This time Beldingsville did not literally welcome Pollyanna home with brass bands and bunting – perhaps because the hour of her expected arrival was known to but few of the townspeople. But there certainly was no lack of joyful greetings on the part of everybody from the moment she stepped from the railway train with her Aunt Polly and Dr Chilton. Nor did Pollyanna lose any time in starting on a round of fly-away minute calls on all her old friends. Indeed, for the next few days, according to Nancy, “There wasn’t no putting of your finger on her anywheres, for by the time you’d got your finger down she wasn’t there.”
And always, everywhere she went, Pollyanna met the question: “Well, how did you like Boston?” Perhaps to no one did she answer this more fully than she did to Mr. Pendleton. As was usually the case when this question was put to her, she began her reply with a troubled frown.
“Oh, I liked it – I just loved it – some of it.”
“But not all of it?” smiled Mr. Pendleton.
“No. There’s parts of it – Oh, I was glad to be there,” she explained hastily. “I had a perfectly lovely time, and lots of things were so queer and different, you know – like eating dinner at night instead of noons, when you ought to eat it. But everybody was so good to me, and I saw such a lot of wonderful things – Bunker Hill, and the Public Garden, and the Seeing Boston’s autos, and miles of pictures and statues and store-windows and streets that didn’t have any end. And folks. I never saw such a lot of folks.”“Well, I’m sure – I thought you liked folks,” commented the man.
“I do.” Pollyanna frowned again and pondered. “But what’s the use of such a lot of them if you don’t know ’em? And Mrs Carew wouldn’t let me. She didn’t know ’em herself. She said folks didn’t, down there.”
There was a slight pause, then, with a sigh, Pollyanna resumed.
“I reckon maybe that’s the part I don’t like the most – that folks don’t know each other. It would be such a lot nicer if they did! Why, just think, Mr. Pendleton, there are lots of folks that live on dirty, narrow streets, and don’t even have beans and fish-balls to eat, nor things even as good as missionary barrels to wear. Then there are other folks – Mrs Carew, and a whole lot like her – that live in perfectly beautiful houses, and have more things to eat and wear than they know what to do with. Now if those folks only knew the other folks – ” But Mr. Pendleton interrupted with a laugh.
“My dear child, did it ever occur to you that these people don’t care to know each other?” he asked quizzically.
“Oh, but some of them do,” maintained Pollyanna, in eager defense. “Now there’s Sadie Dean – she sells bows, lovely bows in a big store – she wants to know people; and I introduced her to Mrs Carew, and we had her up to the house, and we had Jamie and lots of others there, too; and she was so glad to know them! And that’s what made me think that if only a lot of Mrs Carew’s kind could know the other kind – but of course I couldn’t do the introducing. I didn’t know many of them myself, anyway. But if they could know each other, so that the rich people could give the poor people part of their money – ”