Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/111

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Jamie
89


he'd find in my 'leaves.' I was so mad I made up my mind I'd prove he didn't know what he was talkin' about, so I begun to hunt for 'em—the joys in my 'leaves,' you know. I took a little old empty notebook that Jerry had given me, and I said to myself that I'd write 'em down. Everythin' that had anythin' about it that I liked I'd put down in the book. Then I'd just show how many 'joys' I had."

"Yes, yes!" cried Pollyanna, absorbedly, as the boy paused for breath.

"Well, I didn't expect to get many, but—do you know?—I got a lot. There was somethin' about 'most everythin' that I liked a little, so in it had to go. The very first one was the book itself—that I'd got it, you know, to write in. Then somebody give me a flower in a pot, and Jerry found a dandy book in the subway. After that it was really fun to hunt 'em out—I'd find 'em in such queer places, sometimes. Then one day Jerry got hold of the little notebook, and found out what 'twas. Then he give it its name—the Jolly Book. And—and that's all."

"All—all!" cried Pollyanna, delight and amazement struggling for the mastery on her glowing little face. "Why, that's the game! You're playing the glad game, and don't know it—only you're playing it ever and ever so much better than I ever could! Why, I—I couldn't play it at all, I'm afraid, if I—I didn't have enough to eat, and couldn't ever walk, or anything," she choked.

"The game? What game? I don't know anything about any game," frowned the boy.