Page:Pollyanna.djvu/220

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

POLLYANNA

the Ladies' Aiders got to fight—I mean, when they didn't agree about something," corrected Pollyanna, hastily. "Why, it was those texts, too, father said, that made him think of the game—he began with me on the crutches—but he said 'twas the rejoicing text that started him on it."

"And what game might that be?" asked the minister.

"About finding something in everything to be glad about, you know. As I said, he began with me on the crutches." And once more Pollyanna told her story—this time to a man who listened with tender eyes and understanding ears.

A little later Pollyanna and the minister descended the hill, hand in hand. Pollyanna's face was radiant. Pollyanna loved to talk, and she had been talking now for some time: there seemed to be so many, many things about the game, her father, and the old home life that the minister wanted to know.

At the foot of the hill their ways parted, and Pollyanna down one road, and the minister down another, walked on alone.

In the Rev. Paul Ford's study that evening the minister sat thinking. Near him on the desk lay a few loose sheets of paper—his sermon notes. Under the suspended pencil in his fingers lay other sheets of paper, blank—his sermon to be. But the

206