“But it’s just this.  It’s been hard times with us this year, in more ways than one.  We’ve been blue and discouraged—­my man and me, and ready for—­’most anything.  We was reckoning on getting a divorce about now, and letting the kids well, we didn’t know what we would do with the kids, Then came the accident, and what we heard about the little girl’s never walking again.  And we got to thinking how she used to come and sit on our doorstep and train with the kids, and laugh, and—­and just be glad.  She was always being glad about something; and then, one day, she told us why, and about the game, you know; and tried to coax us to play it.

“Well, we’ve heard now that she’s fretting her poor little life out of her, because she can’t play it no more—­that there’s nothing to be glad about.  And that’s what I came to tell her to-day—­that maybe she can be a little glad for us, ’cause we’ve decided to stick to each other, and play the game ourselves.  I knew she would be glad, because she used to feel kind of bad—­at things we said, sometimes.  Just how the game is going to help us, I can’t say that I exactly see, yet; but maybe ’twill.  Anyhow, we’re going to try—­’cause she wanted us to.  Will you tell her?”

“Yes, I will tell her,” promised Miss Polly, a little faintly.  Then, with sudden impulse, she stepped forward and held out her hand.  “And thank you for coming, Mrs. Payson,” she said simply.

The defiant chin fell.  The lips above it trembled visibly.  With an incoherently mumbled something, Mrs. Payson blindly clutched at the outstretched hand, turned, and fled.

The door had scarcely closed behind her before Miss Polly was confronting Nancy in the kitchen.

“Nancy!”

Miss Polly spoke sharply.  The series of puzzling, disconcerting visits of the last few days, culminating as they had in the extraordinary experience of the afternoon, had strained her nerves to the snapping point.  Not since Miss Pollyanna’s accident had Nancy heard her mistress speak so sternly.

“Nancy, will you tell me what this absurd ‘game’ is that the whole town seems to be babbling about?  And what, please, has my niece to do with it?  Why does everybody, from Milly Snow to Mrs. Tom Payson, send word to her that they’re ‘playing it’?  As near as I can judge, half the town are putting on blue ribbons, or stopping family quarrels, or learning to like something 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.”