The Secret Garden..............................................................................................................................................1

Frances Hodgson Burnett .........................................................................................................................1

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most

disagreeablelooking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin

light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in

India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English

Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared

only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary

was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to

please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly,

fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she

was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her

Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything,

because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old

she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach

her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other

governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had

not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.

One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she

became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah.

"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me."

The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw

herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not

There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of

the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared

faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the

morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near

the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flowerbed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms

into little heaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she

"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.

She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her mother come out on the

veranda with some one. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices.

Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who

had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this

when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem SahibMary used to call her that oftener than anything

elsewas such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she

had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her

clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever

this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the

"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to

"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!"

At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants' quarters that she clutched the

young man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder. "What is

"Some one has died," answered the boy officer. "You did not say it had broken out among your servants."

"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me! Come with me!" and she turned and ran into the

After that, appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary. The

cholera had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in

the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts. Before the next day

three other servants were dead and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and dying

During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten

by everyone. Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which she knew

nothing. Mary alternately cried and slept through the hours. She only knew that people were ill and that she

heard mysterious and tightening sounds. Once she crept into the diningroom and found it empty, though a

partly finished meal was on the table and chairs and plates looked as if they had been hastily pushed back

when the diners rose suddenly for some reason. The child ate some fruit and biscuits, and being thirsty she

drank a glass of wine which stood nearly filled. It was sweet, and she did not know how strong it was. Very

soon it made her intensely drowsy, and she went back to her nursery and shut herself in again, frightened by

cries she heard in the huts and by the hurrying sound of feet. The wine made her so sleepy that she could

scarcely keep her eyes open and she lay down on her bed and knew nothing more for a long time.

Many things happened during the hours in which she slept so heavily, but she was not disturbed by the wails

When she awakened she lay and stared at the wall. The house was perfectly still. She had never known it to

be so silent before. She heard neither voices nor footsteps, and wondered if everybody had got well of the

cholera and all the trouble was over. She wondered also who would take care of her now her Ayah was dead.

There would be a new Ayah, and perhaps she would know some new stories. Mary had been rather tired of

the old ones. She did not cry because her nurse had died. She was not an affectionate child and had never

cared much for any one. The noise and hurrying about and wailing over the cholera had frightened her, and

she had been angry because no one seemed to remember that she was alive. Everyone was too panicstricken

to think of a little girl no one was fond of. When people had the cholera it seemed that they remembered

nothing but themselves. But if everyone had got well again, surely some one would remember and come to

But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and more silent. She heard

something rustling on the matting and when she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and

watching her with eyes like jewels. She was not frightened, because he was a harmless little thing who would

not hurt her and he seemed in a hurry to get out of the room. He slipped under the door as she watched him.

"How queer and quiet it is," she said. "It sounds as if there were no one in the bungalow but me and the

Almost the next minute she heard footsteps in the compound, and then on the veranda. They were men's

footsteps, and the men entered the bungalow and talked in low voices. No one went to meet or speak to them

and they seemed to open doors and look into rooms. "What desolation!" she heard one voice say. "That

pretty, pretty woman! I suppose the child, too. I heard there was a child, though no one ever saw her."

Mary was standing in the middle of the nursery when they opened the door a few minutes later. She looked

an ugly, cross little thing and was frowning because she was beginning to be hungry and feel disgracefully

neglected. The first man who came in was a large officer she had once seen talking to her father. He looked

tired and troubled, but when he saw her he was so startled that he almost jumped back.

"Barney!" he cried out. "There is a child here! A child alone! In a place like this! Mercy on us, who is she!"

"I am Mary Lennox," the little girl said, drawing herself up stiffly. She thought the man was very rude to call

her father's bungalow "A place like this!" "I fell asleep when everyone had the cholera and I have only just

"It is the child no one ever saw!" exclaimed the man, turning to his companions. "She has actually been

The young man whose name was Barney looked at her very sadly. Mary even thought she saw him wink his

It was in that strange and sudden way that Mary found out that she had neither father nor mother left; that

they had died and been carried away in the night, and that the few native servants who had not died also had

left the house as quickly as they could get out of it, none of them even remembering that there was a Missie

Sahib. That was why the place was so quiet. It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and

Mary had liked to look at her mother from a distance and she had thought her very pretty, but as she knew

very little of her she could scarcely have been expected to love her or to miss her very much when she was

gone. She did not miss her at all, in fact, and as she was a selfabsorbed child she gave her entire thought to

herself, as she had always done. If she had been older she would no doubt have been very anxious at being

left alone in the world, but she was very young, and as she had always been taken care of, she supposed she

always would be. What she thought was that she would like to know if she was going to nice people, who

would be polite to her and give her her own way as her Ayah and the other native servants had done.

She knew that she was not going to stay at the English clergyman's house where she was taken at first. She

did not want to stay. The English clergyman was poor and he had five children nearly all the same age and

they wore shabby clothes and were always quarreling and snatching toys from each other. Mary hated their

untidy bungalow and was so disagreeable to them that after the first day or two nobody would play with her.

It was Basil who thought of it first. Basil was a little boy with impudent blue eyes and a turnedup nose, and

Mary hated him. She was playing by herself under a tree, just as she had been playing the day the cholera

broke out. She was making heaps of earth and paths for a garden and Basil came and stood near to watch her.

"Why don't you put a heap of stones there and pretend it is a rockery?" he said. "There in the middle," and he

For a moment Basil looked angry, and then he began to tease. He was always teasing his sisters. He danced

He sang it until the other children heard and laughed, too; and the crosser Mary got, the more they sang

"Mistress Mary, quite contrary"; and after that as long as she stayed with them they called her "Mistress Mary

Quite Contrary" when they spoke of her to each other, and often when they spoke to her.

"You are going to be sent home," Basil said to her, "at the end of the week. And we're glad of it."

"She doesn't know where home is!" said Basil, with sevenyearold scorn. "It's England, of course. Our

grandmama lives there and our sister Mabel was sent to her last year. You are not going to your grandmama.

"I know you don't," Basil answered. "You don't know anything. Girls never do. I heard father and mother

talking about him. He lives in a great, big, desolate old house in the country and no one goes near him. He's

so cross he won't let them, and they wouldn't come if he would let them. He's a hunchback, and he's horrid."

"I don't believe you," said Mary; and she turned her back and stuck her fingers in her ears, because she would

But she thought over it a great deal afterward; and when Mrs. Crawford told her that night that she was going

to sail away to England in a few days and go to her uncle, Mr. Archibald Craven, who lived at Misselthwaite

Manor, she looked so stony and stubbornly uninterested that they did not know what to think about her. They

tried to be kind to her, but she only turned her face away when Mrs. Crawford attempted to kiss her, and held

"She is such a plain child," Mrs. Crawford said pityingly, afterward. "And her mother was such a pretty

creature. She had a very pretty manner, too, and Mary has the most unattractive ways I ever saw in a child.

The children call her `Mistress Mary Quite Contrary,' and though it's naughty of them, one can't help

"Perhaps if her mother had carried her pretty face and her pretty manners oftener into the nursery Mary might

have learned some pretty ways too. It is very sad, now the poor beautiful thing is gone, to remember that

"I believe she scarcely ever looked at her," sighed Mrs. Crawford. "When her Ayah was dead there was no

one to give a thought to the little thing. Think of the servants running away and leaving her all alone in that

deserted bungalow. Colonel McGrew said he nearly jumped out of his skin when he opened the door and

Mary made the long voyage to England under the care of an officer's wife, who was taking her children to

leave them in a boardingschool. She was very much absorbed in her own little boy and girl, and was rather

glad to hand the child over to the woman Mr. Archibald Craven sent to meet her, in London. The woman was

his housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor, and her name was Mrs. Medlock. She was a stout woman, with very

red cheeks and sharp black eyes. She wore a very purple dress, a black silk mantle with jet fringe on it and a

black bonnet with purple velvet flowers which stuck up and trembled when she moved her head. Mary did

not like her at all, but as she very seldom liked people there was nothing remarkable in that; besides which it

"My word! she's a plain little piece of goods!" she said. "And we'd heard that her mother was a beauty. She

hasn't handed much of it down, has she, ma'am?" "Perhaps she will improve as she grows older," the officer's

wife said goodnaturedly. "If she were not so sallow and had a nicer expression, her features are rather good.

"She'll have to alter a good deal," answered Mrs. Medlock. "And, there's nothing likely to improve children at

Misselthwaiteif you ask me!" They thought Mary was not listening because she was standing a little apart

from them at the window of the private hotel they had gone to. She was watching the passing buses and cabs

and people, but she heard quite well and was made very curious about her uncle and the place he lived in.

What sort of a place was it, and what would he be like? What was a hunchback? She had never seen one.

Since she had been living in other people's houses and had had no Ayah, she had begun to feel lonely and to

think queer thoughts which were new to her. She had begun to wonder why she had never seemed to belong

to anyone even when her father and mother had been alive. Other children seemed to belong to their fathers

and mothers, but she had never seemed to really be anyone's little girl. She had had servants, and food and

clothes, but no one had taken any notice of her. She did not know that this was because she was a

disagreeable child; but then, of course, she did not know she was disagreeable. She often thought that other

She thought Mrs. Medlock the most disagreeable person she had ever seen, with her common, highly colored

face and her common fine bonnet. When the next day they set out on their journey to Yorkshire, she walked

through the station to the railway carriage with her head up and trying to keep as far away from her as she

could, because she did not want to seem to belong to her. It would have made her angry to think people

But Mrs. Medlock was not in the least disturbed by her and her thoughts. She was the kind of woman who

would "stand no nonsense from young ones." At least, that is what she would have said if she had been asked.

She had not wanted to go to London just when her sister Maria's daughter was going to be married, but she

had a comfortable, well paid place as housekeeper at Misselthwaite Manor and the only way in which she

could keep it was to do at once what Mr. Archibald Craven told her to do. She never dared even to ask a

"Captain Lennox and his wife died of the cholera," Mr. Craven had said in his short, cold way. "Captain

Lennox was my wife's brother and I am their daughter's guardian. The child is to be brought here. You must

Mary sat in her corner of the railway carriage and looked plain and fretful. She had nothing to read or to look

at, and she had folded her thin little blackgloved hands in her lap. Her black dress made her look yellower

"A more marredlooking young one I never saw in my life," Mrs. Medlock thought. (Marred is a Yorkshire

word and means spoiled and pettish.) She had never seen a child who sat so still without doing anything; and

"I suppose I may as well tell you something about where you are going to," she said. "Do you know anything

"No," said Mary frowning. She frowned because she remembered that her father and mother had never talked

"Humph," muttered Mrs. Medlock, staring at her queer, unresponsive little face. She did not say any more for

"I suppose you might as well be told somethingto prepare you. You are going to a queer place."

Mary said nothing at all, and Mrs. Medlock looked rather discomfited by her apparent indifference, but, after

"Not but that it's a grand big place in a gloomy way, and Mr. Craven's proud of it in his wayand that's

gloomy enough, too. The house is six hundred years old and it's on the edge of the moor, and there's near a

hundred rooms in it, though most of them's shut up and locked. And there's pictures and fine old furniture and

things that's been there for ages, and there's a big park round it and gardens and trees with branches trailing to

the groundsome of them." She paused and took another breath. "But there's nothing else," she ended

Mary had begun to listen in spite of herself. It all sounded so unlike India, and anything new rather attracted

her. But she did not intend to look as if she were interested. That was one of her unhappy, disagreeable ways.

"You are right enough there," said Mrs. Medlock. "It doesn't. What you're to be kept at Misselthwaite Manor

for I don't know, unless because it's the easiest way. He's not going to trouble himself about you, that's sure

"He's got a crooked back," she said. "That set him wrong. He was a sour young man and got no good of all

Mary's eyes turned toward her in spite of her intention not to seem to care. She had never thought of the

hunchback's being married and she was a trifle surprised. Mrs. Medlock saw this, and as she was a talkative

woman she continued with more interest. This was one way of passing some of the time, at any rate.

"She was a sweet, pretty thing and he'd have walked the world over to get her a blade o' grass she wanted.

Nobody thought she'd marry him, but she did, and people said she married him for his money. But she

"Oh! did she die!" she exclaimed, quite without meaning to. She had just remembered a French fairy story

she had once read called "Riquet a la Houppe." It had been about a poor hunchback and a beautiful princess

"Yes, she died," Mrs. Medlock answered. "And it made him queerer than ever. He cares about nobody. He

won't see people. Most of the time he goes away, and when he is at Misselthwaite he shuts himself up in the

West Wing and won't let any one but Pitcher see him. Pitcher's an old fellow, but he took care of him when

It sounded like something in a book and it did not make Mary feel cheerful. A house with a hundred rooms,

nearly all shut up and with their doors lockeda house on the edge of a moorwhatsoever a moor

wassounded dreary. A man with a crooked back who shut himself up also! She stared out of the window

with her lips pinched together, and it seemed quite natural that the rain should have begun to pour down in

gray slanting lines and splash and stream down the windowpanes. If the pretty wife had been alive she

might have made things cheerful by being something like her own mother and by running in and out and

going to parties as she had done in frocks "full of lace." But she was not there any more.

"You needn't expect to see him, because ten to one you won't," said Mrs. Medlock. "And you mustn't expect

that there will be people to talk to you. You'll have to play about and look after yourself. You'll be told what

rooms you can go into and what rooms you're to keep out of. There's gardens enough. But when you're in the

"I shall not want to go poking about," said sour little Mary and just as suddenly as she had begun to be rather

sorry for Mr. Archibald Craven she began to cease to be sorry and to think he was unpleasant enough to

And she turned her face toward the streaming panes of the window of the railway carriage and gazed out at

the gray rainstorm which looked as if it would go on forever and ever. She watched it so long and steadily

She slept a long time, and when she awakened Mrs. Medlock had bought a lunchbasket at one of the stations

and they had some chicken and cold beef and bread and butter and some hot tea. The rain seemed to be

streaming down more heavily than ever and everybody in the station wore wet and glistening waterproofs.

The guard lighted the lamps in the carriage, and Mrs. Medlock cheered up very much over her tea and

chicken and beef. She ate a great deal and afterward fell asleep herself, and Mary sat and stared at her and

watched her fine bonnet slip on one side until she herself fell asleep once more in the corner of the carriage,

lulled by the splashing of the rain against the windows. It was quite dark when she awakened again. The train

"You have had a sleep!" she said. "It's time to open your eyes! We're at Thwaite Station and we've got a long

Mary stood up and tried to keep her eyes open while Mrs. Medlock collected her parcels. The little girl did

not offer to help her, because in India native servants always picked up or carried things and it seemed quite

The station was a small one and nobody but themselves seemed to be getting out of the train. The

stationmaster spoke to Mrs. Medlock in a rough, goodnatured way, pronouncing his words in a queer

"Aye, that's her," answered Mrs. Medlock, speaking with a Yorkshire accent herself and jerking her head

A brougham stood on the road before the little outside platform. Mary saw that it was a smart carriage and

that it was a smart footman who helped her in. His long waterproof coat and the waterproof covering of his

hat were shining and dripping with rain as everything was, the burly stationmaster included.

When he shut the door, mounted the box with the coachman, and they drove off, the little girl found herself

seated in a comfortably cushioned corner, but she was not inclined to go to sleep again. She sat and looked

out of the window, curious to see something of the road over which she was being driven to the queer place

Mrs. Medlock had spoken of. She was not at all a timid child and she was not exactly frightened, but she felt

that there was no knowing what might happen in a house with a hundred rooms nearly all shut upa house

"Look out of the window in about ten minutes and you'll see," the woman answered. "We've got to drive five

miles across Missel Moor before we get to the Manor. You won't see much because it's a dark night, but you

Mary asked no more questions but waited in the darkness of her corner, keeping her eyes on the window. The

carriage lamps cast rays of light a little distance ahead of them and she caught glimpses of the things they

passed. After they had left the station they had driven through a tiny village and she had seen whitewashed

cottages and the lights of a public house. Then they had passed a church and a vicarage and a little

shopwindow or so in a cottage with toys and sweets and odd things set our for sale. Then they were on the

highroad and she saw hedges and trees. After that there seemed nothing different for a long timeor at least

At last the horses began to go more slowly, as if they were climbing uphill, and presently there seemed to be

no more hedges and no more trees. She could see nothing, in fact, but a dense darkness on either side. She

leaned forward and pressed her face against the window just as the carriage gave a big jolt.

The carriage lamps shed a yellow light on a roughlooking road which seemed to be cut through bushes and

lowgrowing things which ended in the great expanse of dark apparently spread out before and around them.

"No, not it," answered Mrs. Medlock. "Nor it isn't fields nor mountains, it's just miles and miles and miles of

wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on but wild ponies and

"I feel as if it might be the sea, if there were water on it," said Mary. "It sounds like the sea just now."

"That's the wind blowing through the bushes," Mrs. Medlock said. "It's a wild, dreary enough place to my

mind, though there's plenty that likes itparticularly when the heather's in bloom."

On and on they drove through the darkness, and though the rain stopped, the wind rushed by and whistled and

made strange sounds. The road went up and down, and several times the carriage passed over a little bridge

beneath which water rushed very fast with a great deal of noise. Mary felt as if the drive would never come to

an end and that the wide, bleak moor was a wide expanse of black ocean through which she was passing on a

"I don't like it," she said to herself. "I don't like it," and she pinched her thin lips more tightly together.

The horses were climbing up a hilly piece of road when she first caught sight of a light. Mrs. Medlock saw it

"Eh, I am glad to see that bit o' light twinkling," she exclaimed. "It's the light in the lodge window. We shall

It was "after a bit," as she said, for when the carriage passed through the park gates there was still two miles

of avenue to drive through and the trees (which nearly met overhead) made it seem as if they were driving

They drove out of the vault into a clear space and stopped before an immensely long but lowbuilt house

which seemed to ramble round a stone court. At first Mary thought that there were no lights at all in the

windows, but as she got out of the carriage she saw that one room in a corner upstairs showed a dull glow.

The entrance door was a huge one made of massive, curiously shaped panels of oak studded with big iron

nails and bound with great iron bars. It opened into an enormous hall, which was so dimly lighted that the

faces in the portraits on the walls and the figures in the suits of armor made Mary feel that she did not want to

look at them. As she stood on the stone floor she looked a very small, odd little black figure, and she felt as

"You are to take her to her room," he said in a husky voice. "He doesn't want to see her. He's going to London

"Very well, Mr. Pitcher," Mrs. Medlock answered. "So long as I know what's expected of me, I can manage."

"What's expected of you, Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Pitcher said, "is that you make sure that he's not disturbed and

And then Mary Lennox was led up a broad staircase and down a long corridor and up a short flight of steps

and through another corridor and another, until a door opened in a wall and she found herself in a room with

"Well, here you are! This room and the next are where you'll liveand you must keep to them. Don't you

It was in this way Mistress Mary arrived at Misselthwaite Manor and she had perhaps never felt quite so

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young housemaid had come into her room to light

the fire and was kneeling on the hearthrug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched her for a

few moments and then began to look about the room. She had never seen a room at all like it and thought it

curious and gloomy. The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on it. There were

fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle.

There were hunters and horses and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in the forest with them. Out of a

deep window she could see a great climbing stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to look

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and pointed also. "That there?" she said.

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare

"Aye, that I do," answered Martha, cheerfully polishing away at the grate. "I just love it. It's none bare. It's

covered wi' growin' things as smells sweet. It's fair lovely in spring an' summer when th' gorse an' broom an'

heather's in flower. It smells o' honey an' there's such a lot o' fresh airan' th' sky looks so high an' th' bees

an' skylarks makes such a nice noise hummin' an' singin'. Eh! I wouldn't live away from th' moor for

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native servants she had been used to in India were

not in the least like this. They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their masters as if

they were their equals. They made salaams and called them "protector of the poor" and names of that sort.

Indian servants were commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say "please" and "thank

you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the face when she was angry. She wondered a little what this

girl would do if one slapped her in the face. She was a round, rosy, goodnaturedlooking creature, but she

had a sturdy way which made Mistress Mary wonder if she might not even slap backif the person who

Martha sat up on her heels, with her blackingbrush in her hand, and laughed, without seeming the least out of

"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at Misselthwaite I should never have been even one

of th' under housemaids. I might have been let to be scullerymaid but I'd never have been let upstairs. I'm

too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire. But this is a funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's

neither Master nor Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr. Craven, he won't be troubled about

anythin' when he's here, an' he's nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness. She

told me she could never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like other big houses." "Are you going to be

"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr. Craven'sbut I'm to do the housemaid's work

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad Yorkshire in her amazement.

"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be careful or you wouldn't know what I was

"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My Ayah dressed me, of course."

"Well," said Martha, evidently not in the least aware that she was impudent, "it's time tha' should learn. Tha'

cannot begin younger. It'll do thee good to wait on thysen a bit. My mother always said she couldn't see why

grand people's children didn't turn out fair foolswhat with nurses an' bein' washed an' dressed an' took out

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could scarcely stand this.

"Eh! I can see it's different," she answered almost sympathetically. "I dare say it's because there's such a lot o'

blacks there instead o' respectable white people. When I heard you was comin' from India I thought you was a

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed. That's not th' way for a young lady to talk.

I've nothin' against th' blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very religious. You always

read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see

one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up to your bed an' pulled th' cover back

careful to look at you. An' there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than mefor all you're so yeller."

Mary did not even try to control her rage and humiliation. "You thought I was a native! You dared! You don't

know anything about natives! They are not peoplethey're servants who must salaam to you. You know

She was in such a rage and felt so helpless before the girl's simple stare, and somehow she suddenly felt so

horribly lonely and far away from everything she understood and which understood her, that she threw

herself face downward on the pillows and burst into passionate sobbing. She sobbed so unrestrainedly that

goodnatured Yorkshire Martha was a little frightened and quite sorry for her. She went to the bed and bent

"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't

know anythin' about anythin'just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had

a good effect on Mary. She gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

"It's time for thee to get up now," she said. "Mrs. Medlock said I was to carry tha' breakfast an' tea an' dinner

into th' room next to this. It's been made into a nursery for thee. I'll help thee on with thy clothes if tha'll get

out o' bed. If th' buttons are at th' back tha' cannot button them up tha'self."

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the wardrobe were not the ones she had

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with cool approval:

"These are th' ones tha' must put on," Martha answered. "Mr. Craven ordered Mrs. Medlock to get 'em in

London. He said `I won't have a child dressed in black wanderin' about like a lost soul,' he said. `It'd make the

place sadder than it is. Put color on her.' Mother she said she knew what he meant. Mother always knows

The dressing process was one which taught them both something. Martha had "buttoned up" her little sisters

and brothers but she had never seen a child who stood still and waited for another person to do things for her

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly held out her foot.

She said that very often"It was the custom." The native servants were always saying it. If one told them to

do a thing their ancestors had not done for a thousand years they gazed at one mildly and said, "It is not the

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but stand and allow herself to be dressed

like a doll, but before she was ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite Manor

would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to herthings such as putting on her own shoes and

stockings, and picking up things she let fall. If Martha had been a welltrained fine young lady's maid she

would have been more subservient and respectful and would have known that it was her business to brush

hair, and button boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an untrained Yorkshire

rustic who had been brought up in a moorland cottage with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had

never dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger ones who were either babies

If Mary Lennox had been a child who was ready to be amused she would perhaps have laughed at Martha's

readiness to talk, but Mary only listened to her coldly and wondered at her freedom of manner. At first she

was not at all interested, but gradually, as the girl rattled on in her goodtempered, homely way, Mary began

"Eh! you should see 'em all," she said. "There's twelve of us an' my father only gets sixteen shilling a week. I

can tell you my mother's put to it to get porridge for 'em all. They tumble about on th' moor an' play there all

day an' mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. She says she believes they eat th' grass same as th' wild

ponies do. Our Dickon, he's twelve years old and he's got a young pony he calls his own."

"He found it on th' moor with its mother when it was a little one an' he began to make friends with it an' give

it bits o' bread an' pluck young grass for it. And it got to like him so it follows him about an' it lets him get on

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always thought she should like one. So she

began to feel a slight interest in Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but herself, it

was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into the room which had been made into a nursery

for her, she found that it was rather like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room, but a grownup

person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set

with a good substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite, and she looked with

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit o' sugar."

"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste. If our children was at this table they'd clean

"Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce ever had their stomachs full in their

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the indifference of ignorance.

"Well, it would do thee good to try it. I can see that plain enough," she said outspokenly. "I've no patience

with folk as sits an' just stares at good bread an' meat. My word! don't I wish Dickon and Phil an' Jane an' th'

"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out. I get my day out once a month same as

"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do you good and give you some stomach for

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees, but everything looked dull and wintry.

"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" "Well, if tha' doesn't go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has

Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock had prepared the nursery she had not

thought of amusement. Perhaps it would be better to go and see what the gardens were like.

"You'll go by yourself," she answered. "You'll have to learn to play like other children does when they

haven't got sisters and brothers. Our Dickon goes off on th' moor by himself an' plays for hours. That's how

he made friends with th' pony. He's got sheep on th' moor that knows him, an' birds as comes an' eats out of

his hand. However little there is to eat, he always saves a bit o' his bread to coax his pets."

It was really this mention of Dickon which made Mary decide to go out, though she was not aware of it.

There would be, birds outside though there would not be ponies or sheep. They would be different from the

Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots and she showed her her way downstairs.

"If tha' goes round that way tha'll come to th' gardens," she said, pointing to a gate in a wall of shrubbery.

"There's lots o' flowers in summertime, but there's nothin' bloomin' now." She seemed to hesitate a second

before she added, "One of th' gardens is locked up. No one has been in it for ten years."

"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door added to the hundred in the strange

"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no one go inside. It was her garden. He

locked th' door an' dug a hole and buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringingI must run."

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in the shrubbery. She could not help

thinking about the garden which no one had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like

and whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had passed through the shrubbery gate she

found herself in great gardens, with wide lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were trees,

and flowerbeds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and a large pool with an old gray fountain in its

midst. But the flowerbeds were bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing. This was not the garden

which was shut up. How could a garden be shut up? You could always walk into a garden.

She was just thinking this when she saw that, at the end of the path she was following, there seemed to be a

long wall, with ivy growing over it. She was not familiar enough with England to know that she was coming

upon the kitchengardens where the vegetables and fruit were growing. She went toward the wall and found

that there was a green door in the ivy, and that it stood open. This was not the closed garden, evidently, and

She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all round it and that it was only one of

several walled gardens which seemed to open into one another. She saw another open green door, revealing

bushes and pathways between beds containing winter vegetables. Fruittrees were trained flat against the

wall, and over some of the beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly enough, Mary thought,

as she stood and stared about her. It might be nicer in summer when things were green, but there was nothing

Presently an old man with a spade over his shoulder walked through the door leading from the second garden.

He looked startled when he saw Mary, and then touched his cap. He had a surly old face, and did not seem at

all pleased to see herbut then she was displeased with his garden and wore her "quite contrary" expression,

"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th' wall an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that."

Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second green door. There, she found more

walls and winter vegetables and glass frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and it was

not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen for ten years. As she was not at all a timid

child and always did what she wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle. She hoped

the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had found the mysterious gardenbut it did open

quite easily and she walked through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls all round it also and

trees trained against them, and there were bare fruittrees growing in the winterbrowned grassbut there

was no green door to be seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had entered the upper end of

the garden she had noticed that the wall did not seem to end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it

enclosed a place at the other side. She could see the tops of trees above the wall, and when she stood still she

saw a bird with a bright red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly he burst into

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly little whistle gave her a pleased

feelingeven a disagreeable little girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big

bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the world but herself. If she had been an

affectionate child, who had been used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though she

was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the brightbreasted little bird brought a look into

her sour little face which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He was not like an

Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the

Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought so much of the deserted garden. She

was curious about it and wanted to see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If he

had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered if she should ever see him, but she

knew that if she did she should not like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and

stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully to ask him why he had done such a

"People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I never can talk as the Crawford children

She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at her, and as she remembered the

"I believe that tree was in the secret gardenI feel sure it was," she said. "There was a wall round the place

She walked back into the first kitchengarden she had entered and found the old man digging there. She went

and stood beside him and watched him a few moments in her cold little way. He took no notice of her and so

"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Mistress Mary. "There are trees thereI saw the tops of

To her surprise the surly old weatherbeaten face actually changed its expression. A slow smile spread over it

and the gardener looked quite different. It made her think that it was curious how much nicer a person looked

He turned about to the orchard side of his garden and began to whistlea low soft whistle. She could not

understand how such a surly man could make such a coaxing sound. Almost the next moment a wonderful

thing happened. She heard a soft little rushing flight through the airand it was the bird with the red breast

flying to them, and he actually alighted on the big clod of earth quite near to the gardener's foot.

"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if he were speaking to a child.

"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not seen thee before today. Has tha, begun tha'

The bird put his tiny head on one side and looked up at him with his soft bright eye which was like a black

dewdrop. He seemed quite familiar and not the least afraid. He hopped about and pecked the earth briskly,

looking for seeds and insects. It actually gave Mary a queer feeling in her heart, because he was so pretty and

cheerful and seemed so like a person. He had a tiny plump body and a delicate beak, and slender delicate

"Aye, that he will. I've knowed him ever since he was a fledgling. He come out of th' nest in th' other garden

an' when first he flew over th' wall he was too weak to fly back for a few days an' we got friendly. When he

went over th' wall again th' rest of th' brood was gone an' he was lonely an' he come back to me."

"Doesn't tha' know? He's a robin redbreast an' they're th' friendliest, curiousest birds alive. They're almost as

friendly as dogsif you know how to get on with 'em. Watch him peckin' about there an' lookin' round at us

It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He looked at the plump little scarletwaistcoated

"He's a conceited one," he chuckled. "He likes to hear folk talk about him. An' curiousbless me, there

never was his like for curiosity an' meddlin'. He's always comin' to see what I'm plantin'. He knows all th'

things Mester Craven never troubles hissel' to find out. He's th' head gardener, he is."

The robin hopped about busily pecking the soil and now and then stopped and looked at them a little. Mary

thought his black dewdrop eyes gazed at her with great curiosity. It really seemed as if he were finding out all

about her. The queer feeling in her heart increased. "Where did the rest of the brood fly to?" she asked.

"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make 'em fly an' they're scattered before you

She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her feel sour and cross. She seemed to

The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her a minute.

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black garden soil while the robin hopped about

"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly chuckle, "I'm lonely mysel' except when

he's with me," and he jerked his thumb toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't like me and I never played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire

"Tha' an' me are a good bit alike," he said. "We was wove out of th' same cloth. We're neither of us good

lookin' an' we're both of us as sour as we look. We've got the same nasty tempers, both of us, I'll warrant."

This was plain speaking, and Mary Lennox had never heard the truth about herself in her life. Native servants

always salaamed and submitted to you, whatever you did. She had never thought much about her looks, but

she wondered if she was as unattractive as Ben Weatherstaff and she also wondered if she looked as sour as

he had looked before the robin came. She actually began to wonder also if she was "nasty tempered." She felt

Suddenly a clear rippling little sound broke out near her and she turned round. She was standing a few feet

from a young appletree and the robin had flown on to one of its branches and had burst out into a scrap of a

"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang me if he hasn't took a fancy to thee."

"Would you make friends with me?" she said to the robin just as if she was speaking to a person. "Would

you?" And she did not say it either in her hard little voice or in her imperious Indian voice, but in a tone so

soft and eager and coaxing that Ben Weatherstaff was as surprised as she had been when she heard him

"Why," he cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a real child instead of a sharp old woman.

"Everybody knows him. Dickon's wanderin' about everywhere. Th' very blackberries an' heatherbells knows

him. I warrant th' foxes shows him where their cubs lies an' th' skylarks doesn't hide their nests from him."

Mary would have liked to ask some more questions. She was almost as curious about Dickon as she was

about the deserted garden. But just that moment the robin, who had ended his song, gave a little shake of his

wings, spread them and flew away. He had made his visit and had other things to do.

"He has flown over the wall!" Mary cried out, watching him. "He has flown into the orchardhe has flown

"He lives there," said old Ben. "He came out o' th' egg there. If he's courtin', he's makin' up to some young

"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door? There must be a door somewhere."

Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked when she first saw him.

"No door!" cried Mary. "There must be." "None as any one can find, an' none as is any one's business. Don't

you be a meddlesome wench an' poke your nose where it's no cause to go. Here, I must go on with my work.

And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and walked off, without even glancing at

At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the others. Every morning she awoke in

her tapestried room and found Martha kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her

breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each breakfast she gazed out of the

window across to the huge moor which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after

she had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would have to stay in and do

nothingand so she went out. She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did

not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue, she was

stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the

moor. She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at her face and roared and

held her back as if it were some giant she could not see. But the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the

heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color

into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one morning knowing what it was to be

hungry, and when she sat down to her breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it

away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it until her bowl was empty.

"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha' victuals," answered Martha. "It's lucky for thee that

tha's got victuals as well as appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had th' stomach an' nothin' to put in

it. You go on playin' you out o' doors every day an' you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't be so

"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha. "Our children plays with sticks and stones. They just runs about

an' shouts an' looks at things." Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There was nothing else to do. She

walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben

Weatherstaff, but though several times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was too surly.

Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade and turned away as if he did it on purpose.

One place she went to oftener than to any other. It was the long walk outside the gardens with the walls round

them. There were bare flowerbeds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew thickly. There was one

part of the wall where the creeping dark green leaves were more bushy than elsewhere. It seemed as if for a

long time that part had been neglected. The rest of it had been clipped and made to look neat, but at this lower

A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff, Mary stopped to notice this and wondered why it was

so. She had just paused and was looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a gleam

of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's

robin redbreast, tilting forward to look at her with his small head on one side.

"Oh!" she cried out, "is it youis it you?" And it did not seem at all queer to her that she spoke to him as if

He did answer. He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as if he were telling her all sorts of

things. It seemed to Mistress Mary as if she understood him, too, though he was not speaking in words. It was

"Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice? Isn't everything nice? Let us both chirp and hop and

Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the wall she ran after him. Poor little thin,

"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk; and she chirped and tried to whistle, which

last she did not know how to do in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped and

whistled back at her. At last he spread his wings and made a darting flight to the top of a tree, where he

perched and sang loudly. That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him. He had been swinging on a

treetop then and she had been standing in the orchard. Now she was on the other side of the orchard and

standing in the path outside a wallmuch lower downand there was the same tree inside.

"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself. "It's the garden without a door. He lives in there.

She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first morning. Then she ran down the path through

the other door and then into the orchard, and when she stood and looked up there was the tree on the other

side of the wall, and there was the robin just finishing his song and, beginning to preen his feathers with his

She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall, but she only found what she had found

beforethat there was no door in it. Then she ran through the kitchengardens again and out into the walk

outside the long ivycovered wall, and she walked to the end of it and looked at it, but there was no door; and

"It's very queer," she said. "Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door and there is no door. But there must

This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested and feel that she was not sorry that she

had come to Misselthwaite Manor. In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much about

anything. The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young

She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her supper at night she felt hungry and

drowsy and comfortable. She did not feel cross when Martha chattered away. She felt as if she rather liked to

hear her, and at last she thought she would ask her a question. She asked it after she had finished her supper

She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all. She was very young, and used to a

crowded cottage full of brothers and sisters, and she found it dull in the great servants' hall downstairs where

the footman and upperhousemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech and looked upon her as a common

little thing, and sat and whispered among themselves. Martha liked to talk, and the strange child who had

lived in India, and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enough to attract her.

"Art tha' thinkin' about that garden yet?" she said. "I knew tha' would. That was just the way with me when I

"Listen to th' wind wutherin' round the house," she said. "You could bare stand up on the moor if you was out

Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened, and then she understood. It must mean that

hollow shuddering sort of roar which rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were

buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in. But one knew he could not get in, and

"But why did he hate it so?" she asked, after she had listened. She intended to know if Martha did.

"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to be talked about. There's lots o' things in this place that's not

to be talked over. That's Mr. Craven's orders. His troubles are none servants' business, he says. But for th'

garden he wouldn't be like he is. It was Mrs. Craven's garden that she had made when first they were married

an' she just loved it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves. An' none o' th' gardeners was ever let to go

in. Him an' her used to go in an' shut th' door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin' and talkin'. An, she was

just a bit of a girl an' there was an old tree with a branch bent like a seat on it. An' she made roses grow over

it an' she used to sit there. But one day when she was sittin' there th' branch broke an' she fell on th' ground

an' was hurt so bad that next day she died. Th' doctors thought he'd go out o' his mind an' die, too. That's why

he hates it. No one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one talk about it."

Mary did not ask any more questions. She looked at the red fire and listened to the wind "wutherin'." It

seemed to be "wutherin'" louder than ever. At that moment a very good thing was happening to her. Four

good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to Misselthwaite Manor. She had felt as if she had

understood a robin and that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had grown warm;

she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something else. She did not know what it was,

because at first she could scarcely distinguish it from the wind itself. It was a curious soundit seemed

almost as if a child were crying somewhere. Sometimes the wind sounded rather like a child crying, but

presently Mistress Mary felt quite sure this sound was inside the house, not outside it. It was far away, but it

"No," she answered. "It's th' wind. Sometimes it sounds like as if some one was lost on th' moor an' wailin'.

And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere downstairs; for a great rushing draft blew

along the passage and the door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they both jumped

to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be

"There!" said Mary. "I told you so! It is some one cryingand it isn't a grownup person."

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it they both heard the sound of a door in

some far passage shutting with a bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased "wutherin'"

"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly. "An' if it wasn't, it was little Betty Butterworth, th' scullerymaid.

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary stare very hard at her. She did not

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary looked out of her window the moor was

"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered. "Eh! there does seem a lot of us then.

Mother's a goodtempered woman but she gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cowshed and

plays there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th' same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees

things on rainy days as doesn't show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub half drowned in its

hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th'

hole was swum out an' th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home now. He found a halfdrowned young

crow another time an' he brought it home, too, an' tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it hops

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar talk. She had even begun to find it

interesting and to be sorry when she stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah when

she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell about the moorland cottage which held

fourteen people who lived in four little rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to

tumble about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, goodnatured collie puppies. Mary was most

attracted by the mother and Dickon. When Martha told stories of what "mother" said or did they always

"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But I have nothing."

"Then why doesn't tha, read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'? Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a

"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th' library, there's thousands o' books there."

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly inspired by a new idea. She made up her

mind to go and find it herself. She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed always to be

in her comfortable housekeeper's sittingroom downstairs. In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one

at all. In fact, there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was away they lived a luxurious

life below stairs, where there was a huge kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large

servants' hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and where a great deal of lively

Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no one troubled themselves about her in

the least. Mrs. Medlock came and looked at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or told her

what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English way of treating children. In India she had always

been attended by her Ayah, who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She had often been

tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody and was learning to dress herself because Martha

looked as though she thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed to her and put

"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood waiting for her to put on her gloves for her.

"Our Susan Ann is twice as sharp as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks fair soft in th'

Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made her think several entirely new things.

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha had swept up the hearth for the last

time and gone downstairs. She was thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the

library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because she had read very few books; but to hear

of it brought back to her mind the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all really

locked and what she would find if she could get into any of them. Were there a hundred really? Why

shouldn't she go and see how many doors she could count? It would be something to do on this morning

when she could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission to do things, and she knew nothing

at all about authority, so she would not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she began her wanderings. It was a long

corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others

again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures of

dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes made

of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She

had never thought there could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and stared at the

faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was

doing in their house. Some were pictures of childrenlittle girls in thick satin frocks which reached to their

feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs

around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, and where

they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like herself. She

wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge

rambling house but her own small self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and

wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked. Since so many rooms had been

built, people must have lived in them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turning the handle of a door. All the doors

were shut, as Mrs. Medlock had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of them and

turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty and that

when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened into a

big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India

stood about the room. A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the mantel was

another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer."

After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to

think that there must be a hundred, though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures or

old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious pieces of furniture and curious

In one room, which looked like a lady's sittingroom, the hangings were all embroidered velvet, and in a

cabinet were about a hundred little elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had their

mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than the others and some were so tiny that

they seemed only babies. Mary had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She opened

the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with these for quite a long time. When she got

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms, she had seen nothing alive; but in this

room she saw something. Just after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound. It made

her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa

there was a cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out of the hole peeped a tiny

Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to a little gray mouse, and the mouse had

eaten a hole into the cushion and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up asleep near

her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any farther, and she turned back. Two or

three times she lost her way by turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down

until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor again, though she was some distance from

"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing still at what seemed the end of a short

passage with tapestry on the wall. "I don't know which way to go. How still everything is!"

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this that the stillness was broken by a sound. It

was another cry, but not quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a fretful childish

"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster. "And it is crying."

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then sprang back, feeling quite startled. The

tapestry was the covering of a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of the corridor

behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on

"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and pulled her away. "What did I tell

"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know which way to go and I heard some one

crying." She quite hated Mrs. Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

"You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You come along back to your own nursery or

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one passage and down another until she

"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find yourself locked up. The master had better

get you a governess, same as he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after you. I've

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went and sat on the hearthrug, pale

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had found out a great deal this morning.

She felt as if she had been on a long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all the time,

and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the

Two days after this, when Mary opened her eyes she sat upright in bed immediately, and called to Martha.

The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept away in the night by the wind. The

wind itself had ceased and a brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland. Never, never had Mary

dreamed of a sky so blue. In India skies were hot and blazing; this was of a deep cool blue which almost

seemed to sparkle like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there, high, high in the arched

blueness floated small clouds of snowwhite fleece. The farreaching world of the moor itself looked softly

"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin. "Th' storm's over for a bit. It does like this at this time o' th' year. It

goes off in a night like it was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come again. That's because

"Eh! no!" said Martha, sitting up on her heels among her black lead brushes. "Nowt o' th' soart!"

"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously. In India the natives spoke different dialects which only a few

people understood, so she was not surprised when Martha used words she did not know.

"There now," she said. "I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs. Medlock said I mustn't. `Nowt o' th' soart'

means `nothin'ofthesort,'" slowly and carefully, "but it takes so long to say it. Yorkshire's th' sunniest

place on earth when it is sunny. I told thee tha'd like th' moor after a bit. Just you wait till you see th'

goldcolored gorse blossoms an' th' blossoms o' th' broom, an' th' heather flowerin', all purple bells, an'

hundreds o' butterflies flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin' up an' singin'. You'll want to get out on

it as sunrise an' live out on it all day like Dickon does." "Could I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully,

looking through her window at the faroff blue. It was so new and big and wonderful and such a heavenly

"I don't know," answered Martha. "Tha's never used tha' legs since tha' was born, it seems to me. Tha'

Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her polishing brush and began to rub the grate

again. She was thinking that the small plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as it had done the

first morning she saw it. It looked just a trifle like little Susan Ann's when she wanted something very much.

"I'll ask my mother about it," she said. "She's one o' them that nearly always sees a way to do things. It's my

day out today an' I'm goin' home. Eh! I am glad. Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother. Perhaps she could talk

She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the back of her hand as if puzzled for a

"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' goodnatured an' clean that no one could help likin' her whether

they'd seen her or not. When I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm crossin' the

"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee that th' very birds likes him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an'

ponies, an' th' foxes themselves. I wonder," staring at her reflectively, "what Dickon would think of thee?"

"How does tha' like thysel'?" she inquired, really quite as if she were curious to know.

"Mother said that to me once," she said. "She was at her wash tub an' I was in a bad temper an' talkin' ill of

folk, an' she turns round on me an' says: `Tha' young vixen, tha'! There tha' stands sayin' tha' doesn't like this

one an' tha' doesn't like that one. How does tha' like thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it brought me to my senses

She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her breakfast. She was going to walk five miles

across the moor to the cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do the week's

Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the house. She went out into the garden as

quickly as possible, and the first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower garden ten

times. She counted the times carefully and when she had finished she felt in better spirits. The sunshine made

the whole place look different. The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as well as over the moor,

and she kept lifting her face and looking up into it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one

of the little snowwhite clouds and float about. She went into the first kitchengarden and found Ben

Weatherstaff working there with two other gardeners. The change in the weather seemed to have done him

good. He spoke to her of his own accord. "Springtime's comin,'" he said. "Cannot tha' smell it?"

"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away. "It's in a good humor makin' ready to grow things.

It's glad when plantin' time comes. It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do. In th' flower gardens out

there things will be stirrin' down below in th' dark. Th' sun's warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes

"No. Everything is hot, and wet, and green after the rains in India," said Mary. "And I think things grow up in

"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff. "Tha'll have to wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher

here, an' push out a spike more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that. You watch 'em."

Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she knew at once that the robin had come

again. He was very pert and lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one side and

"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly. "He knows every cabbage stump in th' gardens, let alone

th' people. He's never seen a little wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee. Tha's no need

"Are things stirring down below in the dark in that garden where he lives?" Mary inquired.

"The one where the old rosetrees are." She could not help asking, because she wanted so much to know.

"Are all the flowers dead, or do some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?"

"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the robin. "He's the only one as knows. No

She walked away, slowly thinking. She had begun to like the garden just as she had begun to like the robin

and Dickon and Martha's mother. She was beginning to like Martha, too. That seemed a good many people to

likewhen you were not used to liking. She thought of the robin as one of the people. She went to her walk

outside the long, ivycovered wall over which she could see the treetops; and the second time she walked

up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to her, and it was all through Ben

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare flowerbed at her left side there he was

hopping about and pretending to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not followed her. But

she knew he had followed her and the surprise so filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.

"You do remember me!" she cried out. "You do! You are prettier than anything else in the world!"

She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail and twittered. It was as if he were

talking. His red waistcoat was like satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so grand and so

pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how important and like a human person a robin could be.

Mistress Mary forgot that she had ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her to draw closer and

closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to make something like robin sounds.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as that! He knew nothing in the world would

make her put out her hand toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way. He knew it because he was a real

persononly nicer than any other person in the world. She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flowerbed was not quite bare. It was bare of flowers because the perennial plants had been cut down for

their winter rest, but there were tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the bed, and as

the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a small pile of freshly turned up earth. He stopped

on it to look for a worm. The earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to dig up a mole and he

Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as she looked she saw something almost

buried in the newlyturned soil. It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin flew up

into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up. It was more than a ring, however; it was an old

Mistress Mary stood up and looked at it with an almost frightened face as it hung from her finger.

"Perhaps it has been buried for ten years," she said in a whisper. "Perhaps it is the key to the garden!"

She looked at the key quite a long time. She turned it over and over, and thought about it. As I have said

before, she was not a child who had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things. All she

thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed garden, and she could find out where the door

was, she could perhaps open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the old

rosetrees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she wanted to see it. It seemed as if it must be

different from other places and that something strange must have happened to it during ten years. Besides

that, if she liked it she could go into it every day and shut the door behind her, and she could make up some

play of her own and play it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she was, but would think the

door was still locked and the key buried in the earth. The thought of that pleased her very much.

Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing

whatever to do to amuse herself, had set her inactive brain to working and was actually awakening her

imagination. There is no doubt that the fresh, strong, pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.

Just as it had given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her blood, so the same things had

stirred her mind. In India she had always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything, but

in this place she was beginning to care and to want to do new things. Already she felt less "contrary," though

She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk. No one but herself ever seemed to come

there, so she could walk slowly and look at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it. The ivy was the

baffling thing. Howsoever carefully she looked she could see nothing but thickly growing, glossy, dark green

leaves. She was very much disappointed. Something of her contrariness came back to her as she paced the

walk and looked over it at the treetops inside. It seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be

able to get in. She took the key in her pocket when she went back to the house, and she made up her mind

that she would always carry it with her when she went out, so that if she ever should find the hidden door she

Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but she was back at her work in the

"I got up at four o'clock," she said. "Eh! it was pretty on th' moor with th' birds gettin' up an' th' rabbits

scamperin' about an' th' sun risin'. I didn't walk all th' way. A man gave me a ride in his cart an' I did enjoy

She was full of stories of the delights of her day out. Her mother had been glad to see her and they had got the

baking and washing all out of the way. She had even made each of the children a doughcake with a bit of

"I had 'em all pipin' hot when they came in from playin' on th' moor. An' th' cottage all smelt o' nice, clean hot

bakin' an' there was a good fire, an' they just shouted for joy. Our Dickon he said our cottage was good

In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her mother had sewed patches on torn clothes

and mended stockings and Martha had told them about the little girl who had come from India and who had

been waited on all her life by what Martha called "blacks" until she didn't know how to put on her own

"Eh! they did like to hear about you," said Martha. "They wanted to know all about th' blacks an' about th'

"I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out," she said, "so that you will have more to talk about. I

dare say they would like to hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officers going to hunt

"My word!" cried delighted Martha. "It would set 'em clean off their heads. Would tha' really do that, Miss? It

"India is quite different from Yorkshire," Mary said slowly, as she thought the matter over. "I never thought

"Why, our Dickon's eyes nearly started out o' his head, they got that round," answered Martha. "But mother,

she was put out about your seemin' to be all by yourself like. She said, 'Hasn't Mr. Craven got no governess

for her, nor no nurse?' and I said, 'No, he hasn't, though Mrs. Medlock says he will when he thinks of it, but

"But mother says you ought to be learnin' your book by this time an' you ought to have a woman to look after

you, an' she says: `Now, Martha, you just think how you'd feel yourself, in a big place like that, wanderin'

about all alone, an' no mother. You do your best to cheer her up,' she says, an' I said I would."

Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held in her hands under her apron.

"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin. "I've brought thee a present."

"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary. How could a cottage full of fourteen hungry people give any one a

"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin'," Martha explained. "An' he stopped his cart at our door. He had

pots an' pans an' odds an' ends, but mother had no money to buy anythin'. Just as he was goin' away our

'Lizabeth Ellen called out, `Mother, he's got skippin'ropes with red an' blue handles.' An' mother she calls

out quite sudden, `Here, stop, mister! How much are they?' An' he says `Tuppence', an' mother she began

fumblin' in her pocket an' she says to me, `Martha, tha's brought me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got

four places to put every penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to buy that child a skippin'rope,'

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly. It was a strong, slender rope with a

striped red and blue handle at each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skippingrope before. She gazed

"For!" cried out Martha. "Does tha' mean that they've not got skippin'ropes in India, for all they've got

elephants and tigers and camels! No wonder most of 'em's black. This is what it's for; just watch me."

And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip,

while Mary turned in her chair to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to stare at her,

too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager had the impudence to be doing under their very

noses. But Martha did not even see them. The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face delighted her, and

she went on skipping and counted as she skipped until she had reached a hundred.

"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped. "I've skipped as much as five hundred when I was

"It looks nice," she said. "Your mother is a kind woman. Do you think I could ever skip like that?"

"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping rope. "You can't skip a hundred at first, but if you

practice you'll mount up. That's what mother said. She says, `Nothin' will do her more good than skippin'

rope. It's th' sensiblest toy a child can have. Let her play out in th' fresh air skippin' an' it'll stretch her legs an'

It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress Mary's arms and legs when she first began

to skip. She was not very clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.

"Put on tha' things and run an' skip out o' doors," said Martha. "Mother said I must tell you to keep out o'

Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skippingrope over her arm. She opened the door to go out, and

"Martha," she said, "they were your wages. It was your twopence really. Thank you." She said it stiffly

because she was not used to thanking people or noticing that they did things for her. "Thank you," she said,

Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not accustomed to this sort of thing either. Then she

"Eh! th' art a queer, oldwomanish thing," she said. "If tha'd been our 'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have given me a

"Nay, not me," she answered. "If tha' was different, p'raps tha'd want to thysel'. But tha' isn't. Run off outside

Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room. Yorkshire people seemed strange, and

Martha was always rather a puzzle to her. At first she had disliked her very much, but now she did not. The

skippingrope was a wonderful thing. She counted and skipped, and skipped and counted, until her cheeks

were quite red, and she was more interested than she had ever been since she was born. The sun was shining

and a little wind was blowingnot a rough wind, but one which came in delightful little gusts and brought a

fresh scent of newly turned earth with it. She skipped round the fountain garden, and up one walk and down

another. She skipped at last into the kitchengarden and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his

robin, which was hopping about him. She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted his head and

looked at her with a curious expression. She had wondered if he would notice her. She wanted him to see her

"Well!" he exclaimed. "Upon my word. P'raps tha' art a young 'un, after all, an' p'raps tha's got child's blood

in thy veins instead of sour buttermilk. Tha's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben

"I never skipped before," Mary said. "I'm just beginning. I can only go up to twenty."

"Tha' keep on," said Ben. "Tha' shapes well enough at it for a young 'un that's lived with heathen. Just see

how he's watchin' thee," jerking his head toward the robin. "He followed after thee yesterday. He'll be at it

again today. He'll be bound to find out what th' skippin'rope is. He's never seen one. Eh!" shaking his head

at the bird, "tha' curiosity will be th' death of thee sometime if tha' doesn't look sharp."

Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every few minutes. At length she went to

her own special walk and made up her mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it. It was a good long

skip and she began slowly, but before she had gone halfway down the path she was so hot and breathless

that she was obliged to stop. She did not mind much, because she had already counted up to thirty. She

stopped with a little laugh of pleasure, and there, lo and behold, was the robin swaying on a long branch of

ivy. He had followed her and he greeted her with a chirp. As Mary had skipped toward him she felt

something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump, and when she saw the robin she laughed again.

"You showed me where the key was yesterday," she said. "You ought to show me the door today; but I don't

The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall and he opened his beak and sang a

loud, lovely trill, merely to show off. Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when he

Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah's stories, and she always said that what

One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was a stronger one than the rest. It was

strong enough to wave the branches of the trees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing

sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall. Mary had stepped close to the robin, and suddenly the gust

of wind swung aside some loose ivy trails, and more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in her

hand. This she did because she had seen something under ita round knob which had been covered by the

She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them aside. Thick as the ivy hung, it nearly all

was a loose and swinging curtain, though some had crept over wood and iron. Mary's heart began to thump

and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement. The robin kept singing and twittering away and

tilting his head on one side, as if he were as excited as she was. What was this under her hands which was

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put her hand in her pocket, drew out the

key and found it fitted the keyhole. She put the key in and turned it. It took two hands to do it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk to see if any one was coming. No

one was coming. No one ever did come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could not

help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed back the door which opened

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her back against it, looking about her and

It was the sweetest, most mysteriouslooking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in

were covered with the leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were matted together.

Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen a great many roses in India. All the ground was

covered with grass of a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely rosebushes if

they were alive. There were numbers of standard roses which had so spread their branches that they were like

little trees. There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made the place look strangest

and loveliest was that climbing roses had run all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light

swaying curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a farreaching branch and had crept

from one tree to another and made lovely bridges of themselves. There were neither leaves nor roses on them

now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but their thin gray or brown branches and

sprays looked like a sort of hazy mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown grass,

where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the ground. It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree

which made it all look so mysterious. Mary had thought it must be different from other gardens which had

not been left all by themselves so long; and indeed it was different from any other place she had ever seen in

Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness. The robin, who had flown to his treetop, was still as

all the rest. He did not even flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.

"No wonder it is still," she whispered again. "I am the first person who has spoken in here for ten years."

She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid of awakening some one. She was glad

that there was grass under her feet and that her steps made no sounds. She walked under one of the fairylike

gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays and tendrils which formed them. "I wonder if they

are all quite dead," she said. "Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn't."

If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood was alive by looking at it, but she

could only see that there were only gray or brown sprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a

But she was inside the wonderful garden and she could come through the door under the ivy any time and she

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky over this particular piece of

Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant and soft than it was over the moor. The robin flew down from his

treetop and hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another. He chirped a good deal and had a very

busy air, as if he were showing her things. Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be hundreds

of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel lonely at all. All that troubled her was her wish

that she knew whether all the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived and might put out leaves

and buds as the weather got warmer. She did not want it to be a quite dead garden. If it were a quite alive

garden, how wonderful it would be, and what thousands of roses would grow on every side!

Her skippingrope had hung over her arm when she came in and after she had walked about for a while she

thought she would skip round the whole garden, stopping when she wanted to look at things. There seemed to

have been grass paths here and there, and in one or two corners there were alcoves of evergreen with stone

As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping. There had once been a flowerbed in it,

and she thought she saw something sticking out of the black earth some sharp little pale green points. She

"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might be crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered.

She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp earth. She liked it very much.

"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places," she said. "I will go all over the garden and

She did not skip, but walked. She went slowly and kept her eyes on the ground. She looked in the old border

beds and among the grass, and after she had gone round, trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so many

"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself. "Even if the roses are dead, there are other things

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so thick in some of the places where the

green points were pushing their way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to

grow. She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood and knelt down and dug and weeded

"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said, after she had finished with the first ones. "I am going to

do ever so many more. I'll do all I can see. If I haven't time today I can come tomorrow."

She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself so immensely that she was led on

from bed to bed and into the grass under the trees. The exercise made her so warm that she first threw her

coat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling down on to the grass and the pale green

The robin was tremendously busy. He was very much pleased to see gardening begun on his own estate. He

had often wondered at Ben Weatherstaff. Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things to eat are

turned up with the soil. Now here was this new kind of creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had

Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her midday dinner. In fact, she was rather late

in remembering, and when she put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skippingrope, she could not

believe that she had been working two or three hours. She had been actually happy all the time; and dozens

and dozens of the tiny, pale green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as cheerful as they

"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking all round at her new kingdom, and speaking to the trees

Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door and slipped through it under the ivy. She

had such red cheeks and such bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said. "Eh! mother will be pleased when I tell her what

In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had found herself digging up a sort of white

root rather like an onion. She had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on it and just

"They're bulbs," answered Martha. "Lots o' spring flowers grow from 'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops

an' crocuses an' th' big ones are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys. Th' biggest of all is lilies an'

purple flags. Eh! they are nice. Dickon's got a whole lot of 'em planted in our bit o' garden."

"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking possession of her.

"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk. Mother says he just whispers things out o' th'

"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one helped them?" inquired Mary

"They're things as helps themselves," said Martha. "That's why poor folk can afford to have 'em. If you don't

trouble 'em, most of 'em'll work away underground for a lifetime an' spread out an' have little 'uns. There's a

place in th' park woods here where there's snowdrops by thousands. They're the prettiest sight in Yorkshire

"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary. "I want to see all the things that grow in England."

"I wishI wish I had a little spade," she said. "Whatever does tha' want a spade for?" asked Martha,

Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little. She must be careful if she meant to keep her secret kingdom.

She wasn't doing any harm, but if Mr. Craven found out about the open door he would be fearfully angry and

"This is such a big lonely place," she said slowly, as if she were turning matters over in her mind. "The house

is lonely, and the park is lonely, and the gardens are lonely. So many places seem shut up. I never did many

things in India, but there were more people to look atnatives and soldiers marching byand sometimes

bands playing, and my Ayah told me stories. There is no one to talk to here except you and Ben Weatherstaff.

And you have to do your work and Ben Weatherstaff won't speak to me often. I thought if I had a little spade

I could dig somewhere as he does, and I might make a little garden if he would give me some seeds."

"There now!" she exclaimed, "if that wasn't one of th' things mother said. She says, `There's such a lot o'

room in that big place, why don't they give her a bit for herself, even if she doesn't plant nothin' but parsley

an' radishes? She'd dig an' rake away an' be right down happy over it.' Them was the very words she said."

"Eh!" said Martha. "It's like she says: `A woman as brings up twelve children learns something besides her A

"Well," was Martha's reflective answer, "at Thwaite village there's a shop or so an' I saw little garden sets

with a spade an' a rake an' a fork all tied together for two shillings. An' they was stout enough to work with,

"I've got more than that in my purse," said Mary. "Mrs. Morrison gave me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock

"Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week to spend. She gives me one every Saturday. I didn't know

"My word! that's riches," said Martha. "Tha' can buy anything in th' world tha' wants. Th' rent of our cottage

is only one an' threepence an' it's like pullin' eyeteeth to get it. Now I've just thought of somethin'," putting

"In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o' flowerseeds for a penny each, and our Dickon he knows which

is th' prettiest ones an, how to make 'em grow. He walks over to Thwaite many a day just for th' fun of it.

"Our Dickon can only read printin'. If tha' could print we could write a letter to him an' ask him to go an' buy

"Oh! you're a good girl!" Mary cried. "You are, really! I didn't know you were so nice. I know I can print

"I've got some of my own," said Martha. "I bought 'em so I could print a bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday.

I'll go and get it." She ran out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin little hands

"If I have a spade," she whispered, "I can make the earth nice and soft and dig up weeds. If I have seeds and

She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned with her pen and ink and paper she

was obliged to clear the table and carry the plates and dishes downstairs and when she got into the kitchen

Mrs. Medlock was there and told her to do something, so Mary waited for what seemed to her a long time

before she came back. Then it was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon. Mary had been taught very

little because her governesses had disliked her too much to stay with her. She could not spell particularly well

but she found that she could print letters when she tried. This was the letter Martha dictated to her: "My Dear

This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present. Miss Mary has plenty of money and will you

go to Thwaite and buy her some flower seeds and a set of garden tools to make a flowerbed. Pick the

prettiest ones and easy to grow because she has never done it before and lived in India which is different.

Give my love to mother and every one of you. Miss Mary is going to tell me a lot more so that on my next

day out you can hear about elephants and camels and gentlemen going hunting lions and tigers.

"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher boy to take it in his cart. He's a great friend o'

"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should see Dickon."

"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, for Mary had looked so pleased.

"Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him very much."

Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered something. "Now to think," she broke out, "to think o' me

forgettin' that there; an' I thought I was goin' to tell you first thing this mornin'. I asked motherand she said

"What I said Tuesday. Ask her if you might be driven over to our cottage some day and have a bit o' mother's

It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day. To think of going over the moor in the

daylight and when the sky was blue! To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children!

"Aye, she thinks she would. She knows what a tidy woman mother is and how clean she keeps the cottage."

"If I went I should see your mother as well as Dickon," said Mary, thinking it over and liking the idea very

Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon ended by making her feel quiet and thoughtful.

Martha stayed with her until teatime, but they sat in comfortable quiet and talked very little. But just before

"Because when I waited so long for you to come back I opened the door and walked down the corridor to see

if you were coming. And I heard that faroff crying again, just as we heard it the other night. There isn't a

"Eh!" said Martha restlessly. "Tha' mustn't go walkin' about in corridors an' listenin'. Mr. Craven would be

"I wasn't listening," said Mary. "I was just waiting for youand I heard it. That's three times."

"My word! There's Mrs. Medlock's bell," said Martha, and she almost ran out of the room.

"It's the strangest house any one ever lived in," said Mary drowsily, as she dropped her head on the cushioned

seat of the armchair near her. Fresh air, and digging, and skippingrope had made her feel so comfortably

The sun shone down for nearly a week on the secret garden. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when

she was thinking of it. She liked the name, and she liked still more the feeling that when its beautiful old

walls shut her in no one knew where she was. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy

place. The few books she had read and liked had been fairystory books, and she had read of secret gardens

in some of the stories. Sometimes people went to sleep in them for a hundred years, which she had thought

must be rather stupid. She had no intention of going to sleep, and, in fact, she was becoming wider awake

every day which passed at Misselthwaite. She was beginning to like to be out of doors; she no longer hated

the wind, but enjoyed it. She could run faster, and longer, and she could skip up to a hundred. The bulbs in

the secret garden must have been much astonished. Such nice clear places were made round them that they

had all the breathing space they wanted, and really, if Mistress Mary had known it, they began to cheer up

under the dark earth and work tremendously. The sun could get at them and warm them, and when the rain

Mary was an odd, determined little person, and now she had something interesting to be determined about,

she was very much absorbed, indeed. She worked and dug and pulled up weeds steadily, only becoming more

pleased with her work every hour instead of tiring of it. It seemed to her like a fascinating sort of play. She

found many more of the sprouting pale green points than she had ever hoped to find. They seemed to be

starting up everywhere and each day she was sure she found tiny new ones, some so tiny that they barely

peeped above the earth. There were so many that she remembered what Martha had said about the

"snowdrops by the thousands," and about bulbs spreading and making new ones. These had been left to

themselves for ten years and perhaps they had spread, like the snowdrops, into thousands. She wondered how

long it would be before they showed that they were flowers. Sometimes she stopped digging to look at the

garden and try to imagine what it would be like when it was covered with thousands of lovely things in

bloom. During that week of sunshine, she became more intimate with Ben Weatherstaff. She surprised him

several times by seeming to start up beside him as if she sprang out of the earth. The truth was that she was

afraid that he would pick up his tools and go away if he saw her coming, so she always walked toward him as

silently as possible. But, in fact, he did not object to her as strongly as he had at first. Perhaps he was secretly

rather flattered by her evident desire for his elderly company. Then, also, she was more civil than she had

been. He did not know that when she first saw him she spoke to him as she would have spoken to a native,

and had not known that a cross, sturdy old Yorkshire man was not accustomed to salaam to his masters, and

"Tha'rt like th' robin," he said to her one morning when he lifted his head and saw her standing by him. "I

"That's like him," snapped Ben Weatherstaff. "Makin' up to th' women folk just for vanity an' flightiness.

There's nothin' he wouldn't do for th' sake o' showin' off an' flirtin' his tailfeathers. He's as full o' pride as an

He very seldom talked much and sometimes did not even answer Mary's questions except by a grunt, but this

morning he said more than usual. He stood up and rested one hobnailed boot on the top of his spade while he

"Tha's beginnin' to do Misselthwaite credit," he said. "Tha's a bit fatter than tha' was an' tha's not quite so

yeller. Tha' looked like a young plucked crow when tha' first came into this garden. Thinks I to myself I never

Mary was not vain and as she had never thought much of her looks she was not greatly disturbed.

"I know I'm fatter," she said. "My stockings are getting tighter. They used to make wrinkles. There's the

There, indeed, was the robin, and she thought he looked nicer than ever. His red waistcoat was as glossy as

satin and he flirted his wings and tail and tilted his head and hopped about with all sorts of lively graces. He

"Aye, there tha' art!" he said. "Tha' can put up with me for a bit sometimes when tha's got no one better. Tha's

been reddenin' up thy waistcoat an' polishin' thy feathers this two weeks. I know what tha's up to. Tha's

courtin' some bold young madam somewhere tellin' thy lies to her about bein' th' finest cock robin on Missel

The robin was evidently in a fascinating, bold mood. He hopped closer and closer and looked at Ben

Weatherstaff more and more engagingly. He flew on to the nearest currant bush and tilted his head and sang a

"Tha' thinks tha'll get over me by doin' that," said Ben, wrinkling his face up in such a way that Mary felt sure

he was trying not to look pleased. "Tha' thinks no one can stand out against theethat's what tha' thinks."

The robin spread his wingsMary could scarcely believe her eyes. He flew right up to the handle of Ben

Weatherstaff's spade and alighted on the top of it. Then the old man's face wrinkled itself slowly into a new

expression. He stood still as if he were afraid to breatheas if he would not have stirred for the world, lest

"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if he were saying something quite different. "Tha' does know how to

And he stood without stirringalmost without drawing his breathuntil the robin gave another flirt to his

wings and flew away. Then he stood looking at the handle of the spade as if there might be Magic in it, and

But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was not afraid to talk to him.

"But if you wanted to make a flower garden," persisted Mary, "what would you plant?"

"Well, yes, I do. I was learned that by a young lady I was gardener to. She had a lot in a place she was fond

of, an' she loved 'em like they was childrenor robins. I've seen her bend over an' kiss 'em." He dragged out

"Heaven," he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil, "'cording to what parson says."

"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left to themselves?" she ventured.

"Well, I'd got to like 'eman' I liked heran' she liked 'em," Ben Weatherstaff admitted reluctantly. "Once

or twice a year I'd go an' work at 'em a bitprune 'em an' dig about th' roots. They run wild, but they was in

"When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can you tell whether they are dead or

"Wait till th' spring gets at 'emwait till th' sun shines on th' rain and th' rain falls on th' sunshine an' then

"Howhow?" cried Mary, forgetting to be careful. "Look along th' twigs an' branches an' if tha' see a bit of a

brown lump swelling here an' there, watch it after th' warm rain an' see what happens." He stopped suddenly

and looked curiously at her eager face. "Why does tha' care so much about roses an' such, all of a sudden?" he

"II want to play thatthat I have a garden of my own," she stammered. "Ithere is nothing for me to do.

"Well," said Ben Weatherstaff slowly, as he watched her, "that's true. Tha' hasn't."

He said it in such an odd way that Mary wondered if he was actually a little sorry for her. She had never felt

sorry for herself; she had only felt tired and cross, because she disliked people and things so much. But now

the world seemed to be changing and getting nicer. If no one found out about the secret garden, she should

She stayed with him for ten or fifteen minutes longer and asked him as many questions as she dared. He

answered every one of them in his queer grunting way and he did not seem really cross and did not pick up

his spade and leave her. He said something about roses just as she was going away and it reminded her of the

He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite suddenly he seemed to get angry with her, though she did

"Now look here!" he said sharply. "Don't tha' ask so many questions. Tha'rt th' worst wench for askin'

questions I've ever come a cross. Get thee gone an' play thee. I've done talkin' for today."

And he said it so crossly that she knew there was not the least use in staying another minute. She went

skipping slowly down the outside walk, thinking him over and saying to herself that, queer as it was, here

was another person whom she liked in spite of his crossness. She liked old Ben Weatherstaff. Yes, she did

like him. She always wanted to try to make him talk to her. Also she began to believe that he knew

There was a laurelhedged walk which curved round the secret garden and ended at a gate which opened into

a wood, in the park. She thought she would slip round this walk and look into the wood and see if there were

any rabbits hopping about. She enjoyed the skipping very much and when she reached the little gate she

opened it and went through because she heard a low, peculiar whistling sound and wanted to find out what it

It was a very strange thing indeed. She quite caught her breath as she stopped to look at it. A boy was sitting

under a tree, with his back against it, playing on a rough wooden pipe. He was a funny looking boy about

twelve. He looked very clean and his nose turned up and his cheeks were as red as poppies and never had

Mistress Mary seen such round and such blue eyes in any boy's face. And on the trunk of the tree he leaned

against, a brown squirrel was clinging and watching him, and from behind a bush nearby a cock pheasant was

delicately stretching his neck to peep out, and quite near him were two rabbits sitting up and sniffing with

tremulous nosesand actually it appeared as if they were all drawing near to watch him and listen to the

When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost as low as and rather like his

"Don't tha' move," he said. "It'd flight 'em." Mary remained motionless. He stopped playing his pipe and

began to rise from the ground. He moved so slowly that it scarcely seemed as though he were moving at all,

but at last he stood on his feet and then the squirrel scampered back up into the branches of his tree, the

pheasant withdrew his head and the rabbits dropped on all fours and began to hop away, though not at all as if

Then Mary realized that somehow she had known at first that he was Dickon. Who else could have been

charming rabbits and pheasants as the natives charm snakes in India? He had a wide, red, curving mouth and

"I got up slow," he explained, "because if tha' makes a quick move it startles 'em. A body 'as to move gentle

He did not speak to her as if they had never seen each other before but as if he knew her quite well. Mary

knew nothing about boys and she spoke to him a little stiffly because she felt rather shy.

He stooped to pick up something which had been lying on the ground beside him when he piped.

"I've got th' garden tools. There's a little spade an' rake an' a fork an' hoe. Eh! they are good 'uns. There's a

trowel, too. An' th' woman in th' shop threw in a packet o' white poppy an' one o' blue larkspur when I bought

She wished she could talk as he did. His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was

not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and

with a funny face and a rough, rustyred head. As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a clean

fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them. She liked it very

much and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes she forgot that she

They sat down and he took a clumsy little brown paper package out of his coat pocket. He untied the string

and inside there were ever so many neater and smaller packages with a picture of a flower on each one.

"There's a lot o' mignonette an' poppies," he said. "Mignonette's th' sweetest smellin' thing as grows, an' it'll

grow wherever you cast it, same as poppies will. Them as'll come up an' bloom if you just whistle to 'em,

them's th' nicest of all." He stopped and turned his head quickly, his poppycheeked face lighting up.

The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries, and Mary thought she knew whose it was.

"Aye," said Dickon, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "he's callin' some one he's friends with.

That's same as sayin' `Here I am. Look at me. I wants a bit of a chat.' There he is in the bush. Whose is he?"

"Aye, he knows thee," said Dickon in his low voice again. "An' he likes thee. He's took thee on. He'll tell me

He moved quite close to the bush with the slow movement Mary had noticed before, and then he made a

sound almost like the robin's own twitter. The robin listened a few seconds, intently, and then answered quite

"Do you think he is?" cried Mary eagerly. She did so want to know. "Do you think he really likes me?"

"He wouldn't come near thee if he didn't," answered Dickon. "Birds is rare choosers an' a robin can flout a

body worse than a man. See, he's making up to thee now. `Cannot tha' see a chap?' he's sayin'."

And it really seemed as if it must be true. He so sidled and twittered and tilted as he hopped on his bush.

Dickon's grin spread until he seemed all wide, red, curving mouth, and he rubbed his rough head.

"I think I do, and they think I do," he said. "I've lived on th' moor with 'em so long. I've watched 'em break

shell an' come out an' fledge an' learn to fly an' begin to sing, till I think I'm one of 'em. Sometimes I think

p'raps I'm a bird, or a fox, or a rabbit, or a squirrel, or even a beetle, an' I don't know it."

He laughed and came back to the log and began to talk about the flower seeds again. He told her what they

looked like when they were flowers; he told her how to plant them, and watch them, and feed and water them.

"See here," he said suddenly, turning round to look at her. "I'll plant them for thee myself. Where is tha'

Mary's thin hands clutched each other as they lay on her lap. She did not know what to say, so for a whole

minute she said nothing. She had never thought of this. She felt miserable. And she felt as if she went red and

It was true that she had turned red and then pale. Dickon saw her do it, and as she still said nothing, he began

"I don't know anything about boys," she said slowly. "Could you keep a secret, if I told you one? It's a great

secret. I don't know what I should do if any one found it out. I believe I should die!" She said the last

Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his rough head again, but he answered

quite goodhumoredly. "I'm keepin' secrets all th' time," he said. "If I couldn't keep secrets from th' other

lads, secrets about foxes' cubs, an' birds' nests, an' wild things' holes, there'd be naught safe on th' moor. Aye,

Mistress Mary did not mean to put out her hand and clutch his sleeve but she did it.

"I've stolen a garden," she said very fast. "It isn't mine. It isn't anybody's. Nobody wants it, nobody cares for

it, nobody ever goes into it. Perhaps everything is dead in it already. I don't know."

"I don't care, I don't care! Nobody has any right to take it from me when I care about it and they don't.

They're letting it die, all shut in by itself," she ended passionately, and she threw her arms over her face and

Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder. "Ehhh!" he said, drawing his exclamation out

"I've nothing to do," said Mary. "Nothing belongs to me. I found it myself and I got into it myself. I was only

just like the robin, and they wouldn't take it from the robin." "Where is it?" asked Dickon in a dropped voice.

Mistress Mary got up from the log at once. She knew she felt contrary again, and obstinate, and she did not

care at all. She was imperious and Indian, and at the same time hot and sorrowful.

She led him round the laurel path and to the walk where the ivy grew so thickly. Dickon followed her with a

queer, almost pitying, look on his face. He felt as if he were being led to look at some strange bird's nest and

must move softly. When she stepped to the wall and lifted the hanging ivy he started. There was a door and

Mary pushed it slowly open and they passed in together, and then Mary stood and waved her hand round

"It's this," she said. "It's a secret garden, and I'm the only one in the world who wants it to be alive."

"Eh!" he almost whispered, "it is a queer, pretty place! It's like as if a body was in a dream."

For two or three minutes he stood looking round him, while Mary watched him, and then he began to walk

about softly, even more lightly than Mary had walked the first time she had found herself inside the four

walls. His eyes seemed to be taking in everythingthe gray trees with the gray creepers climbing over them

and hanging from their branches, the tangle on the walls and among the grass, the evergreen alcoves with the

"We must talk low," he said, "or some one'll hear us an' wonder what's to do in here."

"Oh! I forgot!" said Mary, feeling frightened and putting her hand quickly against her mouth. "Did you know

about the garden?" she asked again when she had recovered herself. Dickon nodded.

"Martha told me there was one as no one ever went inside," he answered. "Us used to wonder what it was

He stopped and looked round at the lovely gray tangle about him, and his round eyes looked queerly happy.

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th' safest nestin' place in England. No one never

comin' near an' tangles o' trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't build here."

"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead."

He stepped over to the nearest treean old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain

of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.

"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An' there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some

new last year. This here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard,

"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that "wick" meant "alive"

"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and

She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They went from tree to tree and from

bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.

"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but

th' others has growed an' growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he pulled down a

thick gray, drylooking branch. "A body might think this was dead wood, but I don't believe it isdown to

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifelesslooking branch through, not far above the earth.

"There!" he said exultantly. "I told thee so. There's green in that wood yet. Look at it."

"When it looks a bit greenish an' juicy like that, it's wick," he explained. "When th' inside is dry an' breaks

easy, like this here piece I've cut off, it's done for. There's a big root here as all this live wood sprung out of,

an' if th' old wood's cut off an' it's dug round, and took care of there'll be" he stopped and lifted his face to

look up at the climbing and hanging sprays above him"there'll be a fountain o' roses here this summer."

They went from bush to bush and from tree to tree. He was very strong and clever with his knife and knew

how to cut the dry and dead wood away, and could tell when an unpromising bough or twig had still green

life in it. In the course of half an hour Mary thought she could tell too, and when he cut through a

lifelesslooking branch she would cry out joyfully under her breath when she caught sight of the least shade

of moist green. The spade, and hoe, and fork were very useful. He showed her how to use the fork while he

They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses when he caught sight of something

"I don't," she answered, "but they were so little, and the grass was so thick and strong, and they looked as if

they had no room to breathe. So I made a place for them. I don't even know what they are."

"Tha' was right," he said. "A gardener couldn't have told thee better. They'll grow now like Jack's beanstalk.

They're crocuses an' snowdrops, an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch, "an here's

"Tha' has done a lot o' work for such a little wench," he said, looking her over.

"I'm growing fatter," said Mary, "and I'm growing stronger. I used always to be tired. When I dig I'm not tired

"It's rare good for thee," he said, nodding his head wisely. "There's naught as nice as th' smell o' good clean

earth, except th' smell o' fresh growin' things when th' rain falls on 'em. I get out on th' moor many a day

when it's rainin' an' I lie under a bush an' listen to th' soft swish o' drops on th' heather an, I just sniff an, sniff.

"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly. She had never seen such a funny boy,

"Not me," he said, grinning. "I never ketched cold since I was born. I wasn't brought up nesh enough. I've

chased about th' moor in all weathers same as th' rabbits does. Mother says I've sniffed up too much fresh air

for twelve year' to ever get to sniffin' with cold. I'm as tough as a whitethorn knobstick."

He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him and helping him with her fork or the

"There's a lot of work to do here!" he said once, looking about quite exultantly.

"Will you come again and help me to do it?" Mary begged. "I'm sure I can help, too. I can dig and pull up

"I'll come every day if tha' wants me, rain or shine," he answered stoutly. "It's the best fun I ever had in my

"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive I'llI don't know what I'll do," she

"I'll tell thee what tha'll do," said Dickon, with his happy grin. "Tha'll get fat an' tha'll get as hungry as a

young fox an' tha'll learn how to talk to th' robin same as I do. Eh! we'll have a lot o' fun."

He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and bushes with a thoughtful expression.

"I wouldn't want to make it look like a gardener's garden, all clipped an' spick an' span, would you?" he said.

"It's nicer like this with things runnin' wild, an' swingin' an' catchin' hold of each other."

"Don't let us make it tidy," said Mary anxiously. "It wouldn't seem like a secret garden if it was tidy."

Dickon stood rubbing his rustyred head with a rather puzzled look. "It's a secret garden sure enough," he

said, "but seems like some one besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' ago."

"But the door was locked and the key was buried," said Mary. "No one could get in."

"That's true," he answered. "It's a queer place. Seems to me as if there'd been a bit o' prunin' done here an'

Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should never forget that first morning when

her garden began to grow. Of course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon began

to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had sung at her when he wanted to tease her.

"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel, "an' there's Canterbury bells, an'

"Let's plant some," said Mary. "There's lilies o' th, valley here already; I saw 'em. They'll have growed too

close an' we'll have to separate 'em, but there's plenty. Th' other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but

I can bring you some bits o' plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha' want 'em?"

Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India and of how she had hated them and of

`Mistress Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells, and cockle shells, And

I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers like silver bells."

"Eh!" he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was sniffing up the scent of it. "There doesn't

seem to be no need for no one to be contrary when there's flowers an' such like, an' such lots o' friendly wild

things runnin' about makin' homes for themselves, or buildin' nests an' singin' an' whistlin', does there?"

"Dickon," she said, "you are as nice as Martha said you were. I like you, and you make the fifth person. I

Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the grate. He did look funny and delightful,

Mary thought, with his round blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turnedup nose.

"Your mother and Martha," Mary checked them off on her fingers, "and the robin and Ben Weatherstaff."

Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting his arm over his mouth.

"I know tha' thinks I'm a queer lad," he said, "but I think tha' art th' queerest little lass I ever saw."

Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a question she had never dreamed of

asking any one before. And she tried to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his lan guage, and in India a

"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an' so does th' robin, I do believe!"

And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary was startled and sorry when she heard

"I shall have to go," she said mournfully. "And you will have to go too, won't you?"

"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said. "Mother always lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my

He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite

clean, coarse, blue and white handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of something laid

"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice o' fat bacon with it today."

"Run on an' get thy victuals," he said. "I'll be done with mine first. I'll get some more work done before I start

"I'll call th' robin up," he said, "and give him th' rind o' th' bacon to peck at. They likes a bit o' fat wonderful."

Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly it seemed as if he might be a sort of wood fairy who might

be gone when she came into the garden again. He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly halfway to

His poppycolored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of bread and bacon, but he managed to smile

"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does tha' think I'd tell any one? Not me," he

Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her room. Her hair was ruffled on her

forehead and her cheeks were bright pink. Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near

"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never thought he was handsome. His nose turns up

"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful. "Though they're a nice color." "I like them round,"

"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds an' th' clouds. But he has got a big

"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said. "But I knowed it would be that way when tha' saw him.

"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em. He'd be sure to bring 'em if they was in Yorkshire. He's such a

Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but she did not. She was very much interested

in the seeds and gardening tools, and there was only one moment when Mary was frightened. This was when

"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating. "Well, I wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand,

"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen undergardeners and Ben Weatherstaff."

"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha. "He's not half as bad as he looks, for all he's so

crabbed. Mr. Craven lets him do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he used

to make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he'd find you a corner somewhere out o' the way."

"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one could mind my having it, could they?" Mary said

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the table she was going to run to her

"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said. "I thought I'd let you eat your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back

"Oh!" she said. "Why! Why! He didn't want to see me when I came. I heard Pitcher say he didn't." "Well,"

explained Martha, "Mrs. Medlock says it's because o' mother. She was walkin' to Thwaite village an' she met

him. She'd never spoke to him before, but Mrs. Craven had been to our cottage two or three times. He'd

forgot, but mother hadn't an' she made bold to stop him. I don't know what she said to him about you but she

said somethin' as put him in th' mind to see you before he goes away again, tomorrow."

"He's goin' for a long time. He mayn't come back till autumn or winter. He's goin' to travel in foreign places.

If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be time to watch the secret garden come

alive. Even if he found out then and took it away from her she would have had that much at least.

She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs. Medlock walked in. She had on her best

black dress and cap, and her collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man's face on it. It

was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years ago, and she always wore it when she was

"Your hair's rough," she said quickly. "Go and brush it. Martha, help her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven

All the pink left Mary's cheeks. Her heart began to thump and she felt herself changing into a stiff, plain,

silent child again. She did not even answer Mrs. Medlock, but turned and walked into her bedroom, followed

by Martha. She said nothing while her dress was changed, and her hair brushed, and after she was quite tidy

she followed Mrs. Medlock down the corridors, in silence. What was there for her to say? She was obliged to

go and see Mr. Craven and he would not like her, and she would not like him. She knew what he would think

She was taken to a part of the house she had not been into before. At last Mrs. Medlock knocked at a door,

and when some one said, "Come in," they entered the room together. A man was sitting in an armchair before

"You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to take her away," said Mr. Craven.

When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a plain little thing, twisting her thin

hands together. She could see that the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with high,

rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with white. He turned his head over his high

He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been so miserable. He looked as if the

sight of her worried and fretted him and as if he did not know what in the world to do with her.

What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely saw her, as if they were seeing

"I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember you? I intended to send you a governess or a nurse, or some

"I amI am too big for a nurse," said Mary. "And pleaseplease don't make me have a governess yet."

"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did not tremble. "I never liked it in India.

"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will," he said. "She thought you had better get stronger

"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor," argued Mary.

"Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother sent me a skippingrope. I skip and runand I look about to

"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice. "You could not do any harm, a child like you! You

Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see the excited lump which she felt jump

"Don't look so frightened," he exclaimed. "Of course you may. I am your guardian, though I am a poor one

for any child. I cannot give you time or attention. I am too ill, and wretched and distracted; but I wish you to

be happy and comfortable. I don't know anything about children, but Mrs. Medlock is to see that you have all

you need. I sent for you today because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you. Her daughter had talked about

"She ought to," said Mr. Craven. "I thought her rather bold to stop me on the moor, but she saidMrs.

Craven had been kind to her." It seemed hard for him to speak his dead wife's name. "She is a respectable

woman. Now I have seen you I think she said sensible things. Play out of doors as much as you like. It's a big

place and you may go where you like and amuse yourself as you like. Is there anything you want?" as if a

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound and that they were not the ones she had

"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary. "I was always ill and tired and it was too hot. I sometimes

made littlebeds in the sand and stuck flowers in them. But here it is different."

"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she must have reminded him of

something. When he stopped and spoke to her his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

"You can have as much earth as you want," he said. "You remind me of some one else who loved the earth

and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want," with something like a smile, "take it, child, and

"Anywhere," he answered. "There! You must go now, I am tired." He touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock.

Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been waiting in the corridor.

"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant.

She must be less delicate before she begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild in the

garden. Don't look after her too much. She needs liberty and fresh air and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to

Mrs. Medlock looked pleased. She was relieved to hear that she need not "look after" Mary too much. She

had felt her a tiresome charge and had indeed seen as little of her as she dared. In addition to this she was

"Thank you, sir," she said. "Susan Sowerby and me went to school together and she's as sensible and

goodhearted a woman as you'd find in a day's walk. I never had any children myself and she's had twelve,

and there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can get no harm from them. I'd always take Susan

Sowerby's advice about children myself. She's what you might call healthymindedif you understand me."

"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take Miss Mary away now and send Pitcher to me."

When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew back to her room. She found Martha

waiting there. Martha had, in fact, hurried back after she had removed the dinner service.

"I can have my garden!" cried Mary. "I may have it where I like! I am not going to have a governess for a

long time! Your mother is coming to see me and I may go to your cottage! He says a little girl like me could

"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face is so miserable and his forehead is all

She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so much longer than she had thought she

should and she knew Dickon would have to set out early on his fivemile walk. When she slipped through

the door under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left him. The gardening tools were laid

together under a tree. She ran to them, looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen. He

had gone away and the secret garden was emptyexcept for the robin who had just flown across the wall

and sat on a standard rosebush watching her. "He's gone," she said woefully. "Oh! was hewas hewas

Something white fastened to the standard rosebush caught her eye. It was a piece of paper, in fact, it was a

piece of the letter she had printed for Martha to send to Dickon. It was fastened on the bush with a long thorn,

and in a minute she knew Dickon had left it there. There were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of

picture. At first she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest with a bird sitting on it.

Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and she showed it to Martha.

"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never knew our Dickon was as clever as that. That there's a picture of a

Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had meant that she might be sure he

would keep her secret. Her garden was her nest and she was like a missel thrush. Oh, how she did like that

She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep looking forward to the morning.

But you never know what the weather will do in Yorkshire, particularly in the springtime. She was awakened

in the night by the sound of rain beating with heavy drops against her window. It was pouring down in

torrents and the wind was "wuthering" round the corners and in the chimneys of the huge old house. Mary sat

"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it knew I did not want it."

She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not cry, but she lay and hated the sound of

the heavily beating rain, she hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again. The

mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself. If she had felt happy it would probably

have lulled her to sleep. How it "wuthered" and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against the

"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on crying," she said.

She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour, when suddenly something made her sit

up in bed and turn her head toward the door listening. She listened and she listened.

"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper. "That isn't the wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard

The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a faroff faint sound of fretful crying.

She listened for a few minutes and each minute she became more and more sure. She felt as if she must find

out what it was. It seemed even stranger than the secret garden and the buried key. Perhaps the fact that she

was in a rebellious mood made her bold. She put her foot out of bed and stood on the floor.

"I am going to find out what it is," she said. "Everybody is in bed and I don't care about Mrs. MedlockI

There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly out of the room. The corridor looked

very long and dark, but she was too excited to mind that. She thought she remembered the corners she must

turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with tapestrythe one Mrs. Medlock had come through

the day she lost herself. The sound had come up that passage. So she went on with her dim light, almost

feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she fancied she could hear it. The faroff faint crying went on

and led her. Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again. Was this the right corner to turn?

She stopped and thought. Yes it was. Down this passage and then to the left, and then up two broad steps, and

She pushed it open very gently and closed it behind her, and she stood in the corridor and could hear the

crying quite plainly, though it was not loud. It was on the other side of the wall at her left and a few yards

farther on there was a door. She could see a glimmer of light coming from beneath it. The Someone was

So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was standing in the room!

It was a big room with ancient, handsome furniture in it. There was a low fire glowing faintly on the hearth

and a night light burning by the side of a carved fourposted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep again and was dreaming without knowing

The boy had a sharp, delicate face the color of ivory and he seemed to have eyes too big for it. He had also a

lot of hair which tumbled over his forehead in heavy locks and made his thin face seem smaller. He looked

like a boy who had been ill, but he was crying more as if he were tired and cross than as if he were in pain.

Mary stood near the door with her candle in her hand, holding her breath. Then she crept across the room,

and, as she drew nearer, the light attracted the boy's attention and he turned his head on his pillow and stared

"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half frightened. "Are you one?"

He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what strange eyes he had. They were agate gray

and they looked too big for his face because they had black lashes all round them.

"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why didn't they?"

"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with an anxious expression.

"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very often. You might be one of them."

Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she put a piece of it between his fingers.

"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said. "I will pinch you a little if you like, to show you how

"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I heard some one crying and wanted to

"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your name again."

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a little more as if he believed in her

"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let people see me and talk me over."

"Because I am like this always, ill and having to lie down. My father won't let people talk me over either. The

servants are not allowed to speak about me. If I live I may be a hunchback, but I shan't live. My father hates

"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. "What a queer house! Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are

"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it. It tires me too much."

"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at me. He thinks I don't know, but I've

"Oh! justjust a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you been here always?" "Nearly always.

Sometimes I have been taken to places at the seaside, but I won't stay because people stare at me. I used to

wear an iron thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor came from London to see me and said it was

stupid. He told them to take it off and keep me out in the fresh air. I hate fresh air and I don't want to go out."

"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully. "Sometimes when I open my eyes I

"We're both awake," said Mary. She glanced round the room with its high ceiling and shadowy corners and

dim firelight. "It looks quite like a dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the house is

"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you are real, sit down on that big footstool

Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the cushioned stool. She did not want to

go away at all. She wanted to stay in the mysterious hiddenaway room and talk to the mysterious boy.

He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to know which corridor her room was

on; he wanted to know what she had been doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had

lived before she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these questions and many more and he lay back on his

pillow and listened. He made her tell him a great deal about India and about her voyage across the ocean. She

found out that because he had been an invalid he had not learned things as other children had. One of his

nurses had taught him to read when he was quite little and he was always reading and looking at pictures in

Though his father rarely saw him when he was awake, he was given all sorts of wonderful things to amuse

himself with. He never seemed to have been amused, however. He could have anything he asked for and was

never made to do anything he did not like to do. "Everyone is obliged to do what pleases me," he said

indifferently. "It makes me ill to be angry. No one believes I shall live to grow up."

He said it as if he was so accustomed to the idea that it had ceased to matter to him at all. He seemed to like

the sound of Mary's voice. As she went on talking he listened in a drowsy, interested way. Once or twice she

wondered if he were not gradually falling into a doze. But at last he asked a question which opened up a new

"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was buried. And it has been locked for

"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he exclaimed as if he were

"Itit was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously. "He locked the door. No oneno one knew

where he buried the key." "What sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.

"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's careful answer.

But it was too late to be careful. He was too much like herself. He too had had nothing to think about and the

idea of a hidden garden attracted him as it had attracted her. He asked question after question. Where was it?

"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told not to answer questions."

"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could make people answer questions, who

"Everyone is obliged to please me. I told you that," he said. "If I were to live, this place would sometime

Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see quite plainly that this mysterious

boy had been. He thought that the whole world belonged to him. How peculiar he was and how coolly he

"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was curious and partly in hope of making him

"I don't suppose I shall," he answered as indifferently as he had spoken before. "Ever since I remember

anything I have heard people say I shan't. At first they thought I was too little to understand and now they

think I don't hear. But I do. My doctor is my father's cousin. He is quite poor and if I die he will have all

Misselthwaite when my father is dead. I should think he wouldn't want me to live."

"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to die. When I feel ill I lie here and think about

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know who it was. Were you crying about

"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk about that garden. Don't you want to see

"I do," he went on persistently. "I don't think I ever really wanted to see anything before, but I want to see

that garden. I want the key dug up. I want the door unlocked. I would let them take me there in my chair. That

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like stars and looked more immense than

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and I will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be spoiledeverything! Dickon would never come

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make them open the door and take you in

"You seeyou see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselvesif there was a door, hidden somewhere

under the ivyif there wasand we could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it behind

us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our garden and pretended thatthat we were missel

thrushes and it was our nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds and made it

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will live but the roses"

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the earth nowpushing up pale green

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in rooms if you are ill."

"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working

under the earth," said Mary. "If the garden was a secret and we could get into it we could watch the things

grow bigger every day, and see how many roses are alive. Don't you. see? Oh, don't you see how much nicer

"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to grow up. They don't know I know that, so

"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary, "perhapsI feel almost sure I can find out

how to get in sometime. And thenif the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you can always do

what you want to do, perhapsperhaps we might find some boy who would push you, and we could go

"I shouldlikethat," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy. "I should like that. I should not mind

Mary began to recover her breath and feel safer because the idea of keeping the secret seemed to please him.

She felt almost sure that if she kept on talking and could make him see the garden in his mind as she had seen

it he would like it so much that he could not bear to think that everybody might tramp in to it when they

"I'll tell you what I think it would be like, if we could go into it," she said. "It has been shut up so long things

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the roses which might have clambered from

tree to tree and hung downabout the many birds which might have built their nests there because it was so

safe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben Weatherstaff, and there was so much to tell about the

robin and it was so easy and safe to talk about it that she ceased to be afraid. The robin pleased him so much

that he smiled until he looked almost beautiful, and at first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than

"I did not know birds could be like that," he said. "But if you stay in a room you never see things. What a lot

She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He evidently did not expect an answer and the

"I am going to let you look at something," he said. "Do you see that rosecolored silk curtain hanging on the

Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a curtain of soft silk hanging over what

Mary got up, much mystified, and found the cord. When she pulled it the silk curtain ran back on rings and

when it ran back it uncovered a picture. It was the picture of a girl with a laughing face. She had bright hair

tied up with a blue ribbon and her gay, lovely eyes were exactly like Colin's unhappy ones, agate gray and

looking twice as big as they really were because of the black lashes all round them.

"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it."

"If she had lived I believe I should not have been ill always," he grumbled. "I dare say I should have lived,

too. And my father would not have hated to look at me. I dare say I should have had a strong back. Draw the

"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like yoursat least they are the same shape

"I made them do it," he said. "Sometimes I don't like to see her looking at me. She smiles too much when I

am ill and miserable. Besides, she is mine and I don't want everyone to see her." There were a few moments

"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she inquired.

"She would do as I told her to do," he answered. "And I should tell her that I wanted you to come here and

"So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often as I can, but"she hesitated"I shall have to look every day for

"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said. "I will not tell them until they find out. I can always send the

"She is the one who is asleep in the other room. The nurse went away yesterday to stay all night with her

sister and she always makes Martha attend to me when she wants to go out. Martha shall tell you when to

Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked questions about the crying.

"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and then Martha comes."

"I have been here a long time," said Mary. "Shall I go away now? Your eyes look sleepy."

"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India. I

Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she leaned against the bed and began

to stroke and pat his hand and sing a very low little chanting song in Hindustani.

"That is nice," he said more drowsily still, and she went on chanting and stroking, but when she looked at him

again his black lashes were lying close against his cheeks, for his eyes were shut and he was fast asleep. So

The moor was hidden in mist when the morning came, and the rain had not stopped pouring down. There

could be no going out of doors. Martha was so busy that Mary had no opportunity of talking to her, but in the

afternoon she asked her to come and sit with her in the nursery. She came bringing the stocking she was

"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say."

"I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see where it came from. It was Colin. I

"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying. "Tha' shouldn't have done ittha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble.

I never told thee nothin' about himbut tha'll get me in trouble. I shall lose my place and what'll mother do!"

"You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We talked and talked and he said he was glad I

"Was he?" cried Martha. "Art tha' sure? Tha' doesn't know what he's like when anything vexes him. He's a

big lad to cry like a baby, but when he's in a passion he'll fair scream just to frighten us. He knows us daren't

"He wasn't vexed," said Mary. "I asked him if I should go away and he made me stay. He asked me questions

and I sat on a big footstool and talked to him about India and about the robin and gardens. He wouldn't let me

"I can scarcely believe thee!" she protested. "It's as if tha'd walked straight into a lion's den. If he'd been like

he is most times he'd have throwed himself into one of his tantrums and roused th' house. He won't let

"He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at me. We stared!" said Mary.

"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock finds out, she'll think I broke orders and

"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It's to be a sort of secret just at first," said Mary

"Aye, that's true enoughth' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her forehead with her apron.

"He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him every day. And you are to tell me

"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is ordered to obey him," Mary argued.

"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was nice to thee!"

"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India, but I can't make it. I just went into

his room and I was so surprised to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and stared at me.

And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he was. And it was so queer being there alone

together in the middle of the night and not knowing about each other. And we began to ask each other

"Nobody knows for sure and certain," said Martha. "Mr. Craven went off his head like when he was born. Th'

doctors thought he'd have to be put in a 'sylum. It was because Mrs. Craven died like I told you. He wouldn't

set eyes on th' baby. He just raved and said it'd be another hunchback like him and it'd better die."

"He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began all wrong. Mother said that there was enough trouble and raging in

th' house to set any child wrong. They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been takin' care of

itkeepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk. Once they made him wear a brace but he fretted so he

was downright ill. Then a big doctor came to see him an' made them take it off. He talked to th' other doctor

quite roughin a polite way. He said there'd been too much medicine and too much lettin' him have his own

"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha. "I won't say as he hasn't been ill a good bit. He's had

coughs an' colds that's nearly killed him two or three times. Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he had

typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He'd been out of his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse,

thinkin' he didn't know nothin', an' she said, `He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing for him an' for

everybody.' An' she looked at him an' there he was with his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible as she was

herself. She didn't know wha'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, `You give me some water an' stop

"Mother says there's no reason why any child should live that gets no fresh air an' doesn't do nothin' but lie on

his back an' read picturebooks an' take medicine. He's weak and hates th' trouble o' bein' taken out o' doors,

Mary sat and looked at the fire. "I wonder," she said slowly, "if it would not do him good to go out into a

"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they took him out where the roses is by the

fountain. He'd been readin' in a paper about people gettin' somethin' he called `rose cold' an' he began to

sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't know th' rules passed by an' looked at him curious.

He threw himself into a passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to be a hunchback. He

"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha. "Tha' may as well know that at th' start."

"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said. "I hope he's in a good temper."

She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a puzzled expression.

"Well, tha' has bewitched him," she said. "He's up on his sofa with his picturebooks. He's told the nurse to

stay away until six o'clock. I'm to wait in the next room. Th' minute she was gone he called me to him an'

says, `I want Mary Lennox to come and talk to me, and remember you're not to tell any one.' You'd better go

Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as much as she wanted to see Dickon;

There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in the daylight she saw it was a very

beautiful room indeed. There were rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the walls

which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the gray sky and falling rain. Colin looked

rather like a picture himself. He was wrapped in a velvet dressinggown and sat against a big brocaded

"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary. "You don't know how frightened Martha is. She says

Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes. Colin was still frowning.

"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock send you away if she finds it out?"

"I'll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing," said Master Craven grandly. "She wouldn't

"What I want is your duty" said Colin more grandly still. "I'll take care of you. Now go away."

When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at him as if he had set her

"This is the first one," said Mary, seating herself on the big stool. "Once in India I saw a boy who was a

Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you spoke

to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told themin a minute. I think they would have been killed if

"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first tell me what the second thing was."

She might as well tell him, she thought she could talk about Dickon without mentioning the secret garden.

She had liked to hear Martha talk about him. Besides, she longed to talk about him. It would seem to bring

"He is Martha's brother. He is twelve years old," she explained. "He is not like any one else in the world. He

can charm foxes and squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft tune on

There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one suddenly toward him. "There is a

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he turned to one of them.

"He played on his pipe and they listened," Mary explained. "But he doesn't call it Magic. He says it's because

he lives on the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a

rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and the spots on his cheeks burned.

"He knows all about eggs and nests," Mary went on. "And he knows where foxes and badgers and otters live.

He keeps them secret so that other boys won't find their holes and frighten them. He knows about everything

"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a great, bare, dreary place?"

"It's the most beautiful place," protested Mary. "Thousands of lovely things grow on it and there are

thousands of little creatures all busy building nests and making holes and burrows and chippering or singing

or squeaking to each other. They are so busy and having such fun under the earth or in the trees or heather.

"I have never been there once, really," said Mary suddenly remembering. "I only drove over it in the dark. I

thought it was hideous. Martha told me about it first and then Dickon. When Dickon talks about it you feel as

if you saw things and heard them and as if you were standing in the heather with the sun shining and the

"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He looked like a person listening to a new sound

"Go on the moor! How could I? I am going to die." "How do you know?" said Mary unsympathetically. She

didn't like the way he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic. She felt rather as if he

"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly. "They are always whispering about it and

"The servantsand of course Dr. Craven because he would get Misselthwaite and be rich instead of poor. He

daren't say so, but he always looks cheerful when I am worse. When I had typhoid fever his face got quite fat.

And then he lay back on his cushion and was still, as if he were thinking. And there was quite a long silence.

Perhaps they were both of them thinking strange things children do not usually think. "I like the grand doctor

from London, because he made them take the iron thing off," said Mary at last "Did he say you were going to

"He didn't whisper," Colin answered. "Perhaps he knew I hated whispering. I heard him say one thing quite

aloud. He said, 'The lad might live if he would make up his mind to it. Put him in the humor.' It sounded as if

"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary reflecting. She felt as if she would like

this thing to be settled one way or the other. "I believe Dickon would. He's always talking about live things.

He never talks about dead things or things that are ill. He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds

flyingor looking down at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue eyes and they are so

wide open with looking about. And he laughs such a big laugh with his wide mouthand his cheeks are as

redas red as cherries." She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression quite changed at the

"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it. Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk

It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant to talk about the moor and about the

cottage and the fourteen people who lived in it on sixteen shillings a weekand the children who got fat on

the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon's motherand the skippingropeand the moor

with the sun on itand about pale green points sticking up out of the black sod. And it was all so alive that

Mary talked more than she had ever talked beforeand Colin both talked and listened as he had never done

either before. And they both began to laugh over nothings as children will when they are happy together. And

they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy

natural tenyearold creaturesinstead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he

They enjoyed themselves so much that they forgot the pictures and they forgot about the time. They had been

laughing quite loudly over Ben Weatherstaff and his robin, and Colin was actually sitting up as if he had

forgotten about his weak back, when he suddenly remembered something. "Do you know there is one thing

It seemed so queer that they had talked so much and never remembered this simple thing that they laughed

more than ever, because they had got into the humor to laugh at anything. And in the midst of the fun the

Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back because he had accidentally bumped

"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almost starting out of her head. "Good Lord!"

Then Mary was reminded of the boy Rajah again. Colin answered as if neither the doctor's alarm nor Mrs.

Medlock's terror were of the slightest consequence. He was as little disturbed or frightened as if an elderly cat

"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said. "I asked her to come and talk to me. I like her. She must come

Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock. "Oh, sir" she panted. "I don't know how it's happened.

There's not a servant on the place tha'd dare to talkthey all have their orders."

"Nobody told her anything," said Colin. "She heard me crying and found me herself. I am glad she came.

Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain that he dare not oppose his patient. He

"I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not good for you, my boy," he said.

"I should be excited if she kept away," answered Colin, his eyes beginning to look dangerously sparkling. "I

am better. She makes me better. The nurse must bring up her tea with mine. We will have tea together."

Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but there was evidently nothing to be

"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock. "But"thinking the matter over"he looked

"She came into the room last night. She stayed with me a long time. She sang a Hindustani song to me and it

made me go to sleep," said Colin. "I was better when I wakened up. I wanted my breakfast. I want my tea

Dr. Craven did not stay very long. He talked to the nurse for a few minutes when she came into the room and

said a few words of warning to Colin. He must not talk too much; he must not forget that he was ill; he must

not forget that he was very easily tired. Mary thought that there seemed to be a number of uncomfortable

Colin looked fretful and kept his strange blacklashed eyes fixed on Dr. Craven's face.

"I want to forget it," he said at last. "She makes me forget it. That is why I want her."

Dr. Craven did not look happy when he left the room. He gave a puzzled glance at the little girl sitting on the

large stool. She had become a stiff, silent child again as soon as he entered and he could not see what the

attraction was. The boy actually did look brighter, howeverand he sighed rather heavily as he went down

"They are always wanting me to eat things when I don't want to," said Colin, as the nurse brought in the tea

and put it on the table by the sofa. "Now, if you'll eat I will. Those muffins look so nice and hot. Tell me

After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and the sun which poured down was

quite hot. Though there had been no chance to see either the secret garden or Dickon, Mistress Mary had

enjoyed herself very much. The week had not seemed long. She had spent hours of every day with Colin in

his room, talking about Rajahs or gardens or Dickon and the cottage on the moor. They had looked at the

splendid books and pictures and sometimes Mary had read things to Colin, and sometimes he had read a little

to her. When he was amused and interested she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid at all, except that

"You are a sly young one to listen and get out of your bed to go following things up like you did that night,"

Mrs. Medlock said once. "But there's no saying it's not been a sort of blessing to the lot of us. He's not had a

tantrum or a whining fit since you made friends. The nurse was just going to give up the case because she

was so sick of him, but she says she doesn't mind staying now you've gone on duty with her," laughing a

In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the secret garden. There were certain things

she wanted to find out from him, but she felt that she must find them out without asking him direct questions.

In the first place, as she began to like to be with him, she wanted to discover whether he was the kind of boy

you could tell a secret to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently so pleased with the idea of

a garden no one knew anything about that she thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had not known

him long enough to be sure. The second thing she wanted to find out was this: If he could be trustedif he

really couldwouldn't it be possible to take him to the garden without having any one find it out? The grand

doctor had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had said that he would not mind fresh air in a secret

garden. Perhaps if he had a great deal of fresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw things growing he

might not think so much about dying. Mary had seen herself in the glass sometimes lately when she had

realized that she looked quite a different creature from the child she had seen when she arrived from India.

"Th' air from th' moor has done thee good already," she had said. "Tha'rt not nigh so yeller and tha'rt not nigh

so scrawny. Even tha' hair doesn't slamp down on tha' head so flat. It's got some life in it so as it sticks out a

"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter. I'm sure there's more of it."

"It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling it up a little round her face. "Tha'rt not half so ugly when it's that

If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be good for Colin. But then, if he hated

"I always hated it," he answered, "even when I was very little. Then when they took me to the seaside and I

used to lie in my carriage everybody used to stare and ladies would stop and talk to my nurse and then they

would begin to whisper and I knew then they were saying I shouldn't live to grow up. Then sometimes the

ladies would pat my cheeks and say `Poor child!' Once when a lady did that I screamed out loud and bit her

"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your room?" said Mary. Then she began to

"I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he said. "You can't bite a ghost or a dream, and if you scream they

"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over every word, "there's one boy I believe I

"The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over, "perhaps that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort

Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both laughing a great deal and finding the idea

On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very early. The sun was pouring in slanting

rays through the blinds and there was something so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of bed and

ran to the window. She drew up the blinds and opened the window itself and a great waft of fresh, scented air

blew in upon her. The moor was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had happened to it.

There were tender little fluting sounds here and there and everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to

tune up for a concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun.

"It's warmwarm!" she said. "It will make the green points push up and up and up, and it will make the

She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could, breathing big breaths and sniffing the air

until she laughed because she remembered what Dickon's mother had said about the end of his nose quivering

like a rabbit's. "It must be very early," she said. "The little clouds are all pink and I've never seen the sky look

She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her clothes in five minutes. She knew a small side

door which she could unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in her stocking feet and put on her shoes in the

hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and when the door was open she sprang across the step with

one bound, and there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green, and with the sun

pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and the fluting and twittering and singing coming from

every bush and tree. She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was so blue and pink

and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself

and knew that thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran around the shrubs and

"It is all different already," she said. "The grass is greener and things are sticking up every where and things

are uncurling and green buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come."

The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which bordered the walk by the lower

wall. There were things sprouting and pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually

here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the stems of crocuses. Six months before

Mistress Mary would not have seen how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing.

When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy, she was startled by a curious loud

sound. It was the cawcaw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat

a big glossyplumaged blueblack bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed. She had never seen a crow

so close before and he made her a little nervous, but the next moment he spread his wings and flapped away

across the garden. She hoped he was not going to stay inside and she pushed the door open wondering if he

would. When she got fairly into the garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay because he had

alighted on a dwarf appletree and under the appletree was lying a little reddish animal with a Bushy tail,

and both of them were watching the stooping body and rustred head of Dickon, who was kneeling on the

"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early! How could you! The sun has only

He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a bit of the sky.

"Eh!" he said. "I was up long before him. How could I have stayed abed! Th' world's all fair begun again this

mornin', it has. An' it's workin' an' hummin' an' scratchin' an' pipin' an' nestbuildin' an' breathin' out scents,

till you've got to be out on it 'stead o' lyin' on your back. When th' sun did jump up, th' moor went mad for

joy, an' I was in the midst of th' heather, an' I run like mad myself, shoutin' an' singin'. An' I come straight

Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushytailed animal rose from its place under the tree and came to

him, and the rook, cawing once, flew down from its branch and settled quietly on his shoulder.

"This is th' little fox cub," he said, rubbing the little reddish animal's head. "It's named Captain. An' this here's

Soot. Soot he flew across th' moor with me an' Captain he run same as if th' hounds had been after him. They

Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary. When Dickon began to walk about,

"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an' these! An' Eh! Look at these here!"

He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They had come upon a whole clump of

crocuses burst into purple and orange and gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them.

"You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her head. "Flowers are so different."

"Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a time that way when I come in from th' moor after a day's roamin'

an' she stood there at th' door in th' sun, lookin' so glad an' comfortable." They ran from one part of the

garden to another and found so many wonders that they were obliged to remind themselves that they must

whisper or speak low. He showed her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which had seemed dead. He showed

her ten thousand new green points pushing through the mould. They put their eager young noses close to the

earth and sniffed its warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled and laughed low with rapture until

Mistress Mary's hair was as tumbled as Dickon's and her cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.

There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning, and in the midst of them came a delight more

delightful than all, because it was more wonderful. Swiftly something flew across the wall and darted through

the trees to a close grown corner, a little flare of redbreasted bird with something hanging from its beak.

Dickon stood quite still and put his hand on Mary almost as if they had suddenly found themselves laughing

"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire. "We munnot scarce breathe. I knowed he was

matehuntin' when I seed him last. It's Ben Weatherstaff's robin. He's buildin' his nest. He'll stay here if us

don't fight him." They settled down softly upon the grass and sat there without moving.

"Us mustn't seem as if us was watchin' him too close," said Dickon. "He'd be out with us for good if he got th'

notion us was interferin' now. He'll be a good bit different till all this is over. He's settin' up housekeepin'.

He'll be shyer an' readier to take things ill. He's got no time for visitin' an' gossipin'. Us must keep still a bit

an' try to look as if us was grass an' trees an' bushes. Then when he's got used to seein' us I'll chirp a bit an'

Mistress Mary was not at all sure that she knew, as Dickon seemed to, how to try to look like grass and trees

and bushes. But he had said the queer thing as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world, and

she felt it must be quite easy to him, and indeed she watched him for a few minutes carefully, wondering if it

was possible for him to quietly turn green and put out branches and leaves. But he only sat wonderfully still,

and when he spoke dropped his voice to such a softness that it was curious that she could hear him, but she

"It's part o' th' springtime, this nestbuildin' is," he said. "I warrant it's been goin' on in th' same way every

year since th' world was begun. They've got their way o' thinkin' and doin' things an' a body had better not

meddle. You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you're too curious."

"If we talk about him I can't help looking at him," Mary said as softly as possible. "We must talk of

"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon. "What is it tha's got to tell me?"

"I've seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. He wants me to come. He says I'm making

Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from his round face.

"I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right down glad. It makes me easier. I knowed I must say nothin' about

"I'll never tell about it," he answered. "But I says to mother, `Mother,' I says, `I got a secret to keep. It's not a

bad 'un, tha' knows that. It's no worse than hidin' where a bird's nest is. Tha' doesn't mind it, does tha'?'"

"It was just like her, what she said," he answered. "She give my head a bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says,

'Eh, lad, tha' can have all th' secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'"

"Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad as was like to be a cripple, an' they

knowed Mester Craven didn't like him to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs.

Craven was such a pretty young lady an' they was so fond of each other. Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage

whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she doesn't mind talkin' to mother before us children, because she knows us

has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha' find out about him? Martha was in fine trouble th' last time she

came home. She said tha'd heard him frettin' an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't know what to say."

Mary told him her story about the midnight wuthering of the wind which had wakened her and about the faint

faroff sounds of the complaining voice which had led her down the dark corridors with her candle and had

ended with her opening of the door of the dimly lighted room with the carven fourposted bed in the corner.

When she described the small ivorywhite face and the strange blackrimmed eyes Dickon shook his head.

"Them's just like his mother's eyes, only hers was always laughin', they say," he said. "They say as Mr.

Craven can't bear to see him when he's awake an' it's because his eyes is so like his mother's an' yet looks so

"No, but he wishes he'd never been born. Mother she says that's th' worst thing on earth for a child. Them as

is not wanted scarce ever thrives. Mester Craven he'd buy anythin' as money could buy for th' poor lad but

he'd like to forget as he's on earth. For one thing, he's afraid he'll look at him some day and find he's growed

"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't sit up," said Mary. "He says he's always thinking that if he should

"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon. "No lad could get well as thought them

The fox was lying on the grass close by him, looking up to ask for a pat now and then, and Dickon bent down

and rubbed his neck softly and thought a few minutes in silence. Presently he lifted his head and looked

"When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was gray. Look round now and tell me if tha'

"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing. It is as if a green mist were creeping over it. It's almost like a

"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's all gone. Can tha' guess what I was

"I know it was something nice," said Mary eagerly. "I believe it was something about Colin."

"I was thinkin' that if he was out here he wouldn't be watchin' for lumps to grow on his back; he'd be watchin'

for buds to break on th' rosebushes, an' he'd likely be healthier," explained Dickon. "I was wonderin' if us

could ever get him in th' humor to come out here an' lie under th' trees in his carriage."

"I've been wondering that myself. I've thought of it almost every time I've talked to him," said Mary. "I've

wondered if he could keep a secret and I've wondered if we could bring him here without any one seeing us. I

thought perhaps you could push his carriage. The doctor said he must have fresh air and if he wants us to take

him out no one dare disobey him. He won't go out for other people and perhaps they will be glad if he will go

out with us. He could order the gardeners to keep away so they wouldn't find out."

"It'd be good for him, I'll warrant," he said. "Us'd not be thinkin' he'd better never been born. Us'd be just two

children watchin' a garden grow, an' he'd be another. Two lads an' a little lass just lookin' on at th' springtime.

"He's been lying in his room so long and he's always been so afraid of his back that it has made him queer,"

said Mary. "He knows a good many things out of books but he doesn't know anything else. He says he has

been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doors and hates gardens and gardeners. But he likes to

hear about this garden because it is a secret. I daren't tell him much but he said he wanted to see it."

"Us'll have him out here sometime for sure," said Dickon. "I could push his carriage well enough. Has tha'

noticed how th' robin an' his mate has been workin' while we've been sittin' here? Look at him perched on that

He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and looked at him inquiringly, still

holding his twig. Dickon spoke to him as Ben Weatherstaff did, but Dickon's tone was one of friendly advice.

"Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll be all right. Tha' knew how to build tha' nest before tha' came out o'

"Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!" Mary said, laughing delightedly. "Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and

makes fun of him, and he hops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he likes it. Ben

Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones thrown at him than not be noticed."

"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin. "Us is near bein' wild things ourselves. Us is

And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary knew that when he flew away

with his twig to his own corner of the garden the darkness of his dewbright eye meant that he would not tell

They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in returning to the house and was also in such a

hurry to get back to her work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment.

"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha. "I'm very busy in the garden."

"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell him that."

But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a selfsacrificing person.

The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. Already nearly all the weeds were

cleared out of the garden and most of the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon had brought a

spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that by this time it was plain that though the

lovely wild place was not likely to become a "gardener's garden" it would be a wilderness of growing things

"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead," Dickon said, working away with all his might.

"An' there'll be peach an' plum trees in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll be a carpet o' flowers."

The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the robin and his mate flew backward

and forward like tiny streaks of lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away over

the treetops in the park. Each time he came back and perched near Dickon and cawed several times as if he

were relating his adventures, and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the robin. Once when Dickon

was so busy that he did not answer him at first, Soot flew on to his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with

his large beak. When Mary wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once he took his

pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strange little notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall and

"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking at her as she was digging. "Tha's beginning to

"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite exultantly. "Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some

bigger dresses. Martha says my hair is growing thicker. It isn't so flat and stringy."

The sun was beginning to set and sending deep goldcolored rays slanting under the trees when they parted.

She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her. She wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox

cub and the rook and about what the springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear. So it was

not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see Martha standing waiting for her with a

"What is the matter?" she asked. "What did Colin say when you told him I couldn't come?"

"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone. He was nigh goin' into one o' his tantrums. There's been a nice to do all

Mary's lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used to considering other people than Colin was

and she saw no reason why an illtempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She knew

nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and nervous and who did not know that they could

control their tempers and need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had a headache in

India she had done her best to see that everybody else also had a headache or something quite as bad. And

she felt she was quite right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong.

He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying flat on his back in bed and he did not turn

his head toward her as she came in. This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff

"I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming," he answered, without looking at her. "I made

them put me back in bed this afternoon. My back ached and my head ached and I was tired. Why didn't you

"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of coming to talk to me," he said.

Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion without making a noise. She just grew sour and

"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely. "They may drag me in but they can't make me talk when they get

me here. I'll sit and clench my teeth and never tell you one thing. I won't even look at you. I'll stare at the

They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other. If they had been two little street boys they would

have sprung at each other and had a roughandtumble fight. As it was, they did the next thing to it.

"What are you?" said Mary. "Selfish people always say that. Any one is selfish who doesn't do what they

"I'm not!" snapped Colin. "I'm not as selfish as your fine Dickon is! He keeps you playing in the dirt when he

"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said. "He'she's like an angel!" It might sound rather

"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously. "He's a common cottage boy off the moor!"

"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary. "He's a thousand times better!"

Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get the better of him. The truth was that he had

never had a fight with any one like himself in his life and, upon the whole, it was rather good for him, though

neither he nor Mary knew anything about that. He turned his head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big

tear was squeezed out and ran down his cheek. He was beginning to feel pathetic and sorry for himselfnot

"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there is a lump coming on my back," he said.

He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never heard such a thing said before. He was at once

"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly. "You just say that to make people sorry. I believe you're proud of it. I

"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his pillow and threw it at her. He was not strong

enough to throw it far and it only fell at her feet, but Mary's face looked as pinched as a nutcracker.

"I'm going," she said. "And I won't come back!" She walked to the door and when she reached it she turned

"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said. "Dickon brought his fox and his rook and I was

She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her great astonishment she found the

trained nurse standing as if she had been listening and, more amazing stillshe was laughing. She was a big

handsome young woman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at all, as she could not bear invalids and

she was always making excuses to leave Colin to Martha or any one else who would take her place. Mary had

never liked her, and she simply stood and gazed up at her as she stood giggling into her handkerchief..

"At you two young ones," said the nurse. "It's the best thing that could happen to the sickly pampered thing to

have some one to stand up to him that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into her handkerchief again.

"If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight with it would have been the saving of him."

"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse. "Hysterics and temper are half what ails him."

"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after thisbut at any rate you've given him something to

Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she had come in from the garden. She was

cross and disappointed but not at all sorry for Colin. She had looked forward to telling him a great many

things and she had meant to try to make up her mind whether it would be safe to trust him with the great

secret. She had been beginning to think it would be, but now she had changed her mind entirely. She would

never tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and die if he liked! It would serve

him right! She felt so sour and unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost forgot about Dickon and the

green veil creeping over the world and the soft wind blowing down from the moor.

Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been temporarily replaced by interest and

curiosity. There was a wooden box on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it was full

"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha. "It looks as if it had picturebooks in it."

Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room. "Do you want

anythingdollstoys books?" She opened the package wondering if he had sent a doll, and also

wondering what she should do with it if he had. But he had not sent one. There were several beautiful books

such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens and were full of pictures. There were two or three

games and there was a beautiful little writingcase with a gold monogram on it and a gold pen and inkstand.

Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out of her mind. She had not expected him

"I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first thing I shall write with that pen will be a letter to

If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her presents at once, and they would have

looked at the pictures and read some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he

would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he was going to die or have put his

hand on his spine to see if there was a lump coming. He had a way of doing that which she could not bear. It

gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always looked so frightened himself. He said that if

he felt even quite a little lump some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow. Something he had

heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given him the idea and he had thought over it in secret until

it was quite firmly fixed in his mind. Mrs. Medlock had said his father's back had begun to show its

crookedness in that way when he was a child. He had never told any one but Mary that most of his "tantrums"

as they called them grew out of his hysterical hidden fear. Mary had been sorry for him when he had told her.

"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she said to herself. "And he has been cross

"I said I would never go back again" she hesitated, knitting her brows"but perhaps, just perhaps, I will

go and seeif he wants mein the morning. Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me again, butI

She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the garden and she was tired and sleepy, so

as soon as Martha had brought her supper and she had eaten it, she was glad to go to bed. As she laid her

"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterwardI believeI'll go to see him."

She thought it was the middle of the night when she was awakened by such dreadful sounds that she jumped

out of bed in an instant. What was itwhat was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors were

opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and some one was crying and screaming at the

"It's Colin," she said. "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse called hysterics. How awful it sounds."

As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people were so frightened that they gave him

his own way in everything rather than hear them. She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and shivering.

"I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do," she kept saying. "I can't bear it."

Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she remembered how he had driven her

out of the room and thought that perhaps the sight of her might make him worse. Even when she pressed her

hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep the awful sounds out. She hated them so and was so

terrified by them that suddenly they began to make her angry and she felt as if she should like to fly into a

tantrum herself and frighten him as he was frightening her. She was not used to any one's tempers but her

"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop! Somebody ought to beat him!" she cried out.

Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door opened and the nurse came in. She

"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry. "He'll do himself harm. No one can do

"He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her foot with excitement.

The stamp rather pleased the nurse. The truth was that she had been afraid she might find Mary crying and

"That's right," she said. "You're in the right humor. You go and scold him. Give him something new to think

It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been funny as well as dreadfulthat it was

funny that all the grownup people were so frightened that they came to a little girl just because they guessed

She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the higher her temper mounted. She felt

quite wicked by the time she reached the door. She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to

"You stop!" she almost shouted. "You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run

out of the house and let you scream yourself to death! You will scream yourself to death in a minute, and I

wish you would!" A nice sympathetic child could neither have thought nor said such things, but it just

happened that the shock of hearing them was the best possible thing for this hysterical boy whom no one had

He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he actually almost jumped around, he

turned so quickly at the sound of the furious little voice. His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen,

"If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll scream too and I can scream louder than you can and I'll

He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so. The scream which had been coming

almost choked him. The tears were streaming down his face and he shook all over.

"I felt the lumpI felt it," choked out Colin. "I knew I should. I shall have a hunch on my back and then I

shall die," and he began to writhe again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't scream.

"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely. "If you did it was only a hysterical lump. Hysterics

makes lumps. There's nothing the matter with your horrid backnothing but hysterics! Turn over and let me

She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow as if it had an effect on him. He was probably like herself

The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together near the door staring at her, their

mouths half open. All three had gasped with fright more than once. The nurse came forward as if she were

It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could be counted and every joint of the spine,

though Mistress Mary did not count them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little

face. She looked so sour and oldfashioned that the nurse turned her head aside to hide the twitching of her

mouth. There was just a minute's silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while Mary looked up and

down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if she had been the great doctor from London.

"There's not a single lump there!" she said at last. "There's not a lump as big as a pinexcept backbone

lumps, and you can only feel them because you're thin. I've got backbone lumps myself, and they used to

stick out as much as yours do, until I began to get fatter, and I am not fat enough yet to hide them. There's not

No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish words had on him. If he had ever

had any one to talk to about his secret terrorsif he had ever dared to let himself ask questionsif he had

had childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge closed house, breathing an atmosphere

heavy with the fears of people who were most of them ignorant and tired of him, he would have found out

that most of his fright and illness was created by himself. But he had lain and thought of himself and his

aches and weariness for hours and days and months and years. And now that an angry unsympathetic little

girl insisted obstinately that he was not as ill as he thought he was he actually felt as if she might be speaking

"I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that he thought he had a lump on his spine. His back is weak because he

won't try to sit up. I could have told him there was no lump there." Colin gulped and turned his face a little to

Colin turned on his face again and but for his longdrawn broken breaths, which were the dying down of his

storm of sobbing, he lay still for a minute, though great tears srteamed down his face and wet the pillow.

Actually the tears meant that a curious great relief had come to him. Presently he turned and looked at the

nurse again and strangely enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he spoke to her.

The nurse was neither clever nor softhearted but she could repeat some of the London doctor's words.

"You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give way to your temper, and stay out a

Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying and this perhaps made him feel gentle.

He put out his hand a little toward Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantum having passed, she was

softened too and met him halfway with her hand, so that it was a sort of making up.

"I'llI'll go out with you, Mary," he said. "I shan't hate fresh air if we can find" He remembered just in

time to stop himself from saying "if we can find the secret garden" and he ended, "I shall like to go out with

you if Dickon will come and push my chair. I do so want to see Dickon and the fox and the crow."

The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the pillows. Then she made Colin a cup of

beef tea and gave a cup to Mary, who really was very glad to get it after her excitement. Mrs. Medlock and

Martha gladly slipped away, and after everything was neat and calm and in order the nurse looked as if she

would very gladly slip away also. She was a healthy young woman who resented being robbed of her sleep

and she yawned quite openly as she looked at Mary, who had pushed her big footstool close to the

"You must go back and get your sleep out," she said. "He'll drop off after a whileif he's not too upset. Then

"Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?" Mary whispered to Colin.

"Oh, yes!" he answered. "It's such a soft song. I shall go to sleep in a minute."

"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse. "You can go if you like."

"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. "If he doesn't go to sleep in half an hour you must call

The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone Colin pulled Mary's hand again.

"I almost told," he said; "but I stopped myself in time. I won't talk and I'll go to sleep, but you said you had a

whole lot of nice things to tell me. Have youdo you think you have found out anything at all about the way

Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her heart relented.

"Yees," she answered, "I think I have. And if you will go to sleep I will tell you tomorrow." His hand quite

"Oh, Mary!" he said. "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should live to grow up! Do you suppose that

instead of singing the Ayah songyou could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you imagine it

He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speak very slowly and in a very low

"I think it has been left alone so longthat it has grown all into a lovely tangle. I think the roses have

climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the

groundalmost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but manyare alive and when the

summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and

snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. Now the spring has

The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she saw it and went on.

"Perhaps they are coming up through the grassperhaps there are clusters of purple crocuses and gold

oneseven now. Perhaps the leaves are beginning to break out and uncurland perhapsthe gray is

changing and a green gauze veil is creepingand creeping overeverything. And the birds are coming to

look at itbecause it isso safe and still. And perhapsperhapsperhaps" very softly and slowly

Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning. She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha

brought her breakfast she told her that though. Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always was

after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying. Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened.

"He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon as tha' can," Martha said. "It's queer what a

fancy he's took to thee. Tha' did give it him last night for suredidn't tha? Nobody else would have dared to

do it. Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save him. Mother says as th' two worst things as can

happen to a child is never to have his own wayor always to have it. She doesn't know which is th' worst.

Tha' was in a fine temper tha'self, too. But he says to me when I went into his room, `Please ask Miss Mary if

she'll please come an, talk to me?' Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" "I'll run and see Dickon

first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see Colin first and tell himI know what I'll tell him," with a sudden

She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room and for a second he looked disappointed. He was in

"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache all over because I'm so tired. Are you going

"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon, but I'll come back. Colin, it'sit's something about the

"Oh! is it?" he cried out. "I dreamed about it all night I heard you say something about gray changing into

green, and I dreamed I was standing in a place all filled with trembling little green leavesand there were

birds on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still. I'll lie and think about it until you come back."

In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden. The fox and the crow were with him again and this

time he had brought two tame squirrels. "I came over on the pony this mornin', " he said. "Eh! he is a good

little chapJump is! I brought these two in my pockets. This here one he's called Nut an' this here other

When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right shoulder and when he said "Shell" the other one leaped

When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at their feet, Soot solemnly listening on a tree and Nut

and Shell nosing about close to them, it seemed to Mary that it would be scarcely bearable to leave such

delightfulness, but when she began to tell her story somehow the look in Dickon's funny face gradually

changed her mind. She could see he felt sorrier for Colin than she did. He looked up at the sky and all about

"Just listen to them birdsth' world seems full of 'emall whistlin' an' pipin'," he said. "Look at 'em dartin'

about, an' hearken at 'em callin' to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th' world's callin'. The

leaves is uncurlin' so you can see 'eman', my word, th' nice smells there is about!" sniffing with his happy

turnedup nose. "An' that poor lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets to thinkin' o' things as sets him

screamin'. Eh! my! we mun get him out herewe mun get him watchin' an listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an'

When he was very much interested he often spoke quite broad Yorkshire though at other times he tried to

modify his dialect so that Mary could better understand. But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact

"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed, we must"). "I'll tell thee what us'll do first," she

proceeded, and Dickon grinned, because when the little wench tried to twist her tongue into speaking

Yorkshire it amused him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee. He wants to see thee and he wants to

see Soot an' Captain. When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him if tha' canna' come an' see him

tomorrow mornin'an'. bring tha' creatures wi' theean' thenin a bit, when there's more leaves out, an'

happen a bud or two, we'll get him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his chair an' we'll bring him here an'

When she stopped she was quite proud of herself. She had never made a long speech in Yorkshire before and

"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin," Dickon chuckled. "Tha'll make him laugh an'

there's nowt as good for ill folk as laughin' is. Mother says she believes as half a hour's good laugh every

"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day," said Mary, chuckling herself.

The garden had reached the time when every day and every night it seemed as if Magicians were passing

through it drawing loveliness out of the earth and the boughs with wands. It was hard to go away and leave it

all, particularly as Nut had actually crept on to her dress and Shell had scrambled down the trunk of the

appletree they sat under and stayed there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back to the house

and when she sat down close to Colin's bed he began to sniff as Dickon did though not in such an

"You smell like flowers andand fresh things," he cried out quite joyously. "What is it you smell of? It's

"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin' on th' grass under a tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain

an' Soot an' Nut an' Shell. It's th' springtime an' out o' doors an' sunshine as smells so graidely."

She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know how broadly Yorkshire sounds until you have heard

"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk like that before. How funny it sounds."

"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered Mary triumphantly. `I canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an'

Martha can but tha' sees I can shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit o' Yorkshire when tha' hears it? An'

tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel' bred an' born! Eh! I wonder tha'rt not ashamed o' thy face."

And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until they could not stop themselves and they laughed

until the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening the door to come in drew back into the corridor and stood

"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad Yorkshire herself because there was no one to hear

her and she was so astonished. "Whoever heard th' like! Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!"

There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin could never hear enough of Dickon and Captain and

Soot and Nut and Shell and the pony whose name was Jump. Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon

to see Jump. He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks hanging over his eyes and with a pretty

face and a nuzzling velvet nose. He was rather thin with living on moor grass but he was as tough and wiry as

if the muscle in his little legs had been made of steel springs. He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the

moment he saw Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his head across his shoulder and then Dickon

had talked into his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies and puffs and snorts. Dickon had

made him give Mary his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with his velvet muzzle.

"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says anything will understand if you're friends with it for

Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray eyes seemed to be staring at the wall, but Mary saw he was

"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last, "but I'm not. I never had anything to be friends with, and I

"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary. "He said he'd warrant we'd both got the same nasty

tempers. I think you are like him too. We are all three alikeyou and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we

were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked. But I don't feel as sour as I used to

"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation. "I should have detested you if I had seen you before I saw the

"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about sending Dickon away. I hated you when you said he

"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly, "because his nose does turn up and he has a big

mouth and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks broad Yorkshire, butbut if an angel did

come to Yorkshire and live on the moorif there was a Yorkshire angelI believe he'd understand the

green things and know how to make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild creatures as

Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the minute to tell him. Colin knew something new was

Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool and came to him and caught hold of both his hands.

"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him. Can I trust youfor surefor sure?" she

"Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow morning, and he'll bring his creatures with him."

"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with solemn excitement. "The rest is better. There is a door

If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably have shouted "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he

was weak and rather hysterical; his eyes grew bigger and bigger and he gasped for breath.

"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see it? Shall I get into it? Shall I live to get into it?" and he

"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly. "Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't be silly!"

And she was so unhysterical and natural and childish that she brought him to his senses and he began to

laugh at himself and a few minutes afterward she was sitting on her stool again telling him not what she

imagined the secret garden to be like but what it really was, and Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten

"It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last. "It sounds just as if you had really seen it. You know

"I had seen itand I had been in," she said. "I found the key and got in weeks ago. But I daren't tell youI

Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after Colin had had his tantrum. He was always sent for

at once when such a thing occurred and he always found, when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his

bed, sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break into fresh sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr.

Craven dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits. On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite

"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived. "He will break a bloodvessel in one

of those fits some day. The boy is half insane with hysteria and selfindulgence."

"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe your eyes when you see him. That plain

sourfaced child that's almost as bad as himself has just bewitched him. How she's done it there's no telling.

The Lord knows she's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear her speak, but she did what none of us

dare do. She just flew at him like a little cat last night, and stamped her feet and ordered him to stop

screaming, and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop, and this afternoonwell just come up

The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his patient's room was indeed rather astonishing to him.

As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he heard laughing and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his

dressinggown and he was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture in one of the garden books and talking

to the plain child who at that moment could scarcely be called plain at all because her face was so glowing

"Those long spires of blue oneswe'll have a lot of those," Colin was announcing. "They're called

"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand," cried Mistress Mary. "There are clumps there already."

Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite still and Colin looked fretful.

"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy," Dr. Craven said a trifle nervously. He was rather a

"I'm better nowmuch better," Colin answered, rather like a Rajah. "I'm going out in my chair in a day or

"It must be a very fine day," he said, "and you must be very careful not to tire yourself."

As there had been occasions when this same young gentleman had shrieked aloud with rage and had insisted

that fresh air would give him cold and kill him, it is not to be wondered at that his doctor felt somewhat

"I don't when I am by myself," replied the Rajah; "but my cousin is going out with me."

"No, I will not have the nurse," so magnificently that Mary could not help remembering how the young

native Prince had looked with his diamonds and emeralds and pearls stuck all over him and the great rubies

on the small dark hand he had waved to command his servants to approach with salaams and receive his

"My cousin knows how to take care of me. I am always better when she is with me. She made me better last

Dr. Craven felt rather alarmed. If this tiresome hysterical boy should chance to get well he himself would lose

all chance of inheriting Misselthwaite; but he was not an unscrupulous man, though he was a weak one, and

"He must be a strong boy and a steady boy," he said. "And I must know something about him. Who is he?

"It's Dickon," Mary spoke up suddenly. She felt somehow that everybody who knew the moor must know

Dickon. And she was right, too. She saw that in a moment Dr. Craven's serious face relaxed into a relieved

"Oh, Dickon," he said. "If it is Dickon you will be safe enough. He's as strong as a moor pony, is Dickon."

"And he's trusty," said Mary. "He's th' trustiest lad i' Yorkshire." She had been talking Yorkshire to Colin and

"I'm learning it as if it was French," said Mary rather coldly. "It's like a native dialect in India. Very clever

people try to learn them. I like it and so does Colin." "Well, well," he said. "If it amuses you perhaps it won't

"No," Colin answered. "I wouldn't take it at first and after Mary made me quiet she talked me to sleepin a

"That sounds soothing," said Dr. Craven, more perplexed than ever and glancing sideways at Mistress Mary

sitting on her stool and looking down silently at the carpet. "You are evidently better, but you must

"I don't want to remember," interrupted the Rajah, appearing again. "When I lie by myself and remember I

begin to have pains everywhere and I think of things that make me begin to scream because I hate them so. If

there was a doctor anywhere who could make you forget you were ill instead of remembering it I would have

him brought here." And he waved a thin hand which ought really to have been covered with royal signet rings

made of rubies. "It is because my cousin makes me forget that she makes me better."

Dr. Craven had never made such a short stay after a "tantrum"; usually he was obliged to remain a very long

time and do a great many things. This afternoon he did not give any medicine or leave any new orders and he

was spared any disagreeable scenes. When he went downstairs he looked very thoughtful and when he talked

"It is certainly a new state of affairs," said the doctor. "And there's no denying it is better than the old one."

"I believe Susan Sowerby's rightI do that," said Mrs. Medlock. "I stopped in her cottage on my way to

Thwaite yesterday and had a bit of talk with her. And she says to me, 'Well, Sarah Ann, she mayn't be a good

child, an' she mayn't be a pretty one, but she's a child, an' children needs children.' We went to school

"She's the best sick nurse I know," said Dr. Craven. "When I find her in a cottage I know the chances are that

"She's got a way with her, has Susan," she went on quite volubly. "I've been thinking all morning of one thing

she said yesterday. She says, `Once when I was givin' th' children a bit of a preach after they'd been fightin' I

ses to 'em all, "When I was at school my jography told as th' world was shaped like a orange an' I found out

before I was ten that th' whole orange doesn't belong to nobody. No one owns more than his bit of a quarter

an' there's times it seems like there's not enow quarters to go round. But don't younone o' youthink as

you own th' whole orange or you'll find out you're mistaken, an' you won't find it out without hard knocks."

`What children learns from children,' she says, 'is that there's no sense in grabbin' at th' whole orangepeel

an' all. If you do you'll likely not get even th' pips, an' them's too bitter to eat.'"

"Well, she's got a way of saying things," ended Mrs. Medlock, much pleased. "Sometimes I've said to her,

'Eh! Susan, if you was a different woman an' didn't talk such broad Yorkshire I've seen the times when I

That night Colin slept without once awakening and when he opened his eyes in the morning he lay still and

smiled without knowing itsmiled because he felt so curiously comfortable. It was actually nice to be

awake, and he turned over and stretched his limbs luxuriously. He felt as if tight strings which had held him

had loosened themselves and let him go. He did not know that Dr. Craven would have said that his nerves

had relaxed and rested themselves. Instead of lying and staring at the wall and wishing he had not awakened,

his mind was full of the plans he and Mary had made yesterday, of pictures of the garden and of Dickon and

his wild creatures. It was so nice to have things to think about. And he had not been awake more than ten

minutes when he heard feet running along the corridor and Mary was at the door. The next minute she was in

the room and had run across to his bed, bringing with her a waft of fresh air full of the scent of the morning.

"You've been out! You've been out! There's that nice smell of leaves!" he cried.

She had been running and her hair was loose and blown and she was bright with the air and pinkcheeked,

"It's so beautiful!" she said, a little breathless with her speed. "You never saw anything so beautiful! It has

come! I thought it had come that other morning, but it was only coming. It is here now! It has come, the

"Has it?" cried Colin, and though he really knew nothing about it he felt his heart beat. He actually sat up in

"Open the window!" he added, laughing half with joyful excitement and half at his own fancy. "Perhaps we

And though he laughed, Mary was at the window in a moment and in a moment more it was opened wide and

"That's fresh air," she said. "Lie on your back and draw in long breaths of it. That's what Dickon does when

he's lying on the moor. He says he feels it in his veins and it makes him strong and he feels as if he could live

"`Forever and ever'! Does it make him feel like that?" he said, and he did as she told him, drawing in long

deep breaths over and over again until he felt that something quite new and delightful was happening to him.

"Things are crowding up out of the earth," she ran on in a hurry. "And there are flowers uncurling and buds

on everything and the green veil has covered nearly all the gray and the birds are in such a hurry about their

nests for fear they may be too late that some of them are even fighting for places in the secret garden. And the

rosebushes look as wick as wick can be, and there are primroses in the lanes and woods, and the seeds we

planted are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and the crow and the squirrels and a newborn lamb."

And then she paused for breath. The newborn lamb Dickon had found three days before lying by its dead

mother among the gorse bushes on the moor. It was not the first motherless lamb he had found and he knew

what to do with it. He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had let it lie near the fire and

had fed it with warm milk. It was a soft thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its body.

Dickon had carried it over the moor in his arms and its feeding bottle was in his pocket with a squirrel, and

when Mary had sat under a tree with its limp warmness huddled on her lap she had felt as if she were too full

of strange joy to speak. A lamba lamb! A living lamb who lay on your lap like a baby!

She was describing it with great joy and Colin was listening and drawing in long breaths of air when the

nurse entered. She started a little at the sight of the open window. She had sat stifling in the room many a

"No," was the answer. "I am breathing long breaths of fresh air. It makes you strong. I am going to get up to

The nurse went away, concealing a smile, to give the order for two breakfasts. She found the servants' hall a

more amusing place than the invalid's chamber and just now everybody wanted to hear the news from

upstairs. There was a great deal of joking about the unpopular young recluse who, as the cook said, "had

found his master, and good for him." The servants' hall had been very tired of the tantrums, and the butler,

who was a man with a family, had more than once expressed his opinion that the invalid would be all the

When Colin was on his sofa and the breakfast for two was put upon the table he made an announcement to

"A boy, and a fox, and a crow, and two squirrels, and a newborn lamb, are coming to see me this morning. I

want them brought upstairs as soon as they come," he said. "You are not to begin playing with the animals in

the servants' hall and keep them there. I want them here." The nurse gave a slight gasp and tried to conceal it

"I'll tell you what you can do," added Colin, waving his hand. "You can tell Martha to bring them here. The

"I told you he was a charmer," said Colin austerely. "Charmers' animals never bite."

"There are snakecharmers in India," said Mary. "and they can put their snakes' heads in their mouths."

They ate their breakfast with the morning air pouring in upon them. Colin's breakfast was a very good one

"You will begin to get fatter just as I did," she said. "I never wanted my breakfast when I was in India and

"I wanted mine this morning," said Colin. "Perhaps it was the fresh air. When do you think Dickon will

Colin listened and heard it, the oddest sound in the world to hear inside a house, a hoarse "cawcaw."

Dickon's moorland boots were thick and clumsy and though he tried to walk quietly they made a clumping

sound as he walked through the long corridors. Mary and Colin heard him marchingmarching, until he

"If you please, sir," announced Martha, opening the door, "if you please, sir, here's Dickon an' his creatures."

Dickon came in smiling his nicest wide smile. The new born lamb was in his arms and the little red fox

trotted by his side. Nut sat on his left shoulder and Soot on his right and Shell's head and paws peeped out of

Colin slowly sat up and stared and staredas he had stared when he first saw Mary; but this was a stare of

wonder and delight. The truth was that in spite of all he had heard he had not in the least understood what this

boy would be like and that his fox and his crow and his squirrels and his lamb were so near to him and his

friendliness that they seemed almost to be part of himself. Colin had never talked to a boy in his life and he

was so overwhelmed by his own pleasure and curiosity that he did not even think of speaking.

But Dickon did not feel the least shy or awkward. He had not felt embarrassed because the crow had not

known his language and had only stared and had not spoken to him the first time they met. Creatures were

always like that until they found out about you. He walked over to Colin's sofa and put the newborn lamb

quietly on his lap, and immediately the little creature turned to the warm velvet dressinggown and began to

nuzzle and nuzzle into its folds and butt its tightcurled head with soft impatience against his side. Of course

"It wants its mother," said Dickon, smiling more and more. "I brought it to thee a bit hungry because I

"Come on, little 'un," he said, turning the small woolly white head with a gentle brown hand. "This is what

tha's after. Tha'll get more out o' this than tha' will out o' silk velvet coats. There now," and he pushed the

rubber tip of the bottle into the nuzzling mouth and the lamb began to suck it with ravenous ecstasy.

After that there was no wondering what to say. By the time the lamb fell asleep questions poured forth and

Dickon answered them all. He told them how he had found the lamb just as the sun was rising three mornings

ago. He had been standing on the moor listening to a skylark and watching him swing higher and higher into

"I'd almost lost him but for his song an' I was wonderin' how a chap could hear it when it seemed as if he'd

get out o' th' world in a minutean' just then I heard somethin' else far off among th' gorse bushes. It was a

weak bleatin' an' I knowed it was a new lamb as was hungry an' I knowed it wouldn't be hungry if it hadn't

lost its mother somehow, so I set off searchin'. Eh! I did have a look for it. I went in an' out among th' gorse

bushes an' round an' round an' I always seemed to take th' wrong turnin'. But at last I seed a bit o' white by a

rock on top o' th' moor an' I climbed up an' found th' little 'un half dead wi' cold an' clemmin'." While he

talked, Soot flew solemnly in and out of the open window and cawed remarks about the scenery while Nut

and Shell made excursions into the big trees outside and ran up and down trunks and explored branches.

They looked at the pictures in the gardening books and Dickon knew all the flowers by their country names

"I couldna' say that there name," he said, pointing to one under which was written "Aquilegia," "but us calls

that a columbine, an' that there one it's a snapdragon and they both grow wild in hedges, but these is garden

ones an' they're bigger an' grander. There's some big clumps o' columbine in th' garden. They'll look like a

"Aye, that tha' mun," said Mary quite seriously. "An' tha' munnot lose no time about it."

But they were obliged to wait more than a week because first there came some very windy days and then

Colin was threatened with a cold, which two things happening one after the other would no doubt have

thrown him into a rage but that there was so much careful and mysterious planning to do and almost every

day Dickon came in, if only for a few minutes, to talk about what was happening on the moor and in the lanes

and hedges and on the borders of streams. The things he had to tell about otters' and badgers' and waterrats'

houses, not to mention birds' nests and fieldmice and their burrows, were enough to make you almost

tremble with excitement when you heard all the intimate details from an animal charmer and realized with

"They're same as us," said Dickon, "only they have to build their homes every year. An' it keeps 'em so busy

The most absorbing thing, however, was the preparations to be made before Colin could be transported with

sufficient secrecy to the garden. No one must see the chaircarriage and Dickon and Mary after they turned a

certain corner of the shrubbery and entered upon the walk outside the ivied walls. As each day passed, Colin

had become more and more fixed in his feeling that the mystery surrounding the garden was one of its

greatest charms. Nothing must spoil that. No one must ever suspect that they had a secret. People must think

that he was simply going out with Mary and Dickon because he liked them and did not object to their looking

at him. They had long and quite delightful talks about their route. They would go up this path and down that

one and cross the other and go round among the fountain flowerbeds as if they were looking at the

"beddingout plants" the head gardener, Mr. Roach, had been having arranged. That would seem such a

rational thing to do that no one would think it at all mysterious. They would turn into the shrubbery walks

and lose themselves until they came to the long walls. It was almost as serious and elaborately thought out as

Rumors of the new and curious things which were occurring in the invalid's apartments had of course filtered

through the servants' hall into the stable yards and out among the gardeners, but notwithstanding this, Mr.

Roach was startled one day when he received orders from Master Colin's room to the effect that he must

report himself in the apartment no outsider had ever seen, as the invalid himself desired to speak to him.

"Well, well," he said to himself as he hurriedly changed his coat, "what's to do now? His Royal Highness that

Mr. Roach was not without curiosity. He had never caught even a glimpse of the boy and had heard a dozen

exaggerated stories about his uncanny looks and ways and his insane tempers. The thing he had heard

oftenest was that he might die at any moment and there had been numerous fanciful descriptions of a humped

"Things are changing in this house, Mr. Roach," said Mrs. Medlock, as she led him up the back staircase to

"They couldn't well change for the worse," she continued; "and queer as it all is there's them as finds their

duties made a lot easier to stand up under. Don't you be surprised, Mr. Roach, if you find yourself in the

middle of a menagerie and Martha Sowerby's Dickon more at home than you or me could ever be."

There really was a sort of Magic about Dickon, as Mary always privately believed. When Mr. Roach heard

"He'd be at home in Buckingham Palace or at the bottom of a coal mine," he said. "And yet it's not

It was perhaps well he had been prepared or he might have been startled. When the bedroom door was

opened a large crow, which seemed quite at home perched on the high back of a carven chair, announced the

entrance of a visitor by saying "CawCaw" quite loudly. In spite of Mrs. Medlock's warning, Mr. Roach

The young Rajah was neither in bed nor on his sofa. He was sitting in an armchair and a young lamb was

standing by him shaking its tail in feedinglamb fashion as Dickon knelt giving it milk from its bottle. A

squirrel was perched on Dickon's bent back attentively nibbling a nut. The little girl from India was sitting on

The young Rajah turned and looked his servitor overat least that was what the head gardener felt

"Oh, you are Roach, are you?" he said. "I sent for you to give you some very important orders."

"Very good, sir," answered Roach, wondering if he was to receive instructions to fell all the oaks in the park

"I am going out in my chair this afternoon," said Colin. "If the fresh air agrees with me I may go out every

day. When I go, none of the gardeners are to be anywhere near the Long Walk by the garden walls. No one is

to be there. I shall go out about two o'clock and everyone must keep away until I send word that they may go

"Very good, sir," replied Mr. Roach, much relieved to hear that the oaks might remain and that the orchards

were safe. "Mary," said Colin, turning to her, "what is that thing you say in India when you have finished

"You have my permission to go, Roach," he said. "But, remember, this is very important."

"Very good, sir. Thank you, sir," said Mr. Roach, and Mrs. Medlock took him out of the room.

Outside in the corridor, being a rather goodnatured man, he smiled until he almost laughed.

"My word!" he said, "he's got a fine lordly way with him, hasn't he? You'd think he was a whole Royal

"Eh!" protested Mrs. Medlock, "we've had to let him trample all over every one of us ever since he had feet

"Well, there's one thing pretty sure," said Mrs. Medlock. "If he does live and that Indian child stays here I'll

warrant she teaches him that the whole orange does not belong to him, as Susan Sowerby says. And he'll be

"It's all safe now," he said. "And this afternoon I shall see itthis afternoon I shall be in it!"

Dickon went back to the garden with his creatures and Mary stayed with Colin. She did not think he looked

tired but he was very quiet before their lunch came and he was quiet while they were eating it. She wondered

"What big eyes you've got, Colin," she said. "When you are thinking they get as big as saucers. What are you

"The springtime," he said. "I was thinking that I've really never seen it before. I scarcely ever went out and

Shut in and morbid as his life had been, Colin had more imagination than she had and at least he had spent a

"That morning when you ran in and said `It's come! It's come!, you made me feel quite queer. It sounded as if

things were coming with a great procession and big bursts and wafts of music. I've a picture like it in one of

my bookscrowds of lovely people and children with garlands and branches with blossoms on them,

everyone laughing and dancing and crowding and playing on pipes. That was why I said, `Perhaps we shall

"How funny!" said Mary. "That's really just what it feels like. And if all the flowers and leaves and green

things and birds and wild creatures danced past at once, what a crowd it would be! I'm sure they'd dance and

They both laughed but it was not because the idea was laughable but because they both so liked it.

A little later the nurse made Colin ready. She noticed that instead of lying like a log while his clothes were

put on he sat up and made some efforts to help himself, and he talked and laughed with Mary all the time.

"This is one of his good days, sir," she said to Dr. Craven, who dropped in to inspect him. "He's in such good

"I'll call in again later in the afternoon, after he has come in," said Dr. Craven. "I must see how the going out

agrees with him. I wish," in a very low voice, "that he would let you go with him."

"I'd rather give up the case this moment, sir, than even stay here while it's suggested," answered the nurse.

"I hadn't really decided to suggest it," said the doctor, with his slight nervousness. "We'll try the experiment.

The strongest footman in the house carried Colin down stairs and put him in his wheeled chair near which

Dickon waited outside. After the manservant had arranged his rugs and cushions the Rajah waved his hand to

"You have my permission to go," he said, and they both disappeared quickly and it must be confessed giggled

Dickon began to push the wheeled chair slowly and steadily. Mistress Mary walked beside it and Colin

leaned back and lifted his face to the sky. The arch of it looked very high and the small snowy clouds seemed

like white birds floating on outspread wings below its crystal blueness. The wind swept in soft big breaths

down from the moor and was strange with a wild clear scented sweetness. Colin kept lifting his thin chest to

draw it in, and his big eyes looked as if it were they which were listeninglistening, instead of his ears.

"There are so many sounds of singing and humming and calling out," he said. "What is that scent the puffs of

"It's gorse on th' moor that's openin' out," answered Dickon. "Eh! th' bees are at it wonderful today."

Not a human creature was to be caught sight of in the paths they took. In fact every gardener or gardener's lad

had been witched away. But they wound in and out among the shrubbery and out and round the fountain

beds, following their carefully planned route for the mere mysterious pleasure of it. But when at last they

turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls the excited sense of an approaching thrill made them, for some

"This is it," breathed Mary. "This is where I used to walk up and down and wonder and wonder." "Is it?"

cried Colin, and his eyes began to search the ivy with eager curiousness. "But I can see nothing," he

"And that," said Mary with solemn delight, pointing under a big lilac bush, "is where he perched on the little

"Where? Where? There?" he cried, and his eyes were as big as the wolf's in Red RidingHood, when Red

RidingHood felt called upon to remark on them. Dickon stood still and the wheeled chair stopped.

"And this," said Mary, stepping on to the bed close to the ivy, "is where I went to talk to him when he chirped

at me from the top of the wall. And this is the ivy the wind blew back," and she took hold of the hanging

"And here is the handle, and here is the door. Dickon push him inpush him in quickly!"

But Colin had actually dropped back against his cushions, even though he gasped with delight, and he had

covered his eyes with his hands and held them there shutting out everything until they were inside and the

chair stopped as if by magic and the door was closed. Not till then did he take them away and look round and

round and round as Dickon and Mary had done. And over walls and earth and trees and swinging sprays and

tendrils the fair green veil of tender little leaves had crept, and in the grass under the trees and the gray urns in

the alcoves and here and there everywhere were touches or splashes of gold and purple and white and the

trees were showing pink and snow above his head and there were fluttering of wings and faint sweet pipes

and humming and scents and scents. And the sun fell warm upon his face like a hand with a lovely touch.

And in wonder Mary and Dickon stood and stared at him. He looked so strange and different because a pink

glow of color had actually crept all over himivory face and neck and hands and all.

"I shall get well! I shall get well!" he cried out. "Mary! Dickon! I shall get well! And I shall live forever and

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is

going to live forever and ever and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn

dawntime and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back and looks up and up and watches

the pale sky slowly changing and flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost

makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange unchanging majesty of the rising of the

sunwhich has been happening every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One

knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one stands by oneself in a wood at

sunset and the mysterious deep gold stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying

slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much one tries. Then sometimes the

immense quiet of the dark blue at night with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and

sometimes a sound of faroff music makes it true; and sometimes a look in some one's eyes.

And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt the Springtime inside the four high walls

of a hidden garden. That afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and radiantly

beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly goodness the spring came and crowned

everything it possibly could into that one place. More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and

"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen an' there's a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but

"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy. "I'll warrant it's the graidelest one as ever

"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it was made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for

"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' firstratethat tha'

And delight reigned. They drew the chair under the plumtree, which was snowwhite with blossoms and

musical with bees. It was like a king's canopy, a fairy king's. There were flowering cherrytrees near and

appletrees whose buds were pink and white, and here and there one had burst open wide. Between the

blossoming branches of the canopy bits of blue sky looked down like wonderful eyes.

Mary and Dickon worked a litle here and there and Colin watched them. They brought him things to look

atbuds which were opening, buds which were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing

green, the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty shell of some bird early

hatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round and round the garden, stopping every other moment to let him

look at wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from trees. It was like being taken in state round

the country of a magic king and queen and shown all the mysterious riches it contained.

"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th' eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be

kep' so busy it'll make his head swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms nigh as big as

himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he gets there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows

which big mouth to drop th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks on every side. Mother says as when

she sees th' work a robin has to keep them gapin' beaks filled, she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do.

She says she's seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must be droppin' off 'em, though folk can't

This made them giggle so delightedly that they were obliged to cover their mouths with their hands,

remembering that they must not be heard. Colin had been instructed as to the law of whispers and low voices

several days before. He liked the mysteriousness of it and did his best, but in the midst of excited enjoyment

Every moment of the afternoon was full of new things and every hour the sunshine grew more golden. The

wheeled chair had been drawn back under the canopy and Dickon had sat down on the grass and had just

drawn out his pipe when Colin saw something he had not had time to notice before.

"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said. Dickon looked across the grass at the tree and Mary

"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf anywhere," Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?"

"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as has climbed all over it will near hide every bit o' th' dead wood

when they're full o' leaves an' flowers. It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest of all."

"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin. "I wonder how it was done."

"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon. "Eh!" with a sudden relieved start and laying his hand on

Colin was almost too late but he just caught sight of him, the flash of redbreasted bird with something in his

beak. He darted through the greenness and into the closegrown corner and was out of sight. Colin leaned

back on his cushion again, laughing a little. "He's taking her tea to her. Perhaps it's five o'clock. I think I'd

"It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to Dickon afterward. "I know it was Magic." For

both she and Dickon had been afraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had broken off

ten years ago and they had talked it over together and Dickon had stood and rubbed his head in a troubled

"We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees," he had said. "We couldn't never tell him how it

broke, poor lad. If he says anything about it we munwe mun try to look cheerful."

But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the tree. She wondered and wondered in

those few moments if there was any reality in that other thing Dickon had said. He had gone on rubbing his

rustred hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look had begun to grow in his blue eyes.

"Mrs. Craven was a very lovely young lady," he had gone on rather hesitatingly. "An' mother she thinks

maybe she's about Misselthwaite many a time lookin' after Mester Colin, same as all mothers do when they're

took out o' th' world. They have to come back, tha' sees. Happen she's been in the garden an' happen it was

Mary had thought he meant something about Magic. She was a great believer in Magic. Secretly she quite

believed that Dickon worked Magic, of course good Magic, on everything near him and that was why people

liked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend. She wondered, indeed, if it were not possible

that his gift had brought the robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that dangerous question. She felt

that his Magic was working all the afternoon and making Colin look like an entirely different boy. It did not

seem possible that he could be the crazy creature who had screamed and beaten and bitten his pillow. Even

his ivory whiteness seemed to change. The faint glow of color which had shown on his face and neck and

hands when he first got inside the garden really never quite died away. He looked as if he were made of flesh

They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it was so suggestive of afternoon tea that

"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the rhododendron walk," he said. "And then

It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth was spread upon the grass, with hot tea

and buttered toast and crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on domestic errands

paused to inquire what was going on and were led into investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell

whisked up trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered crumpet into a corner and

pecked at and examined and turned it over and made hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all

The afternoon was dragging towards its mellow hour. The sun was deepening the gold of its lances, the bees

were going home and the birds were flying past less often. Dickon and Mary were sitting on the grass, the

teabasket was repacked ready to be taken back to the house, and Colin was lying against his cushions with

his heavy locks pushed back from his forehead and his face looking quite a natural color.

"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back tomorrow, and the day after, and the day

"You'll get plenty of fresh air, won't you?" said Mary. "I'm going to get nothing else," he answered. "I've seen

the spring now and I'm going to see the summer. I'm going to see everything grow here. I'm going to grow

"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an' diggin' same as other folk afore long."

Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary had ever asked if anything was the

"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Thatha's got legs o' thine own, same as other folks!"

"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and weak. They shake so that I'm afraid to try to

"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid

They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping lower. It was that hour when everything

stills itself, and they really had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were resting

luxuriously. Even the creatures had ceased moving about and had drawn together and were resting near them.

Soot had perched on a low branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film drowsily over his eyes.

In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud

Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben Weatherstaff's indignant face glaring at them

"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd give thee a hidin'!"

He mounted another step threateningly as if it were his energetic intention to jump down and deal with her;

but as she came toward him he evidently thought better of it and stood on the top step of his ladder shaking

"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th' first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny

buttermilkfaced young besom, allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it wasna, wanted. I never

"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood below him and called up to him with a

Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of the wall, he was so outraged.

"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha' badness on a robinnot but what he's impidint

enow for anythin'. Him showin' thee th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"she could see his next words burst

out because he was overpowered by curiosity "however i' this world did tha' get in?"

"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately. "He didn't know he was doing it but he

He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his jaw actually dropped as he stared over

At the first sound of his torrent of words Colin had been so surprised that he had only sat up and listened as if

he were spellbound. But in the midst of it he had recovered himself and beckoned imperiously to Dickon.

"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop right in front of him!"

And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair

with luxurious cushions and robes which came toward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach

because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal command in his great blackrimmed eyes and a thin

white hand extended haughtily toward him. And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose. It was really

How Ben Weatherstaff stared! His red old eyes fixed themselves on what was before him as if he were seeing

a ghost. He gazed and gazed and gulped a lump down his throat and did not say a word. "Do you know who I

Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes and over his forehead and then he did

"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I dowi' tha' mother's eyes starin' at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how

Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and he sat bolt upright.

"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a

Ben Weatherstaff passed his hand over his forehead again and gazed as if he could never gaze enough. His

hand shook and his mouth shook and his voice shook. He was an ignorant old man and a tactless old man and

"Tha'tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet. It was too much. The strength which

Colin usually threw into his tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been accused

of crooked legseven in whispersand the perfectly simple belief in their existence which was revealed by

Ben Weatherstaff's voice was more than Rajah flesh and blood could endure. His anger and insulted pride

made him forget everything but this one moment and filled him with a power he had never known before, an

"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the coverings off his lower limbs and

Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short gasp and felt herself turn pale.

"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled over to herself under her breath as fast as ever

There was a brief fierce scramble, the rugs were tossed on the ground, Dickon held Colin's arm, the thin legs

were out, the thin feet were on the grass. Colin was standing uprightuprightas straight as an arrow and

looking strangely tallhis head thrown back and his strange eyes flashing lightning. "Look at me!" he flung

"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad i' Yorkshire!"

What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He choked and gulped and suddenly tears

"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a lath an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob

Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter. He stood straighter and straighter and

"I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are to obey me. This is my garden. Don't dare

to say a word about it! You get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary will meet

you and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We did not want you, but now you will have to be in the secret.

Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer rush of tears. It seemed as if he could

not take his eyes from thin straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back.

"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then remembering himself he suddenly touched his hat

gardener fashion and said, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder.

"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door under the ivy.

Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his cheeks and he looked amazing,

"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it quite grandly.

"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered Dickon. "An' tha's stopped."

"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these 'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched

with his thick boot a clump of crocuses in the grass. Colin looked down at them.

"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic than that therethere couldna' be."

"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet away from him. "I'm going to be standing

when Weatherstaff comes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit down,

He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully steady. When he stood against the

tree trunk it was not too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight that he

When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him standing there and he heard Mary

"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his attention distracted from the long thin

"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You can do it! You can!" She was saying

it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him on his feet looking like that. She could not bear

that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that

he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny

"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?"

Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had recovered a little and answered almost in his

"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with thysel'hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk

"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an' they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha'

And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up and down, down and up.

"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort! Tha's got too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee

put tha' legs on th' ground in such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee down on th' rug a bit young

There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd understanding in his manner. Mary had poured

out speech as rapidly as she could as they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to be remembered,

she had told him, was that Colin was getting wellgetting well. The garden was doing it. No one must let

"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by favorbecause she liked me."

"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was her garden, wasn't it?"

"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She were main fond of it."

"It is my garden now. I am fond of it. I shall come here every day," announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret.

My orders are that no one is to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and made it

come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to helpbut you must come when no one can see you."

"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was about two year' ago."

"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through th' door. I come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics

"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make out how it had been done."

"She was so fond of itshe was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly. "An' she was such a pretty young thing. She

says to me once, `Ben,' says she laughin', `if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take care of my roses.'

When she did go away th' orders was no one was ever to come nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy.

"Over th' wall I comeuntil th' rheumatics stopped mean' I did a bit o' work once a year. She'd gave her

"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said Dickon. "I did wonder."

"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to keep the secret."

"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An, it'll be easier for a man wi' rheumatics to come in at th' door."

On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin stretched out his hand and took it up. An odd

expression came into his face and he began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak enough but

presently as they watched himMary with quite breathless interesthe drove the end of the trowel into the

Dickon's round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with

Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke exultantly to Dickon in his best

"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folkan' tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt

tha' was just leein' to please me. This is only th' first day an' I've walkedan' here I am diggin'."

Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended by chuckling.

"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too.

It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his

spade and dug the hole deeper and wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary

slipped out to run and bring back a wateringcan. When Dickon had deepened the hole Colin went on turning

the soft earth over and over. He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new exercise,

Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the

rose in its pot from the greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun to be excited,

"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the earth thysel' same as th' king does when he goes

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the mould and held it

while old Ben made firm the earth. It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning

forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward to see what was being done. Nut

"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only slipping over the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to

And Dickon helped him, and the Magicor whatever it wasso gave him strength that when the sun did

slip over the edge and end the strange lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two

Dr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonder

if it might not be wise to send some one out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his

"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert yourself."

"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as

"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid it would not be wise."

"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously. "I am going."

Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's chief peculiarities was that he did not know in the least what a

rude little brute he was with his way of ordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island all his

life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own manners and had had no one to compare himself

with. Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had gradually

discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which is usual or popular. Having made this

discovery she naturally thought it of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him

curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to make him ask her why she was doing it

"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all

"I'm sorry for him because of that, of course," said Mary, "but I was thinking just then that it must have been

very horrid to have had to be polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never have done it."

"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man," said Mary, "he would have slapped

"No, he daren't," answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite without prejudice. "Nobody ever dared

to do anything you didn't likebecause you were going to die and things like that. You were such a poor

"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing. I won't let people think I'm one. I

"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary went on, thinking aloud.

"Yes," answered Mary, "very. But you needn't be cross," she added impartially, "because so am I queerand

so is Ben Weatherstaff. But I am not as queer as I was before I began to like people and before I found the

"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he frowned again with determination.

He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw his beautiful smile begin and

"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every day to the garden. There is Magic in theregood Magic,

"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is. Something is theresomething!"

They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months that followedthe wonderful

monthsthe radiant monthsthe amazing ones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have

never had a garden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you will know that it would take a

whole book to describe all that came to pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease

pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in the crevices of the walls. Then the green

things began to show buds and the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every shade of

purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days flowers had been tucked away into every inch and

hole and corner. Ben Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from between the

bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely clinging things to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose

out of the grass in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing armies of the blue and white

"She was main fond o' themshe was," Ben Weatherstaff said. "She liked them things as was allus pointin'

up to th' blue sky, she used to tell. Not as she was one o' them as looked down on th' earthnot her. She just

The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced

in the breeze by the score, gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years and which it might

be confessed seemed rather to wonder how such new people had got there. And the rosesthe roses! Rising

out of the grass, tangled round the sundial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their branches,

climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long garlands falling in cascades they came alive day

by day, hour by hour. Fair fresh leaves, and budsand budstiny at first but swelling and working Magic

until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the

Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning he was brought out and every hour of

each day when it didn't rain he spent in the garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the grass

"watching things growing," he said. If you watched long enough, he declared, you could see buds unsheath

themselves. Also you could make the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on various

unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny scraps of straw or feather or food, or

climbing blades of grass as if they were trees from whose tops one could look out to explore the country. A

mole throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and making its way out at last with the longnailed paws

which looked so like elfish hands, had absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways, beetles' ways, bees'

ways, frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave him a new world to explore and when Dickon revealed

them all and added foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout' and waterrats' and

And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really once stood on his feet had set Colin

thinking tremendously and when Mary told him of the spell she had worked he was excited and approved of

"Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it

is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make

The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once for Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as

quickly as he could and found the Rajah standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also

"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and Miss Mary to stand in a row and

"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ben Weatherstaff, touching his forehead. (One of the long concealed charms of

Ben Weatherstaff was that in his boyhood he had once run away to sea and had made voyages. So he could

"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah. "When I grow up I am going to make great

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the first time he had heard of great scientific

It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this stage she had begun to realize that, queer

as he was, Colin had read about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing sort of

boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on you it seemed as if you believed him almost in

spite of yourself though he was only ten years oldgoing on eleven. At this moment he was especially

convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of actually making a sort of speech like a grownup

"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on, "will be about Magic. Magic is a great

thing and scarcely any one knows anything about it except a few people in old booksand Mary a little,

because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he

doesn't know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he

had not been an animal charmerwhich is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is

Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for uslike

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and really could not keep still. "Aye,

"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator proceeded. "Then something began pushing

things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another they

were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always

curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, `What is it? What is it?' It's something. It

can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon

have and from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes

since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of

being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is

always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and

trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this

gardenin all the places. The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be

a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it

push and draw me and make me strong. I don't know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it

and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to

stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, `You can do it! You can do it!' and I did.

I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped meand so did Dickon's. Every

morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to say, 'Magic is in me!

Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And you must all do it,

"If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through drill we shall see what will happen and

find out if the experiment succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them

until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come

to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things." "I once heard an officer in

India tell my mother that there were fakirs who said words over and over thousands of times," said Mary.

"I've heard Jem Fettleworth's wife say th' same thing over thousands o' timescallin' Jem a drunken brute,"

said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. "Summat allus come o' that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidin' an' went to

"Well," he said, "you see something did come of it. She used the wrong Magic until she made him beat her. If

she'd used the right Magic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldn't have got as drunk as a lord and

Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little old eyes.

"Tha'rt a clever lad as well as a straightlegged one, Mester Colin," he said. "Next time I see Bess

Fettleworth I'll give her a bit of a hint o' what Magic will do for her. She'd be rare an' pleased if th' sinetifik

Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with curious delight. Nut and Shell were on

his shoulders and he held a longeared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly while it laid

"Do you think the experiment will work?" Colin asked him, wondering what he was thinking. He so often

wondered what Dickon was thinking when he saw him looking at him or at one of his "creatures" with his

"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when th' sun shines on 'em. It'll work for sure.

Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs and devotees in illustrations Colin

suggested that they should all sit crosslegged under the tree which made a canopy.

"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather tired and I want to sit down."

"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' mustn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha' might spoil th' Magic."

"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic." It all seemed most majestic and mysterious

when they sat down in their circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into appearing at a

prayermeeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being what he called "agen' prayermeetin's" but this being

the Rajah's affair he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified at being called upon to assist.

Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured. Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some

charmer's signal no one heard, for when he sat down, crosslegged like the rest, the crow, the fox, the

squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of

Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head high as if he felt like a sort of priest and

his strange eyes had a wonderful look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy.

"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward, Mary, as if we were dervishes?"

"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff. "I've got th' rheumatics."

"The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but we won't sway until it has done it.

"I canna' do no chantin'" said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily. "They turned me out o' th' church choir th' only

No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was not even crossed by a shadow. He was

"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy spirit. "The sun is shiningthe sun is

shining. That is the Magic. The flowers are growingthe roots are stirring. That is the Magic. Being alive is

the Magicbeing strong is the Magic. The Magic is in methe Magic is in me. It is in meit is in me. It's

in every one of us. It's in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!"

He said it a great many timesnot a thousand times but quite a goodly number. Mary listened entranced. She

felt as if it were at once queer and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff began to

feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable. The humming of the bees in the blossoms

mingled with the chanting voice and drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat crosslegged with his rabbit

asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot had pushed away a squirrel and huddled close

to him on his shoulder, the gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped.

"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enowbut I'm bound to get out afore th' collection."

"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard every bit of it. You said th' Magic was

"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have my permission to go to your work. But

It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a stubborn old party and not having entire

faith in Magic he had made up his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look over the

The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was formed. It really did look like a procession.

Colin was at its head with Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked behind, and

the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox cub keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping

along or stopping to nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt himself in charge.

It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few yards it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on

Dickon's arm and privately Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his hand

from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held up all the time and he looked very grand.

"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong! I can feel it! I can feel it!"

It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him. He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and

once or twice he sat down on the grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon, but he

would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When he returned to the canopy tree his cheeks

"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific discovery.".

"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because he will not be told. This is to be the biggest secret of all.

No one is to know anything about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any other boy. I

shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken back in it. I won't have people whispering and

asking questions and I won't let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite succeeded. Then

sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his study and say `Here I am; I am like

any other boy. I am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a scientific experiment.'"

Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really

more than half the battle, if he had been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any

other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw that he had a son who was as straight

and strong as other fathers' sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had been his

"One of the things I am going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific discoveries,

"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt

"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful. You must not take liberties because you are in the secret.

However much the Magic works I shall not be a prizefighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer."

"Ax pardonax pardon, sir" answered Ben, touching his forehead in salute. "I ought to have seed it wasn't a

jokin' matter," but his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind being

The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece

of ground enclosed by a low wall of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on

all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages,

turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother. In the company of his "creatures" he did wonders there and was

never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor

songs or talked to Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.

"We'd never get on as comfortable as we do," Mrs. Sowerby said, "if it wasn't for Dickon's garden.

Anything'll grow for him. His 'taters and cabbages is twice th' size of any one else's an' they've got a flavor

When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. After supper there was still a long

clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on and

hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought

penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown bright sweetscented things among gooseberry

bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds

he could save year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps.

The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns

and rockcress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were

"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is to be friends with 'em for sure. They're

just like th' `creatures.' If they're thirsty give 'em drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o' food. They want

to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless."

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first

she was only told that "Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with Miss Mary and

that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickon's

mother might "come into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for sure."

So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the thrilling details of the buried key and

the robin and the gray haze which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never

to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, the doubt of Mester Colin and the final

drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaff's angry face

peering over the wall and Mester Colin's sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sowerby's nicelooking face

"My word!" she said. "It was a good thing that little lass came to th' Manor. It's been th' makin' o' her an' th'

savin, o' him. Standin' on his feet! An' us all thinkin' he was a poor halfwitted lad with not a straight bone in

"What do they make of it at th' Manorhim being so well an' cheerful an' never complainin'?" she inquired.

"They don't know what to make of it," answered Dickon. "Every day as comes round his face looks different.

It's fillin' out and doesn't look so sharp an' th' waxy color is goin'. But he has to do his bit o' complainin',"

"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened. If the doctor knew he'd found out he could stand on

his feet he'd likely write and tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself. He's goin' to

practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his room

an' show him he's as straight as other lads. But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan to do a bit o' groanin'

Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had finished his last sentence.

"Eh!" she said, "that pair's enjoyin' theirselves I'll warrant. They'll get a good bit o' actin' out of it an' there's

nothin' children likes as much as play actin'. Let's hear what they do, Dickon lad." Dickon stopped weeding

"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out," he explained. "An' he flies out at John, th'

footman, for not carryin' him careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an' never lifts

his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house. An' he grunts an' frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his

chair. Him an' Miss Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an' complains she'll say, `Poor Colin!

Does it hurt you so much? Are you so weak as that, poor Colin?'but th' trouble is that sometimes they can

scarce keep from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the garden they laugh till they've no breath left

to laugh with. An' they have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the gardeners from

"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still laughing herself. "Good healthy child

laughin's better than pills any day o' th' year. That pair'll plump up for sure."

"They are plumpin' up," said Dickon. "They're that hungry they don't know how to get enough to eat without

makin' talk. Mester Colin says if he keeps sendin' for more food they won't believe he's an invalid at all. Miss

Mary says she'll let him eat her share, but he says that if she goes hungry she'll get thin an' they mun both get

Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty that she quite rocked backward and

"I'll tell thee what, lad," Mrs. Sowerby said when she could speak. "I've thought of a way to help 'em. When

tha' goes to 'em in th' mornin's tha' shall take a pail o' good new milk an' I'll bake 'em a crusty cottage loaf or

some buns wi' currants in 'em, same as you children like. Nothin's so good as fresh milk an' bread. Then they

could take off th' edge o' their hunger while they were in their garden an' th, fine food they get indoors 'ud

"Eh! mother!" said Dickon admiringly, "what a wonder tha' art! Tha' always sees a way out o' things. They

was quite in a pother yesterday. They didn't see how they was to manage without orderin' up more

"They're two young 'uns growin' fast, an' health's comin' back to both of 'em. Children like that feels like

young wolves an' food's flesh an' blood to 'em," said Mrs. Sowerby. Then she smiled Dickon's own curving

She was quite right, the comfortable wonderful mother creatureand she had never been more so than when

she said their "play actin'" would be their joy. Colin and Mary found it one of their most thrilling sources of

entertainment. The idea of protecting themselves from suspicion had been unconsciously suggested to them

"Your appetite. Is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had said one day. "You used to eat nothing,

"Nothing disagrees with me now" replied Colin, and then seeing the nurse looking at him curiously he

suddenly remembered that perhaps he ought not to appear too well just yet. "At least things don't so often

"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified expression. "But I must talk to Dr. Craven

"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away. "As if she thought there must be something to find

"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin. "No one must begin to find out yet." When Dr. Craven came

that morning he seemed puzzled, also. He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance.

"I will not let any one know where I go," he answered. "I go to a place I like. Every one has orders to keep

"You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harmI do not think so. The nurse says that

"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is an unnatural appetite."

"I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you," said Dr. Craven. "You are gaining flesh rapidly and

"Perhapsperhaps I am bloated and feverish," said Colin, assuming a discouraging air of gloom. "People

who are not going to live are oftendifferent." Dr. Craven shook his head. He was holding Colin's wrist and

"You are not feverish," he said thoughtfully, "and such flesh as you have gained is healthy. If you can keep

this up, my boy, we need not talk of dying. Your father will be happy to hear of this remarkable

"I won't have him told!" Colin broke forth fiercely. "It will only disappoint him if I get worse againand I

may get worse this very night. I might have a raging fever. I feel as if I might be beginning to have one now. I

won't have letters written to my fatherI won'tI won't! You are making me angry and you know that is

bad for me. I feel hot already. I hate being written about and being talked over as much as I hate being stared

"Hushh! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him. "Nothing shall be written without your permission. You are too

He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse he privately warned her that such a

"The boy is extraordinarily better," he said. "His advance seems almost abnormal. But of course he is doing

now of his own free will what we could not make him do before. Still, he excites himself very easily and

nothing must be said to irritate him." Mary and Colin were much alarmed and talked together anxiously.

"I may be obliged to have a tantrum," said Colin regretfully. "I don't want to have one and I'm not miserable

enough now to work myself into a big one. Perhaps I couldn't have one at all. That lump doesn't come in my

throat now and I keep thinking of nice things instead of horrible ones. But if they talk about writing to my

He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible to carry out this brilliant idea when he

wakened each morning with an amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast of

homemade bread and fresh butter, snowwhite eggs, raspberry jam and clotted cream. Mary always

breakfasted with him and when they found themselves at the tableparticularly if there were delicate slices

of sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver coverthey would look into each

"I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always ended by saying. "We can send away

But they never found they could send away anything and the highly polished condition of the empty plates

"I do wish," Colin would say also, "I do wish the slices of ham were thicker, and one muffin each is not

"It's enough for a person who is going to die," answered Mary when first she heard this, "but it's not enough

for a person who is going to live. I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh heather and

The morning that Dickonafter they had been enjoying themselves in the garden for about two hourswent

behind a big rosebush and brought forth two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with

cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottagemade currant buns folded in a clean blue and white

napkin, buns so carefully tucked in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprised joyfulness. What a

wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of! What a kind, clever woman she must be! How good the buns

"Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon," said Colin. "It makes her think of ways to do thingsnice things.

She is a Magic person. Tell her we are grateful, Dickonextremely grateful." He was given to using rather

grownup phrases at times. He enjoyed them. He liked this so much that he improved upon it.

And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with buns and drank milk out of the pail in

copious draughts in the manner of any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and breathing

This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind. They actually awoke to the fact that as

Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen people to provide food for she might not have enough to satisfy two extra

appetites every day. So they asked her to let them send some of their shillings to buy things.

Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park outside the garden where Mary had first

found him piping to the wild creatures there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort of tiny

oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted eggs were a previously unknown luxury and very

hot potatoes with salt and fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king besides being deliciously

satisfying. You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as many as you liked without feeling as if you were

Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under the plumtree which provided a

canopy of thickening green leaves after its brief blossomtime was ended. After the ceremony Colin always

took his walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly found power at intervals. Each day

he grew stronger and could walk more steadily and cover more ground. And each day his belief in the Magic

grew strongeras well it might. He tried one experiment after another as he felt himself gaining strength and

"Yesterday," he said one morning after an absence, "I went to Thwaite for mother an' near th' Blue Cow Inn I

seed Bob Haworth. He's the strongest chap on th' moor. He's the champion wrestler an' he can jump higher

than any other chap an' throw th' hammer farther. He's gone all th' way to Scotland for th' sports some years.

He's knowed me ever since I was a little 'un an' he's a friendly sort an' I axed him some questions. Th' gentry

calls him a athlete and I thought o' thee, Mester Colin, and I says, `How did tha' make tha' muscles stick out

that way, Bob? Did tha' do anythin' extra to make thysel' so strong?' An' he says 'Well, yes, lad, I did. A

strong man in a show that came to Thwaite once showed me how to exercise my arms an' legs an' every

muscle in my body. An' I says, `Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with 'em, Bob?' an' he laughed

an' says, 'Art tha' th' delicate chap?' an' I says, `No, but I knows a young gentleman that's gettin' well of a long

illness an' I wish I knowed some o' them tricks to tell him about.' I didn't say no names an, he didn't ask none.

He's friendly same as I said an' he stood up an' showed me goodnatured like, an' I imitated what he did till I

"Aye, to be sure," Dickon answered, getting up. "But he says tha' mun do 'em gentle at first an' be careful not

"I'll be careful," said Colin. "Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the most Magic boy in the world!"

Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully practical but simple series of muscle

exercises. Colin watched them with widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down. Presently

he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied feet. Mary began to do them also. Soot, who was

watching the performance, became much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about restlessly because

From that time the exercises were part of the day's duties as much as the Magic was. It became possible for

both Colin and Mary to do more of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but for

the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he arrived they would have been lost. But

the little oven in the hollow and Mrs. Sowerby's bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and the nurse

and Dr. Craven became mystified again. You can trifle with your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if

you are full to the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oatcakes and buns

"They are eating next to nothing," said the nurse. "They'll die of starvation if they can't be persuaded to take

"Look!" exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. "Eh! I'm moithered to death with them. They're a pair of

young Satans. Bursting their jackets one day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals Cook can

tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and bread sauce did they set a fork into

yesterdayand the poor woman fair invented a pudding for themand back it's sent. She almost cried.

Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully, He wore an extremely worried expression when the

nurse talked with him and showed him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to look

atbut it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin's sofa and examined him. He had been called to

London on business and had not seen the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things begin to gain health

they gain it rapidly. The waxen tinge had left, Colins skin and a warm rose showed through it; his beautiful

eyes were clear and the hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out. His once dark,

heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily from his forehead and were soft and warm with life.

His lips were fuller and of a normal color. In fact as an imitation of a boy who was a confirmed invalid he

was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his chin in his hand and thought him over.

"I am sorry to hear that you do not eat any thing," he said. "That will not do. You will lose all you have

Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer sound which she tried so violently

"It was something between a sneeze and a cough," she replied with reproachful dignity, "and it got into my

"But," she said afterward to Colin, "I couldn't stop myself. It just burst out because all at once I couldn't help

remembering that last big potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through that thick

"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr. Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.

"There's no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the trees," Mrs. Medlock answered. "They

stay out in the grounds all day and see no one but each other. And if they want anything different to eat from

"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with them we need not disturb ourselves. The

"So is the girl," said Mrs. Medlock. "She's begun to be downright pretty since she's filled out and lost her

ugly little sour look. Her hair's grown thick and healthy looking and she's got a bright color. The glummest,

illnatured little thing she used to be and now her and Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young

And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed new miracles. In the robin's nest

there were Eggs and the robin's mate sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and

careful wings. At first she was very nervous and the robin himself was indignantly watchful. Even Dickon did

not go near the closegrown corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some mysterious

spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little pair that in the garden there was nothing which was

not quite like themselvesnothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what was happening to

themthe immense, tender, terrible, heartbreaking beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one

person in that garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if an Egg were taken

away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and crash through space and come to an endif there had

been even one who did not feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness even in that golden

springtime air. But they all knew it and felt it and the robin and his mate knew they knew it.

At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For some mysterious reason he knew he need

not watch Dickon. The first moment he set his dewbright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a

stranger but a sort of robin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin (which is a quite distinct language

not to be mistaken for any other). To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman. Dickon

always spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he used when he spoke to humans did not matter

in the least. The robin thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were not intelligent enough to

understand feathered speech. His movements also were robin. They never startled one by being sudden

enough to seem dangerous or threatening. Any robin could understand Dickon, so his presence was not even

But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other two. In the first place the boy creature

did not come into the garden on his legs. He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of wild

animals were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful. Then when he began to stand up and move about

he did it in a queer unaccustomed way and the others seemed to have to help him. The robin used to secrete

himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head tilted first on one side and then on the other. He thought

that the slow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When cats are preparing to

pounce they creep over the ground very slowly. The robin talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few

days but after that he decided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so great that he was afraid it

When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense relief. But for a

long timeor it seemed a long time to the robinhe was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the

other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while and

One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn to fly by his parents he had done

much the same sort of thing. He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So it

occurred to him that this boy was learning to flyor rather to walk. He mentioned this to his mate and when

he told her that the Eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way after they were fledged she was

quite comforted and even became eagerly interested and derived great pleasure from watching the boy over

the edge of her nestthough she always thought that the Eggs would be much cleverer and learn more

quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans were always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of

them never seemed really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the air or on treetops.

After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all three of the children at times did unusual

things. They would stand under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way which was

neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went through these movements at intervals every day and

the robin was never able to explain to his mate what they were doing or tying to do. He could only say that he

was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so

fluently was doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions were not of a dangerous

nature. Of course neither the robin nor his mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and

his exercises for making the muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not like human beings; their muscles

are always exercised from the first and so they develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly

about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied means wasted away

When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like the others, the nest in the corner

was brooded over by a great peace and content. Fears for the Eggs became things of the past. Knowing that

your Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the fact that you could watch so many

curious things going on made setting a most entertaining occupation. On wet days the Eggs' mother

sometimes felt even a little dull because the children did not come into the garden.

But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. One morning when the rain

streamed down unceasingly and Colin was beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on

his sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an inspiration.

"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my body are so full of Magic that I

can't keep them still. They want to be doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in the

morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting outside and everything seems just

shouting for joyeven the trees and things we can't really hearI feel as if I must jump out of bed and

"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and they would be sure you had

Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all lookhow horrified by his outbreak and how

"I wish my father would come home," he said. "I want to tell him myself. I'm always thinking about itbut

we couldn't go on like this much longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too

"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are in this house?"

"There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary. "And one rainy day I went and looked into ever

so many of them. No one ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was

coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the second time I heard you crying."

"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look

"That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No one would dare to follow us. There are galleries where you

could run. We could do our exercises. There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivory

"I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the part of the house which is not used.

John can push me as far as the picturegallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and leave

Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had wheeled the chair into the picturegallery

and left the two together in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As soon as

Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of

"I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, "and then I am going to jump and then

And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the portraits and found the plain little girl

"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations. They lived a long time ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one

of my great, great, great, great aunts. She looks rather like you, Marynot as you look now but as you

They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory elephants. They found the rosecolored

brocade boudoir and the hole in the cushion the mouse had left, but the mice had grown up and run away and

the hole was empty. They saw more rooms and made more discoveries than Mary had made on her first

pilgrimage. They found new corridors and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and

weird old things they did not know the use of. It was a curiously entertaining morning and the feeling of

wandering about in the same house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were miles away

"I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew I lived in such a big queer old place. I like it. We will ramble

about every rainy day. We shall always be finding new queer corners and things."

That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that when they returned to Colin's room

When the nurse carried the tray downstairs she slapped it down on the kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis,

"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house of mystery, and those two children are the greatest mysteries in it."

"If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John, "there'd be small wonder that he

weighs twice as much today as he did a month ago. I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of

That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's room. She had noticed it the day

before but had said nothing because she thought the change might have been made by chance. She said

nothing today but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantel. She could look at it because the

"I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared a few minutes. "I always know when

you want me to tell you something. You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keep it

"Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing. I wakened when it was bright moonlight

two nights ago and felt as if the Magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I couldn't

lie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was quite light and there was a patch of moonlight

on the curtain and somehow that made me go and pull the cord. She looked right down at me as if she were

laughing because she was glad I was standing there. It made me like to look at her. I want to see her laughing

like that all the time. I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."

"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps you are her ghost made into a boy."

That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then answered her slowly.

"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me I think I should tell him about the

Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's incantations Colin sometimes gave them

"I like to do it," he explained, "because when I grow up and make great scientific discoveries I shall be

obliged to lecture about them and so this is practise. I can only give short lectures now because I am very

young, and besides Ben Weatherstaff would feel as if he were in church and he would go to sleep."

"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap

But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes on him and kept them there. He

looked him over with critical affection. It was not so much the lecture which interested him as the legs which

looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head which held itself up so well, the once sharp chin and

hollow cheeks which had filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold the light he

remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colin felt Ben's earnest gaze meant that he was much

impressed he wondered what he was reflecting on and once when he had seemed quite entranced he

"I was thinkin'" answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's, gone up three or four pound this week. I was lookin' at

"It's the Magic andand Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said Colin. "You see the scientific

That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he was ruddy with running and his

funny face looked more twinkling than usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains they

fell to work. They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking rain. The moisture which was good for

the flowers was also good for the weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves which must

be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. Colin was as good at weeding as any one in these days and

he could lecture while he was doing it. "The Magic works best when you work, yourself," he said this

morning. "You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I am going to read books about bones and muscles, but

I am going to write a book about Magic. I am making it up now. I keep finding out things."

It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his trowel and stood up on his feet. He had been

silent for several minutes and they had seen that he was thinking out lectures, as he often did. When he

dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thought had made

him do it. He stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threw out his arms exultantly. Color glowed in

his face and his strange eyes widened with joyfulness. All at once he had realized something to the full.

Dickon was looking at him very hard. Being an animal charmer he could see more things than most people

could and many of them were things he never talked about. He saw some of them now in this boy. "Aye, that

"Just this minute," said Colin, "all at once I remembered it myselfwhen I looked at my hand digging with

the troweland I had to stand up on my feet to see if it was real. And it is real! I'm wellI'm well!"

He had known it before in a way, he had hoped it and felt it and thought about it, but just at that minute

something had rushed all through hima sort of rapturous belief and realization and it had been so strong

"I shall live forever and ever and ever!" he cried grandly. "I shall find out thousands and thousands of things.

I shall find out about people and creatures and everything that growslike Dickonand I shall never stop

making Magic. I'm well! I'm well! I feelI feel as if I want to shout out somethingsomething thankful,

"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He had no opinion of the Doxology and he

"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th' skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th'

"If she says that, it must be a nice song," Colin answered. "I've never been in a church myself. I was always

Dickon was quite simple and unaffected about it. He understood what Colin felt better than Colin did himself.

He understood by a sort of instinct so natural that he did not know it was understanding. He pulled off his cap

"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin," an' so mun tha', Benan' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows."

Colin took off his cap and the sun shone on and warmed his thick hair as he watched Dickon intently. Ben

Weatherstaff scrambled up from his knees and bared his head too with a sort of puzzled halfresentful look

on his old face as if he didn't know exactly why he was doing this remarkable thing.

Dickon stood out among the trees and rosebushes and began to sing in quite a simple matteroffact way

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow, Praise Him all creatures here below, Praise Him above ye

When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with his jaws set obstinately but with a

disturbed look in his eyes fixed on Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative.

"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it. Perhaps it means just what I mean when I want to shout out that I

am thankful to the Magic." He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. "Perhaps they are both the same thing.

How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it,

too. It's my song. How does it begin? `Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?"

And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as musically as they could and Dickon's

swelled quite loud and beautifuland at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared his throat and at

the third line he joined in with such vigor that it seemed almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end

Mary observed that the very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he found out that

Colin was not a cripplehis chin was twitching and he was staring and winking and his leathery old cheeks

"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I may change my mind i' time. I should

Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his attention and his expression had become a

The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had entered. She had come in with the

last line of their song and she had stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her, the

sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the

greenery she was rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She had wonderful

affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything inall of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the

"creatures" and every flower that was in bloom. Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them felt that

Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both felt their pulses beat faster.

"It's mother!" Dickon said again when they met halfway. "I knowed tha' wanted to see her an' I told her where

Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his eyes quite devoured her face.

"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and the secret garden. I'd never wanted

The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her own. She flushed and the corners of her

"Eh! dear lad!" she broke out tremulously. "Eh! dear lad!" as if she had not known she were going to say it.

She did not say, "Mester Colin," but just "dear lad" quite suddenly. She might have said it to Dickon in the

same way if she had seen something in his face which touched her. Colin liked it.

"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked. She put her hand on his shoulder and smiled the mist out

of her eyes. "Aye, that I am!" she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my heart jump."

"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my father like me?"

"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a soft quick pat. "He mun come homehe

"Susan Sowerby," said Ben Weatherstaff, getting close to her. "Look at th' lad's legs, wilt tha'? They was like

drumsticks i' stockin' two month' agoan' I heard folk tell as they was bandy an' knockkneed both at th'

"They're goin' to be fine strong lad's legs in a bit," she said. "Let him go on playin' an' workin' in the garden

an' eatin' hearty an' drinkin' plenty o' good sweet milk an' there'll not be a finer pair i' Yorkshire, thank God

She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little face over in a motherly fashion.

"An' thee, too!" she said. "Tha'rt grown near as hearty as our 'Lisabeth Ellen. I'll warrant tha'rt like thy mother

too. Our Martha told me as Mrs. Medlock heard she was a pretty woman. Tha'lt be like a blush rose when tha'

She did not mention that when Martha came home on her "day out" and described the plain sallow child she

had said that she had no confidence whatever in what Mrs. Medlock had heard. "It doesn't stand to reason that

a pretty woman could be th' mother o' such a fou' little lass," she had added obstinately.

Mary had not had time to pay much attention to her changing face. She had only known that she looked

"different" and seemed to have a great deal more hair and that it was growing very fast. But remembering her

pleasure in looking at the Mem Sahib in the past she was glad to hear that she might some day look like her.

Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole story of it and shown every bush

and tree which had come alive. Colin walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept

looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the delightful feeling she gave thema sort

of warm, supported feeling. It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his "creatures." She

stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if they were children. Soot followed her and once or twice

cawed at her and flew upon her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her about the robin and the

first flight of the young ones she laughed a motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.

"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine

It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland cottage way that at last she was

"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do."

"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it by that name but what does th' name matter? I warrant they

call it a different name i' France an' a different one i' Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds swellin' an' th'

sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good Thing. It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is

called out of our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless thee. It goes on makin' worlds by th'

millionworlds like us. Never thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full of

itan' call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I come into th' garden."

"I felt so joyful," said Colin, opening his beautiful strange eyes at her. "Suddenly I felt how different I

washow strong my arms and legs were, you knowand how I could dig and standand I jumped up and

"Th' Magic listened when tha' sung th' Doxology. It would ha' listened to anything tha'd sung. It was th' joy

that mattered. Eh! lad, ladwhat's names to th' Joy Maker," and she gave his shoulders a quick soft pat

She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and when the hungry hour came and Dickon

brought it out from its hiding place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour their

food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She was full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of

odd things. She told them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words. She laughed as if she could

not help it when they told her of the in creasing difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a

"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are together," explained Colin. "And it doesn't

sound ill at all. We try to choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever."

"There's one thing that comes into my mind so often," said Mary, "and I can scarcely ever hold in when I

think of it suddenly. I keep thinking suppose Colin's face should get to look like a full moon. It isn't like one

yet but he gets a tiny bit fatter every dayand suppose some morning it should look like onewhat should

"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do," said Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to

"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told him in tha' own way," she said. "Tha's

"I couldn't bear any one else to tell him," said Colin. "I think about different ways every day, I think now I

just want to run into his room." "That'd be a fine start for him," said Susan Sowerby. "I'd like to see his face,

One of the things they talked of was the visit they were to make to her cottage. They planned it all. They were

to drive over the moor and lunch out of doors among the heather. They would see all the twelve children and

Susan Sowerby got up at last to return to the house and Mrs. Medlock. It was time for Colin to be wheeled

back also. But before he got into his chair he stood quite close to Susan and fixed his eyes on her with a kind

of bewildered adoration and he suddenly caught hold of the fold of her blue cloak and held it fast.

"You are just what Iwhat I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my motheras well as Dickon's!"

All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms close against the bosom under the

blue cloakas if he had been Dickon's brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes.

"Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden, I do believe. She couldna' keep out of it.

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century

more amazing things were found out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things still

more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be

done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be donethen it is done and all the world

wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the new things people began to find out in the last century

was that thoughtsjust mere thoughtsare as powerful as electric batteriesas good for one as sunlight is,

or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a

scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after it has got in you may never get over it as

So long as Mistress Mary's mind was full of disagreeable thoughts about her dislikes and sour opinions of

people and her determination not to be pleased by or interested in anything, she was a yellowfaced, sickly,

bored and wretched child. Circumstances, however, were very kind to her, though she was not at all aware of

it. They began to push her about for her own good. When her mind gradually filled itself with robins, and

moorland cottages crowded with children, with queer crabbed old gardeners and common little Yorkshire

housemaids, with springtime and with secret gardens coming alive day by day, and also with a moor boy and

his "creatures," there was no room left for the disagreeable thoughts which affected her liver and her

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his fears and weakness and his detestation

of people who looked at him and reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical halfcrazy

little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and the spring and also did not know that he could get

well and could stand upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began to push out the old

hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured

into him like a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and there was nothing weird

about it at all. Much more surprising things can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged

thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable

While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming alive with it, there was a man

wandering about certain faraway beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains of

Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind filled with dark and heartbroken

thinking. He had not been courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place of the dark

ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he had lain on mountainsides with sheets of deep

blue gentians blooming all about him and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought them. A terrible

sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had

refused obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had forgotten and deserted his home and

his duties. When he traveled about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong done to

other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him with gloom. Most strangers thought he must

be either half mad or a man with some hidden crime on his soul. He, was a tall man with a drawn face and

crooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotel registers was, "Archibald Craven, Misselthwaite

He had traveled far and wide since the day he saw Mistress Mary in his study and told her she might have her

"bit of earth." He had been in the most beautiful places in Europe, though he had remained nowhere more

than a few days. He had chosen the quietest and remotest spots. He had been on the tops of mountains whose

heads were in the clouds and had looked down on other mountains when the sun rose and touched them with

But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he realized that for the first time in ten

years a strange thing had happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he had been

walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted, any man's soul out of shadow. He had walked a long

way and it had not lifted his. But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down to rest on a carpet of

moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way through the

luscious damp greenness. Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low laughter as it bubbled over and

round stones. He saw birds come and dip their heads to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away. It

seemed like a thing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness seem deeper. The valley was very, very still.

As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven gradually felt his mind and body both

grow quiet, as quiet as the valley itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not. He sat and

gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things growing at its edge. There was one lovely mass of

blue forgetmenots growing so close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he found himself

looking as he remembered he had looked at such things years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly how

lovely it was and what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not know that just that

simple thought was slowly filling his mindfilling and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside.

It was as if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had risen and risen until at last it

swept the dark water away. But of course he did not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley

seemed to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright delicate blueness. He did not know how

long he sat there or what was happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he got up

slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft breath and wondering at himself. Something

"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over his forehead. "I almost feel as ifI

I do not know enough about the wonderfulness of undiscovered things to be able to explain how this had

happened to him. Neither does any one else yet. He did not understand at all himselfbut he remembered

this strange hour months afterward when he was at Misselthwaite again and he found out quite by accident

The singular calmness remained with him the rest of the evening and he slept a new reposeful sleep; but it

was not with him very long. He did not know that it could be kept. By the next night he had opened the doors

wide to his dark thoughts and they had come trooping and rushing back. He left the valley and went on his

wandering way again. But, strange as it seemed to him, there were minutessometimes halfhourswhen,

without his knowing why, the black burden seemed to lift itself again and he knew he was a living man and

not a dead one. Slowlyslowlyfor no reason that he knew ofhe was "coming alive" with the garden.

As the golden summer changed into the deep golden autumn he went to the Lake of Como. There he found

the loveliness of a dream. He spent his days upon the crystal blueness of the lake or he walked back into the

soft thick verdure of the hills and tramped until he was tired so that he might sleep. But by this time he had

begun to sleep better, he knew, and his dreams had ceased to be a terror to him.

It was growing stronger butbecause of the rare peaceful hours when his thoughts were changedhis soul

was slowly growing stronger, too. He began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home.

Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what he should feel when he went and

stood by the carved fourposted bed again and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivorywhite face while it

slept and, the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the closeshut eyes. He shrank from it.

One marvel of a day he had walked so far that when he returned the moon was high and full and all the world

was purple shadow and silver. The stillness of lake and shore and wood was so wonderful that he did not go

into the villa he lived in. He walked down to a little bowered terrace at the water's edge and sat upon a seat

and breathed in all the heavenly scents of the night. He felt the strange calmness stealing over him and it grew

He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his dream was so real that he did not feel

as if he were dreaming. He remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought he

was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the late roses and listened to the lapping of the

water at his feet he heard a voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away. It seemed very far,

"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer than before, "Archie! Archie!"

He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real voice and it seemed so natural that he

"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In the garden!"

And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and sweetly all through the lovely night.

When he did awake at last it was brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an

Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa were, to accepting without question any

strange thing his foreign master might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or where he

would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or lie in the boat on the lake all night. The man

held a salver with some letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When he had gone

away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand and looking at the lake. His strange calm was

still upon him and something morea lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done had not happened

as he thoughtas if something had changed. He was remembering the dreamthe realreal dream.

"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But the door is locked and the key is buried

When he glanced at the letters a few minutes later he saw that the one lying at the top of the rest was an

English letter and came from Yorkshire. It was directed in a plain woman's hand but it was not a hand he

knew. He opened it, scarcely thinking of the writer, but the first words attracted his attention at once.

I am Susan Sowerby that made bold to speak to you once on the moor. It was about Miss Mary I spoke. I will

make bold to speak again. Please, sir, I would come home if I was you. I think you would be glad to come

andif you will excuse me, sirI think your lady would ask you to come if she was here.

Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope. He kept thinking about the dream.

And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to prepare for his return to England.

In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad journey he found himself thinking of his

boy as he had never thought in all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to forget him.

Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories of him constantly drifted into his mind. He

remembered the black days when he had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the mother

was dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to look at it at last it had been, such a weak

wretched thing that everyone had been sure it would die in a few days. But to the surprise of those who took

care of it the days passed and it lived and then everyone believed it would be a deformed and crippled

He had not meant to be a bad father, but he had not felt like a father at all. He had supplied doctors and nurses

and luxuries, but he had shrunk from the mere thought of the boy and had buried himself in his own misery.

The first time after a year's absence he returned to Misselthwaite and the small miserable looking thing

languidly and indifferently lifted to his face the great gray eyes with black lashes round them, so like and yet

so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as

death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep, and all he knew of him was that he

was a confirmed invalid, with a vicious, hysterical, halfinsane temper. He could only be kept from furies

All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled him through mountain passes and golden

plains the man who was "coming alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself. "Ten years is a long time. It may be too late

Of course this was the wrong Magicto begin by saying "too late." Even Colin could have told him that. But

he knew nothing of Magiceither black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby

had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature had realized that the boy was much

worsewas fatally ill. If he had not been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession

of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had brought a sort of courage and hope

with it. Instead of giving way to thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in better

"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good and control him? " he thought. "I will go

But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the cottage, seven or eight children who were

playing about gathered in a group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him that their

mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the morning to help a woman who had a new baby.

"Our Dickon," they volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where he went several

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round redcheeked faces, each one grinning

in its own particular way, and he awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at their

friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the

"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for each of, you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away, leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows

The drive across the wonderfulness of the moor was a soothing thing. Why did it seem to give him a sense of

homecoming which he had been sure he could never feel againthat sense of the beauty of land and sky and

purple bloom of distance and a warming of the heart at drawing, nearer to the great old house which had held

those of his blood for six hundred years? How he had driven away from it the last time, shuddering to think

of its closed rooms and the boy lying in the fourposted bed with the brocaded hangings. Was it possible that

perhaps he might find him changed a little for the better and that he might overcome his shrinking from him?

How real that dream had beenhow wonderful and clear the voice which called back to him, "In the

"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door. I mustthough I don't know why."

When he arrived at the Manor the servants who received him with the usual ceremony noticed that he looked

better and that he did not go to the remote rooms where he usually lived attended by Pitcher. He went into the

library and sent for Mrs. Medlock. She came to him somewhat excited and curious and flustered.

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired. "Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock answered, "he'she's different, in

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor the nurse, nor me can exactly make him

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be changing for the worse. His appetite, sir,

"Has he become moremore peculiar?" her master, asked, knitting his brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiarwhen you compare him with what he used to be. He used to eat

nothing and then suddenly he began to eat something enormous and then he stopped again all at once and

the meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir, perhaps, that out of doors he never

would let himself be taken. The things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave a

body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state that Dr. Craven said he couldn't be

responsible for forcing him. Well, sir, just without warningnot long after one of his worst tantrums he

suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan Sowerby's boy Dickon that could

push his chair. He took a fancy to both Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if

"If he took his food natural, sir, you'd think he was putting on fleshbut we're afraid it may be a sort of

bloat. He laughs sometimes in a queer way when he's alone with Miss Mary. He never used to laugh at all.

Dr. Craven is coming to see you at once, if you'll allow him. He never was as puzzled in his life."

"In the garden, sir. He's always in the gardenthough not a human creature is allowed to go near for fear

"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he stood and repeated it again and again.

He had to make an effort to bring himself back to the place he was standing in and when he felt he was on

earth again he turned and went out of the room. He took his way, as Mary had done, through the door in the

shrubbery and among the laurels and the fountain beds. The fountain was playing now and was encircled by

beds of brilliant autumn flowers. He crossed the lawn and turned into the Long Walk by the ivied walls. He

did not walk quickly, but slowly, and his eyes were on the path. He felt as if he were being drawn back to the

place he had so long forsaken, and he did not know why. As he drew near to it his step became still more

slow. He knew where the door was even though the ivy hung thick over itbut he did not know exactly

So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment after he had paused he started and

The ivy hung thick over the door, the key was buried under the shrubs, no human being had passed that portal

for ten lonely yearsand yet inside the garden there were sounds. They were the sounds of running scuffling

feet seeming to chase round and round under the trees, they were strange sounds of lowered suppressed

voicesexclamations and smothered joyous cries. It seemed actually like the laughter of young things, the

uncontrollable laughter of children who were trying not to be heard but who in a moment or soas their

excitement mountedwould burst forth. What in heaven's name was he dreaming ofwhat in heaven's

name did he hear? Was he losing his reason and thinking he heard things which were not for human ears?

And then the moment came, the uncontrollable moment when the sounds forgot to hush themselves. The feet

ran faster and fasterthey were nearing the garden doorthere was quick strong young breathing and a

wild outbreak of laughing shows which could not be containedand the door in the wall was flung wide

open, the sheet of ivy swinging back, and a boy burst through it at full speed and, without seeing the outsider,

Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a result of his unseeing dash against

him, and when he held him away to look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath.

He was a tall boy and a handsome one. He was glowing with life and his running had sent splendid color

leaping to his face. He threw the thick hair back from his forehead and lifted a pair of strange gray

eyeseyes full of boyish laughter and rimmed with black lashes like a fringe. It was the eyes which made

This was not what Colin had expectedthis was not what he had planned. He had never thought of such a

meeting. And yet to come dashing outwinning a raceperhaps it was even better. He drew himself up to

his very tallest. Mary, who had been running with him and had dashed through the door too, believed that he

managed to make himself look taller than he had ever looked beforeinches taller.

"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can myself. I'm Colin."

Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he said hurriedly:

"Yes," hurried on Colin. "It was the garden that did itand Mary and Dickon and the creaturesand the

Magic. No one knows. We kept it to tell you when you came. I'm well, I can beat Mary in a race. I'm going to

He said it all so like a healthy boyhis face flushed, his words tumbling over each other in his

"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. "Aren't you glad? I'm going to live forever and ever and ever!"

Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him still. He knew he dared not even try to

The place was a wilderness of autumn gold and purple and violet blue and flaming scarlet and on every side

were sheaves of late lilies standing togetherlilies which were white or white and ruby. He remembered

well when the first of them had been planted that just at this season of the year their late glories should reveal

themselves. Late roses climbed and hung and clustered and the sunshine deepening the hue of the yellowing

trees made one feel that one, stood in an embowered temple of gold. The newcomer stood silent just as the

Then they sat down under their treeall but Colin, who wanted to stand while he told the story.

It was the strangest thing he had ever heard, Archibald Craven thought, as it was poured forth in headlong

boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight meetingthe coming of the

springthe passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah to his feet to defy old Ben

Weatherstaff to his face. The odd companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The

listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came into his eyes when he was not

laughing. The Athlete, the Lecturer, the Scientific Discoverer was a laughable, lovable, healthy young human

"Now," he said at the end of the story, "it need not be a secret any more. I dare say it will frighten them nearly

into fits when they see mebut I am never going to get into the chair again. I shall walk back with you,

Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on this occasion he made an excuse to

carry some vegetables to the kitchen and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a glass

of beer he was on the spotas he had hoped to bewhen the most dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had

seen during the present generation actually took place. One of the windows looking upon the courtyard gave

also a glimpse of the lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben had come from the gardens, hoped that he might

have caught sight of his master and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin.

Ben took his beermug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I could sup up another mug of it."

"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beermug in her excitement.

"I didna' hear that," said Ben, "along o' only bein' on th' stepladder lookin, over th' wall. But I'll tell thee this.

There's been things goin' on outside as you house people knows nowt about. An' what tha'll find out tha'll find

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and waved his mug solemnly toward the

When Mrs. Medlock looked she threw up her hands and gave a little shriek and every man and woman

servant within hearing bolted across the servants' hall and stood looking through the window with their eyes

Across the lawn came the Master of Misselthwaite and he looked as many of them had never seen him. And

by his, side with his head up in the air and his eyes full of laughter walked as strongly and steadily as any boy