He don't speak ter no one; and he lives all alone in a great big lovely house all full of jest grand things, they say.

Some says he's crazy, and some jest cross; and some says he's got a skeleton in his closet." "Oh, Nancy!" shuddered Pollyanna.

"How can he keep such a dreadful thing?
I should think he'd throw it away!" Nancy chuckled.

That Pollyanna had taken the skeleton literally instead of figuratively, she knew very well; but, perversely, she refrained from correcting the mistake.
"And EVERYBODY says he's mysterious," she went on.

"Some years he jest travels, week in and week out, and it's always in heathen countries--Egypt and Asia and the Desert of Sarah, you know." "Oh, a missionary," nodded Pollyanna.
Nancy laughed oddly.
"Well, I didn't say that, Miss Pollyanna.