POLLYANNA GROWS UP (Completed)

Chapter 11- A SURPRISE FOR MRS. CAREW

The matter of repairs and improvements having been properly and efficiently attended to, Mrs. Carew told herself that she had done her duty, and that the matter was closed. She would forget it. The boy was not Jamie--he could not be Jamie. That ignorant, sickly, crippled boy her dead sister's son? Impossible! She would cast the whole thing from her thoughts.

It was just here, however, that Mrs. Carew found herself against an immovable, impassable barrier: the whole thing refused to be cast from her thoughts. Always before her eyes was the picture of that bare little room and the wistful-faced boy. Always in her ears was that heartbreaking "What if it WERE Jamie?" And always, too, there was Pollyanna; for even though Mrs. Carew might (as she did) silence the pleadings and questionings of the little girl's tongue, there was no getting away from the prayers and reproaches of the little girl's eyes.

Twice again in desperation Mrs. Carew went to see the boy, telling herself each time that only another visit was needed to convince her that the boy was not the one she sought. But, even though while there in the boy's presence, she told herself that she WAS convinced, once away from it, the old, old questioning returned. At last, in still greater desperation, she wrote to her sister, and told her the whole story.

"I had not meant to tell you," she wrote, after she had stated the bare facts of the case. "I thought it a pity to harrow you up, or to raise false hopes. I am so sure it is not he--and yet, even as I write these words, I know I am NOT sure. That is why I want you to come--why you must come. I must have you see him.

"I wonder--oh, I wonder what you'll say! Of course we haven't seen our Jamie since he was four years old. He would be twelve now. This boy is twelve, I should judge. (He doesn't know his age.) He has hair and eyes not unlike our Jamie's. He is crippled, but that condition came upon him through a fall, six years ago, and was made worse through another one four years later. Anything like a complete description of his father's appearance seems impossible to obtain; but what I have learned contains nothing conclusive either for or against his being poor Doris's husband. He was called 'the Professor,' was very queer, and seemed to own nothing save a few books. This might, or might not signify. John Kent was certainly always queer, and a good deal of a Bohemian in his tastes. Whether he cared for books or not I don't remember. Do you? And of course the title 'Professor' might easily have been assumed, if he wished, or it might have been merely given him by others. As for this boy--I don't know, I don't know--but I do hope YOU will!

"Your distracted sister,

"RUTH."

Della came at once, and she went immediately to see the boy; but she did not "know." Like her sister, she said she did not think it was their Jamie, but at the same time there was that chance--it might be he, after all. Like Pollyanna, however, she had what she thought was a very satisfactory way out of the dilemma.

"But why don't you take him, dear?" she proposed to her sister. "Why don't you take him and adopt him? It would be lovely for him--poor little fellow--and--" But Mrs. Carew shuddered and would not even let her finish.

"No, no, I can't, I can't!" she moaned. "I want my Jamie, my own Jamie--or no one." And with a sigh Della gave it up and went back to her nursing.

If Mrs. Carew thought that this closed the matter, however, she was again mistaken; for her days were still restless, and her nights were still either sleepless or filled with dreams of a "may be" or a "might be" masquerading as an "it is so." She was, moreover, having a difficult time with Pollyanna.

Pollyanna was puzzled. She was filled with questionings and unrest. For the first time in her life Pollyanna had come face to face with real poverty. She knew people who did not have enough to eat, who wore ragged clothing, and who lived in dark, dirty, and very tiny rooms. Her first impulse, of course, had been "to help." With Mrs. Carew she made two visits to Jamie, and greatly did she rejoice at the changed conditions she found there after "that man Dodge" had "tended to things." But this, to Pollyanna, was a mere drop in the bucket. There were yet all those other sick-looking men, unhappy-looking women, and ragged children out in the street--Jamie's neighbors. Confidently she looked to Mrs. Carew for help for them, also.