No, I dont know Susie Smith, replied Mrs. Carew, dryly.
Dont you? Shes awfully nice, and SHEs pretty black curls, you know; the kind Im going to have when I go to Heaven. But never mind; maybe I can find her for you so you WILL know her. Oh, my! what a perfectly lovely automobile! And are we going to ride in it? broke off Pollyanna, as they came to a pause before a handsome limousine, the door of which a liveried chauffeur was holding open.
The chauffeur tried to hide a smile and failed. Mrs. Carew, however, answered with the weariness of one to whom rides are never anything but a means of locomotion from one tiresome place to another probably quite as tiresome.
Yes, were going to ride in it. Then Home, Perkins, she added to the deferential chauffeur.
Oh, my, is it yours? asked Pollyanna, detecting the unmistakable air of ownership in her hostesss manner. How perfectly lovely! Then you must be rich awfully I mean EXCEEDINGLY rich, more than the kind that just has carpets in every room and ice cream Sundays, like the Whites one of my Ladies Aiders, you know. (That is, SHE was a Ladies Aider.) I used to think THEY were rich, but I know now that being really rich means youve got diamond rings and hired girls and sealskin coats, and dresses made of silk and velvet for every day, and an automobile. Have you got all those?
Why, y-yes, I suppose I have, admitted Mrs. Carew, with a faint smile.
Then you are rich, of course, nodded Pollyanna, wisely. My Aunt Polly has them, too, only her automobile is a horse. My! but dont I just love to ride in these things, exulted Pollyanna, with a happy little bounce. You see I never did before, except the one that ran over me. They put me IN that one after theyd got me out from under it; but of course I didnt know about it, so I couldnt enjoy it. Since then I havent been in one at all. Aunt Polly doesnt like them. Uncle Tom does, though, and he wants one. He says hes got to have one, in his business. Hes a doctor, you know, and all the other doctors in town have got them now. I dont know how it will come out. Aunt Polly is all stirred up over it. You see, she wants Uncle Tom to have what he wants, only she wants him to want what she wants him to want. See?
Mrs. Carew laughed suddenly.
Yes, my dear, I think I see, she answered demurely, though her eyes still carried for them a most unusual twinkle.
All right, sighed Pollyanna contentedly. I thought you would; still, it did sound sort of mixed when I said it. Oh, Aunt Polly says she wouldnt mind having an automobile, so much, if she could have the only one there was in the world, so there wouldnt be any one else to run into her; but My! what a lot of houses! broke off Pollyanna, looking about her with round eyes of wonder. Dont they ever stop? Still, thered have to be a lot of them for all those folks to live in, of course, that I saw at the station, besides all these here on the streets. And of course where there ARE more folks, there are more to know. I love folks. Dont you?
LOVE FOLKS!
Yes, just folks, I mean. Anybody everybody.
Well, no, Pollyanna, I cant say that I do, replied Mrs. Carew, coldly, her brows contracted.
LOVE FOLKS!
Yes, just folks, I mean. Anybody everybody.
Well, no, Pollyanna, I cant say that I do, replied Mrs. Carew, coldly, her brows contracted.
Mrs. Carews eyes had lost their twinkle. They were turned rather mistrustfully, indeed, on Pollyanna. To herself Mrs. Carew was saying: Now for preachment number one, I suppose, on my duty to mix with my fellow-men, à la Sister Della!
Dont you? Oh, I do, sighed Pollyanna. Theyre all so nice and so different, you know. And down here there must be such a lot of them to be nice and different. Oh, you dont know how glad I am so soon that I came! I knew I would be, anyway, just as soon as I found out you were YOU that is, Miss Wetherbys sister, I mean. I love Miss Wetherby, so I knew I should you, too; for of course youd be alike sisters, so even if you werent twins like Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Peck and they werent quite alike, anyway, on account of the wart. But I reckon you dont know what I mean, so Ill tell you.
And thus it happened that Mrs. Carew, who had been steeling herself for a preachment on social ethics, found herself, much to her surprise and a little to her discomfiture, listening to the story of a wart on the nose of one Mrs. Peck, Ladies Aider.
By the time the story was finished the limousine had turned into Commonwealth Avenue, and Pollyanna immediately began to exclaim at the beauty of a street which had such a lovely big long yard all the way up and down through the middle of it, and which was all the nicer, she said, after all those little narrow streets.
Only I should think every one would want to live on it, she commented enthusiastically.
Very likely; but that would hardly be possible, retorted Mrs. Carew, with uplifted eyebrows.
Pollyanna, mistaking the expression on her face for one of dissatisfaction that her own home was not on the beautiful Avenue, hastened to make amends[18].