself only dimly understood, and recklessly determined to bring about some change in Pollyanna at all costs, ordered a huge tree, two dozen wreaths, and quantities of holly and Christmas baubles. For the first time in many years the house was aflame and a-glitter with scarlet and tinsel. There was even to be a Christmas party, for Mrs Carew had told Pollyanna to invite half a dozen of her schoolgirl friends for the tree on Christmas Eve.
But even here Mrs Carew met with disappointment; for, although Pollyanna was always grateful, and at times interested and even excited, she still carried frequently a sober little face. And in the end the Christmas party was more of a sorrow than a joy; for the first glimpse of the glittering tree sent her into a storm of sobs.
“Why, Pollyanna!” ejaculated Mrs Carew. “What in the world is the matter now?”
“N-n-nothing,” wept Pollyanna. “It’s only that it’s so perfectly, perfectly beautiful that I just had to cry. I was thinking how Jamie would love to see it.”
It was then that Mrs Carew’s patience snapped.
“Jamie, Jamie, Jamie!” she exclaimed. “Pollyanna, can’t you stop talking about that boy? You know perfectly well that it is not my fault that he is not here. I asked him to come here to live. Besides, where is that Glad Game of yours? I think it would be an excellent idea if you would play it on this.”
“I am playing it,” quavered Pollyanna. “And that’s what I don’t understand. I never knew it to act so funny. Why, before, when I’ve been glad about things, I’ve been happy. But now, about Jamie – I’m so glad I’ve got carpets and pictures and nice things to eat, and that I can walk and run, and go to school, and all that; but the harder I’m glad for myself, the sorrier I am for him. I never knew the game to act so funny, and I don’t know what ails it. Do you?”