Page:Pollyanna Grows Up.djvu/223

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crutches. But the poor boy will always be a cripple—so far as his feet are concerned, but never as regards anything else. Someway, after you know Jamie, you seldom think of him as a cripple, his soul is so free. I can't explain it, but you'll know what I mean when you see him; and he has retained, to a marvelous degree, his old boyish enthusiasm and joy of living. There is just one thing—and only one, I believe—that would utterly quench that bright spirit and cast him into utter despair; and that is to find that he is not Jamie Kent, our nephew. So long has he brooded over this, and so ardently has he wished it, that he has come actually to believe that he is the real Jamie; but if he isn't, I hope he will never find it out."

"There, that's all she says about them," announced Pollyanna, folding up the closely-written sheets in her hands. "But isn't that interesting?"

"Indeed it is!" There was a ring of genuineness in Jimmy's voice now. Jimmy was thinking suddenly of what his own good legs meant to him. He even, for the moment, was willing that this poor crippled youth should have a part of Pollyanna's thoughts and attentions, if he were not so presuming as to claim too much of them, of course! "By George! it is tough for the poor chap, and no mistake."

"Tough! You don't know anything about it, Jimmy Bean," choked Pollyanna; "but I do. I couldn't walk once. I know!"

"Yes, of course, of course," frowned the youth, moving restively in his seat. Jimmy, looking into