"Dr. Chilton, I should think being a doctor would, be the very
gladdest kind of a business there was."

The doctor turned in surprise.

" 'Gladdest'!--when I see so much suffering always, everywhere I
go?" he cried.

She nodded.

"I know; but you're HELPING it--don't you see?--and of course
you're glad to help it! And so that makes you the gladdest of any
of us, all the time."

The doctor's eyes filled with sudden hot tears. The doctor's life
was a singularly lonely one. He had no wife and no home save his
two-room office in a boarding house. His profession was very dear
to him. Looking now into Pollyanna's shining eyes, he felt as if
a loving hand had been suddenly laid on his head in blessing. He
knew, too, that never again would a long day's work or a long
night's weariness be quite without that new-found exaltation that
had come to him through Pollyanna's eyes.

"God bless you, little girl," he said unsteadily. Then, with the
bright smile his patients knew and loved so well, he added: "And
I'm thinking, after all, that it was the doctor, quite as much as
his patients, that needed a draft of that tonic!" All of which
puzzled Pollyanna very much--until a chipmunk, running across the
road, drove the whole matter from her mind.