mething they never liked before, and all because of Pollyanna. I
tried to ask the child herself about it, but I can't seem to make
much headway, and of course I don't like to worry her--now. But from
something I heard her say to you last night, I should judge you were one
of them, too. Now WILL you tell me what it all means?"

To Miss Polly's surprise and dismay, Nancy burst into tears.

"It means that ever since last June that blessed child has jest been
makin' the whole town glad, an' now they're turnin' 'round an' tryin'
ter make her a little glad, too."

"Glad of what?"

"Just glad! That's the game."

Miss Polly actually stamped her foot.

"There you go like all the rest, Nancy. What game?"

Nancy lifted her chin. She faced her mistress and looked her squarely in
the eye.

"I'll tell ye, ma'am. It's a game Miss Pollyanna's father learned her
ter play. She got a pair of crutches once in a missionary barrel when
she was wantin' a doll; an' she cried, of course, like any child would.
It seems 'twas then her father told her that there wasn't ever anythin'
but what there was somethin' about it that you could be glad about; an'
that she could be glad about them crutches."

"Glad for--CRUTCHES!" Miss Polly choked back a sob--she was thinking of
the helpless little legs on the bed up-stairs.

"Yes'm. That's what I said, an' Miss Pollyanna said that's what she
said, too. But he told her she COULD be glad--'cause she DIDN'T NEED
'EM."

"Oh-h!" cried Miss Polly.

"And after that she said he made a regular game of it--findin' somethin'
in everythin' ter be glad about. An' she said ye could do it, too, and
that ye didn't seem ter mind not havin' the doll so much, 'cause ye was
so glad ye DIDN'T need the crutches. An' they called it the 'jest bein'
glad' game. That's the game, ma'am. She's played it ever since."

"But, how--how--" Miss Polly came to a helpless pause.

"An' you'd be surprised ter find how cute it works, ma'am, too,"
maintained Nancy, with almost the eagerness of Pollyanna herself. "I
wish I could tell ye what a lot she's done for mother an' the folks out
home. She's been ter see 'em, ye know, twice, with me. She's made me
glad, too, on such a lot o' things--little things, an' big things; an'
it's made 'em so much easier. For instance, I don't mind 'Nancy' for
a name half as much since she told me I could be glad 'twa'n't
'Hephzibah.' An' there's Monday mornin's, too, that I used ter hate so.
She'