“Oh, I’m so glad!  Then they’ll be there when I go up to see—­O dear!” broke off the little girl, miserably.  “Aunt Polly, why can’t I remember that my legs don’t go any more, and that I won’t ever, ever go up to see Mr. Pendleton again?”

“There, there, don’t,” choked her aunt.  “Perhaps you’ll drive up sometime.  But listen!  I haven’t told you, yet, all that Mrs. Payson said.  She wanted me to tell you that they—­they were going to stay together and to play the game, just as you wanted them to.”

Pollyanna smiled through tear-wet eyes.

“Did they?  Did they, really?  Oh, I am glad of that!”

“Yes, she said she hoped you’d be.  That’s why she told you, to make you—­glad, Pollyanna.”

Pollyanna looked up quickly.

“Why, Aunt Polly, you—­you spoke just as if you knew—­do you know about the game, Aunt Polly?”

“Yes, dear.”  Miss Polly sternly forced her voice to be cheerfully matter-of-fact.  “Nancy told me.  I think it’s a beautiful game.  I’m going to play it now—­with you.”

“Oh, Aunt Polly—­you?  I’m so glad!  You see, I’ve really wanted you most of anybody, all the time.”

Aunt Polly caught her breath a little sharply.  It was even harder this time to keep her voice steady; but she did it.

“Yes, dear; and there are all those others, too.  Why, Pollyanna, I think all the town is playing that game now with you—­even to the minister!  I haven’t had a chance to tell you, yet, but this morning I met Mr. Ford when I was down to the village, and he told me to say to you that just as soon as you could see him, he was coming to tell you that he hadn’t stopped being glad over those eight hundred rejoicing texts that you told him about.  So you see, dear, it’s just you that have done it.  The whole town is playing the game, and the whole town is wonderfully happier—­and all because of one little girl who taught the people a new game, and how to play it.”

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

“Oh, I’m so glad,” she cried.  Then, suddenly, a wonderful light illumined her face.  “Why, Aunt Polly, there is something I can be glad about, after all.  I can be glad I’ve had my legs, anyway—­else I couldn’t have done—­that!”

CHAPTER XXIX.  THROUGH AN OPEN WINDOW

One by one the short winter days came and went—­but they were not short to Pollyanna.  They were long, and sometimes full of pain.  Very resolutely, these days, however, Pollyanna was turning a cheerful face toward whatever came.  Was she not specially bound to play the game, now that Aunt Polly was playing it, too?  And Aunt Polly found so many things to be glad about!  It was Aunt Polly, too, who discovered the story one day about the two poor little waifs in a snow-storm who found a blown-down door to crawl under, and who wondered what poor folks did that didn’t have any door!  And it was Aunt Polly who brought home the other story that she had heard about the poor old lady who had only two teeth, but who was so glad that those two teeth “hit”!