This page needs to be proofread.
44
Pollyanna Grows Up


"I couldn't play it!" ejaculated Mrs. Carew, who, though she would not play this silly game, was in no mood to be told that she could not.

"Why, no, don't you see?" laughed Pollyanna, gleefully. "The game is to find something in everything to be glad about; and you couldn't even begin to hunt, for there isn't anything about you but what you could be glad about. There wouldn't be any game to it for you! Don't you see?"

Mrs. Carew flushed angrily. In her annoyance she said more than perhaps she meant to say.

"Well, no, Pollyanna, I can't say that I do," she differed coldly. "As it happens, you see, I can find nothing whatever to be—glad for."

For a moment Pollyanna stared blankly. Then she fell back in amazement.

"Why, Mrs. Carew!" she breathed.

"Well, what is there—for me?" challenged the woman, forgetting all about, for the moment, that she was never going to allow Pollyanna to "preach."

"Why, there's—there's everything," murmured Pollyanna, still with that dazed unbelief. "There—there's this beautiful house."

"It's just a place to eat and sleep—and I don't want to eat and sleep."

"But there are all these perfectly lovely things," faltered Pollyanna.

"I'm tired of them."

"And your automobile that will take you anywhere."

"I don't want to go anywhere."