A Waiting Game

On the day after John Pendleton’s call at the Harrington homestead, Miss Polly set herself to the task of preparing Pollyanna for the visit of the specialist.

“Pollyanna, my dear,” she began gently, “we have decided that we want another doctor besides Dr. Warren to see you. Another one might tell us something new to do—to help you get well faster, you know.”

A joyous light came to Pollyanna’s face.

“Dr. Chilton! Oh, Aunt Polly, I’d so love to have Dr. Chilton! I’ve wanted him all the time, but I was afraid you didn’t, on account of his seeing you in the sun parlor that day, you know; so I didn’t like to say anything. But I’m so glad you do want him!”

Aunt Polly’s face had turned white, then red, then back to white again. But when she answered, she showed very plainly that she was trying to speak lightly and cheerfully.

“Oh, no, dear! It wasn’t Dr. Chilton at all that I meant. It is a new doctor—a very famous doctor from New York, who—who knows a great deal about—about hurts like yours.”

Pollyanna’s face fell.

“I don’t believe he knows half so much as Dr. Chilton.”

“Oh, yes, he does, I’m sure, dear.”

“But it was Dr. Chilton who doctored Mr. Pendleton’s broken leg, Aunt Polly. If—if you don’t mind very much, I would like to have Dr. Chilton—truly I would!”

A distressed color suffused Miss Polly’s face. For a moment she did not speak at all; then she said gently—though yet with a touch of her old stern decisiveness:

“But I do mind, Pollyanna. I mind very much. I would do anything—almost anything for you, my dear; but I—for reasons which I do not care to speak of now, I don’t wish Dr. Chilton called in on—on this case. And believe me, he can not know so much about—about your trouble, as this great doctor does, who will come from New York tomorrow.”

Pollyanna still looked unconvinced.

“But, Aunt Polly, if you loved Dr. Chilton—”

“What, Pollyanna?” Aunt Polly’s voice was very sharp now. Her cheeks were very red, too.

“I say, if you loved Dr. Chilton, and didn’t love the other one,” sighed Pollyanna, “seems to me that would make some difference in the good he would do; and I love Dr. Chilton.”

The nurse entered the room at that moment, and Aunt Polly rose to her feet abruptly, a look of relief on her face.

“I am very sorry, Pollyanna,” she said, a little stiffly; “but I’m afraid you’ll have to let me be the judge, this time. Besides, it’s already arranged. The New York doctor is coming tomorrow.”

As it happened, however, the New York doctor did not come “tomorrow.” At the last moment a telegram told of an unavoidable delay owing to the sudden illness of the specialist himself. This led Pollyanna into a renewed pleading for the substitution of Dr. Chilton— “which would be so easy now, you know.”

But as before, Aunt Polly shook her head and said “no, dear,” very decisively, yet with a still more anxious assurance that she would do anything—anything but that—to please her dear Pollyanna.