how to talk right, maybe you'd say 'you was,' and a whole lot more worse things, Pollyanna Whittier!"
"Why, Jimmy Bean!" flared Pollyanna. "My Ladies' Aiders weren't old women—that is, not many of them, so very old," she corrected hastily, her usual proclivity for truth and literalness superseding her anger; "and —"
"Well, I'm not Jimmy Bean, either," interrupted the boy, uptilting his chin.
"You're—not— Why, Jimmy Be— — What do you mean?" demanded the little girl.
"I've been adopted, legally. He's been intending to do it, all along, he says, only he didn't get to it. Now he's done it. I'm to be called 'Jimmy Pendleton' and I'm to call him Uncle John, only I ain't—are not—I mean, I am not used to it yet, so I hain't—haven't begun to call him that, much."
The boy still spoke crossly, aggrievedly, but every trace of displeasure had fled from the little girl's face at his words. She clapped her hands joyfully.
"Oh, how splendid! Now you've really got folks—folks that care, you know. And you won't ever have to explain that he wasn't born your folks, 'cause your name's the same now. I'm so glad, glad, glad!"
The boy got up suddenly from the stone wall where they had been sitting, and walked off. His cheeks felt hot, and his eyes smarted with tears. It was to Pollyanna that he owed it all—this great good that had come to him; and he knew it. And it was to Pollyanna that he had just now been saying—
