“Yes.  You see I’d wanted a doll, and father had written them so; but when the barrel came the lady wrote that there hadn’t any dolls come in, but the little crutches had.  So she sent ’em along as they might come in handy for some child, sometime.  And that’s when we began it.”

“Well, I must say I can’t see any game about that, about that,” declared Nancy, almost irritably.

“Oh, yes; the game was to just find something about everything to be glad about—­no matter what ’twas,” rejoined Pollyanna, earnestly.  “And we began right then—­on the crutches.”

“Well, goodness me!  I can’t see anythin’ ter be glad about—­gettin’ a pair of crutches when you wanted a doll!”

Pollyanna clapped her hands.

“There is—­there is,” she crowed.  “But I couldn’t see it, either, Nancy, at first,” she added, with quick honesty.  “Father had to tell it to me.”

“Well, then, suppose you tell me,” almost snapped Nancy.

“Goosey!  Why, just be glad because you don’t—­need—­’em!” exulted Pollyanna, triumphantly.  “You see it’s just as easy—­when you know how!”

“Well, of all the queer doin’s!” breathed Nancy, regarding Pollyanna with almost fearful eyes.

“Oh, but it isn’t queer—­it’s lovely,” maintained Pollyanna enthusiastically.  “And we’ve played it ever since.  And the harder ’tis, the more fun ’tis to get ’em out; only—­only sometimes it’s almost too hard—­like when your father goes to Heaven, and there isn’t anybody but a Ladies’ Aid left.”

“Yes, or when you’re put in a snippy little room ’way at the top of the house with nothin’ in it,” growled Nancy.

Pollyanna sighed.

“That was a hard one, at first,” she admitted, “specially when I was so kind of lonesome.  I just didn’t feel like playing the game, anyway, and I had been wanting pretty things, so!  Then I happened to think how I hated to see my freckles in the looking-glass, and I saw that lovely picture out the window, too; so then I knew I’d found the things to be glad about.  You see, when you’re hunting for the glad things, you sort of forget the other kind—­like the doll you wanted, you know.”

“Humph!” choked Nancy, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.

“Most generally it doesn’t take so long,” sighed Pollyanna; “and lots of times now I just think of them without thinking, you know.  I’ve got so used to playing it.  It’s a lovely game.  F-father and I used to like it so much,” she faltered.  “I suppose, though, it—­it’ll be a little harder now, as long as I haven’t anybody to play it with.  Maybe Aunt Polly will play it, though,” she added, as an after-thought.

“My stars and stockings!—­Her!” breathed Nancy, behind her teeth.  Then, aloud, she said doggedly:  “See here, Miss Pollyanna, I ain’t sayin’ that I’ll play it very well, and I ain’t sayin’ that I know how, anyway; but I’ll play it with ye, after a fashion—­I just will, I will!”