tle. "That's all right, then.
You see, Mr. Pendleton HAD broken his leg when I found him--but he was
lying down, though. And you are sitting up."

"Yes, I am sitting up; and I haven't broken anything--that doctors can
mend."

The last words were very low, but Pollyanna heard them. A swift change
crossed her face. Her eyes glowed with tender sympathy.

"I know what you mean--something plagues you. Father used to feel like
that, lots of times. I reckon ministers do--most generally. You see
there's such a lot depends on 'em, somehow."

The Rev. Paul Ford turned a little wonderingly.

"Was YOUR father a minister, Pollyanna?"

"Yes, sir. Didn't you know? I supposed everybody knew that. He married
Aunt Polly's sister, and she was my mother."

"Oh, I understand. But, you see, I haven't been here many years, so I
don't know all the family histories."

"Yes, sir--I mean, no, sir," smiled Pollyanna.

There was a long pause. The minister, still sitting at the foot of the
tree, appeared to have forgotten Pollyanna's presence. He had pulled
some papers from his pocket and unfolded them; but he was not looking at
them. He was gazing, instead, at a leaf on the ground a little distance
away--and it was not even a pretty leaf. It was brown and dead.
Pollyanna, looking at him, felt vaguely sorry for him.

"It--it's a nice day," she began hopefully.

For a moment there was no answer; then the minister looked up with a
start.

"What? Oh!--yes, it is a very nice day."

"And 'tisn't cold at all, either, even if 'tis October," observed
Pollyanna, still more hopefully. "Mr. Pendleton had a fire, but he said
he didn't need it. It was just to look at. I like to look at fires,
don't you?"

There was no reply this time, though Pollyanna waited patiently, before
she tried again--by a new route.

"Do You like being a minister?"

The Rev. Paul Ford looked up now, very quickly.

"Do I like--Why, what an odd question! Why do you ask that, my dear?"

"Nothing--only the way you looked. It made me think of my father. He
used to look like that--sometimes."

"Did he?" The minister's voice was polite, but his eyes had gone back to
the dried leaf on the ground.

"Yes, and I used to ask him just as I did you if he was glad he was a
minister."

The man under the tree smiled a little sadly.

"Well--what did he say?"

"Oh, he always said he was, of course, but 'most always he said, too,
that he wouldn't STAY a minister a minute if '