INTRODUCING JIMMY
know just how you feel, because after—after my father died, too, there wasn't anybody but the Ladies' Aid for me, until Aunt Polly said she'd take—" Pollyanna stopped abruptly. The dawning of a wonderful idea began to show in her face.
"Oh, I know just the place for you," she cried. "Aunt Polly'll take you—I know she will! Didn't she take me? And didn't she take Fluffy and Buffy, when they didn't have any one to love them, or any place to go?—and they're only cats and dogs. Oh, come, I know Aunt Polly'll take you! You don't know how good and kind she is!"
Jimmy Bean's thin little face brightened.
"Honest Injun? Would she, now? I'd work, ye know, an' I'm real strong!" He bared a small, bony arm.
"Of course she would! Why, my Aunt Polly is the nicest lady in the world—now that my mama has gone to be a Heaven angel. And there's rooms—heaps of 'em," she continued, springing to her feet, and tugging at his arm. "It's an awful big house. Maybe, though," she added a little anxiously, as they hurried on, "maybe you'll have to sleep in the attic room. I did, at first. But there's screens there now, so 'twon't be so hot, and the flies can't get in, either, to bring in the germ-things on
103
