Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/176

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152
Pollyanna Grows Up


as interested as she herself was. On most occasions she was not disappointed in the interest shown; but one day she met with a surprise. It came through Jimmy Pendleton.

"Say, look a-here," he demanded one afternoon, irritably. "Wasn't there anybody else down to Boston but just that everlasting 'Jamie'?"

"Why, Jimmy Bean, what do you mean?" cried Pollyanna.

The boy lifted his chin a little.

"I'm not Jimmy Bean. I'm Jimmy Pendleton. And I mean that I should think, from your talk, that there wasn't anybody down to Boston but just that loony boy who calls them birds and squirrels 'Lady Lancelot,' and all that tommyrot."

"Why, Jimmy Be—Pendleton!" gasped Pollyanna. Then, with some spirit: "Jamie isn't loony! He is a very nice boy. And he knows a lot—books and stories! Why, he can make stories right out of his own head! Besides, it isn't 'Lady Lancelot,'—it's 'Sir Lancelot.' If you knew half as much as he does you'd know that, too!" she finished, with flashing eyes.

Jimmy Pendleton flushed miserably and looked utterly wretched. Growing more and more jealous moment by moment, still doggedly he held his ground.

"Well, anyhow," he scoffed, "I don't think much of his name. 'Jamie'! Humph!—sounds sissy! And I know somebody else that said so, too."

"Who was it?"

There was no answer.