"You SAID you did--when you asked me this summer to tell you when you
said things wrong, because Mr. Pendleton was trying to make you talk
right."

"Well, if you'd been brought up in a 'sylum without any folks that
cared, instead of by a whole lot of old women who didn't have anything
to do but tell you 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.