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 fairy-story 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 came down it could reach them at once, so they began to feel very
much alive.

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 be
merely commanded by them to do things.

"Tha'rt like th' robin," he said to her one morning when he lifted his
head and saw her standing by him.  "I never knows when I shall see thee
or which side tha'll come from."

"He's friends with me now," said Mary.

"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 tail-feathers. He's as
full o' pride as an egg's full o' meat."

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 looked her over.

"How long has tha' been here?" he jerked out.

"I think it's about a month," she answered.

"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 set eyes on an uglier, sourer faced young 'un."

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 robin, Ben Weatherstaff."

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 seemed determined to make Ben Weatherstaff admire
him.  But Ben was sarcastic.

"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 Moor an' ready to
fight all th' rest of 'em."

"Oh! look at him!" exclaimed Mary.

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
little song right at him.

"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 thee--that's what
tha' thinks."

The robin spread his wings--Mary 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 breathe--as if
he would not have stirred for the world, lest his robin should start
away.  He spoke quite in a whisper.

"Well, I'm danged!" he said as softly as if he were saying something
quite different.  "Tha' does know how to get at a chap--tha' does!
Tha's fair unearthly, tha's so knowin'."

And he stood without stirring--almost without drawing his breath--until
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 then he began to dig again and said nothing for several minutes.

But because he kept breaking into a slow grin now and then, Mary was
not afraid to talk to him.

"Have you a garden of your own?" she asked.

"No. I'm bachelder an' lodge with Martin at th' gate."

"If you had one," said Mary, "what would you plant?"

"Cabbages an' 'taters an' onions."

"But if you wanted to make a flower garden," persisted Mary, "what
would you plant?"

"Bulbs an' sweet-smellin' things--but mostly roses."

Mary's face lighted up.

"Do you like roses?" she said.

Ben Weatherstaff rooted up a weed and threw it aside before he answered.

"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 children--or robins.  I've seen her bend over an' kiss 'em."
He dragged out another weed and scowled at it.  "That were as much as
ten year' ago."

"Where is she now?" asked Mary, much interested.

"Heaven," he answered, and drove his spade deep into the soil,
"'cording to what parson says."

"What happened to the roses?" Mary asked again, more interested than
ever.

"They was left to themselves."

Mary was becoming quite excited.

"Did they quite die? Do roses quite die when they are left to
themselves?" she ventured.

"Well, I'd got to like 'em--an' I liked her--an' she liked 'em," Ben
Weatherstaff admitted reluctantly.  "Once or twice a year I'd go an'
work at 'em a bit--prune 'em an' dig about th' roots.  They run wild,
but they was in rich soil, so some of 'em lived."

"When they have no leaves and look gray and brown and dry, how can you
tell whether they are dead or alive?" inquired Mary.

"Wait till th' spring gets at 'em--wait till th' sun shines on th' rain
and th' rain falls on th' sunshine an' then tha'll find out."

"How--how?" 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 demanded.

Mistress Mary felt her face grow red.  She was almost afraid to answer.

"I--I want to play that--that I have a garden of my own," she
stammered.  "I--there is nothing for me to do.  I have nothing--and no
one."

"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 enjoy herself
always.

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 ones he had said he had been fond
of.

"Do you go and see those other roses now?" she asked.

"Not been this year.  My rheumatics has made me too stiff in th'
joints."

He said it in his grumbling voice, and then quite suddenly he seemed to
get angry with her, though she did not see why he should.

"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
everything in the world about flowers.

There was a laurel-hedged 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
was.

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 noses--and actually it appeared as if they
were all drawing near to watch him and listen to the strange low little
call his pipe seemed to make.

When he saw Mary he held up his hand and spoke to her in a voice almost
as low as and rather like his piping.

"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 they were frightened.

"I'm Dickon," the boy said.  "I know tha'rt Miss Mary."

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
his smile spread all over his face.

"I got up slow," he explained, "because if tha' makes a quick move it
startles 'em. A body 'as to move gentle an' speak low when wild things
is about."

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.

"Did you get Martha's letter?" she asked.

He nodded his curly, rust-colored head.  "That's why I come."

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 th' other seeds."

"Will you show the seeds to me?" Mary said.

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, rusty-red 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 had felt shy.

"Let us sit down on this log and look at them," she said.

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 poppy-cheeked face lighting up.

"Where's that robin as is callin' us?" he said.

The chirp came from a thick holly bush, bright with scarlet berries,
and Mary thought she knew whose it was.

"Is it really calling us?" she asked.

"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?"

"He's Ben Weatherstaff's, but I think he knows me a little," answered
Mary.

"Aye, he knows thee," said Dickon in his low voice again.  "An' he
likes thee.  He's took thee on.  He'll tell me all about thee in a
minute."

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 as if he were replying to a question.

"Aye, he's a friend o' yours," chuckled Dickon.

"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.

"Do you understand everything birds say?" said Mary.

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' garden?"

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 then pale.

"Tha's got a bit o' garden, hasn't tha'?" Dickon said.

It was true that she had turned red and then pale.  Dickon saw her do
it, and as she still said nothing, he began to be puzzled.

"Wouldn't they give thee a bit?" he asked.  "Hasn't tha' got any yet?"

She held her hands tighter and turned her eyes toward him.

"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 sentence quite fiercely.

Dickon looked more puzzled than ever and even rubbed his hand over his
rough head again, but he answered quite good-humoredly. "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, I can keep
secrets."

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."

She began to feel hot and as contrary as she had ever felt in her life.

"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 burst out crying-poor little Mistress Mary.

Dickon's curious blue eyes grew rounder and rounder.  "Eh-h-h!" he
said, drawing his exclamation out slowly, and the way he did it meant
both wonder and sympathy.

"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.

"Come with me and I'll show you," she said.

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 defiantly.

"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."

Dickon looked round and round about it, and round and round again.

"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 everything--the 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 stone seats and tall flower urns standing in them.

"I never thought I'd see this place," he said at last, in a whisper.

"Did you know about it?" asked Mary.

She had spoken aloud and he made a sign to her.

"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 like."

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."

Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.

"Will there be roses?" she whispered.  "Can you tell? I thought perhaps
they were all dead."

"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered.  "Look here!"

He stepped over to the nearest tree--an 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, dry gray.  Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.

"That one?" she said.  "Is that one quite alive quite?"

Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.

"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha
had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."

"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 count how many wick ones
there are."

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, dry-looking branch.  "A body might think this
was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root.  I'll cut
it low down an' see."

He knelt and with his knife cut the lifeless-looking 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."

Mary was down on her knees before he spoke, gazing with all her might.

"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 lifeless-looking 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 dug about roots with the spade
and stirred the earth and let the air in.

They were working industriously round one of the biggest standard roses
when he caught sight of something which made him utter an exclamation
of surprise.

"Why!" he cried, pointing to the grass a few feet away.  "Who did that
there?"

It was one of Mary's own little clearings round the pale green points.

"I did it," said Mary.

"Why, I thought tha' didn't know nothin' about gardenin'," he exclaimed.

"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."

Dickon went and knelt down by them, smiling his wide smile.

"Tha' was right," he said.  "A gardener couldn't have told thee better.
They'll grow now like Jack's bean-stalk. They're crocuses an'
snowdrops, an' these here is narcissuses," turning to another patch,
"an here's daffydowndillys.  Eh! they will be a sight."

He ran from one clearing to another.

"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 at all.  I like to smell
the earth when it's turned up."

"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.  My nose
end fair quivers like a rabbit's, mother says."

"Do you never catch cold?" inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.
She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.

"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 white-thorn knobstick."

He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him
and helping him with her fork or the trowel.

"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 weeds, and do whatever you tell
me.  Oh! do come, Dickon!"

"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 life--shut in here an'
wakenin' up a garden."

"If you will come," said Mary, "if you will help me to make it alive
I'll--I don't know what I'll do," she ended helplessly.  What could you
do for a boy like that?

"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 rusty-red 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' there, later than ten year'
ago."

"But how could it have been done?" said Mary.

He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head.

"Aye! how could it!" he murmured.  "With th' door locked an' th' key
buried."

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.

"Are there any flowers that look like bells?" she inquired.

"Lilies o' th' valley does," he answered, digging away with the trowel,
"an' there's Canterbury bells, an' campanulas."

"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 their calling her "Mistress Mary
Quite Contrary."

"They used to dance round and sing at me.  They sang--

         'Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
         How does your garden grow?
         With silver bells, and cockle shells,
         And marigolds all in a row.'

I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers
like silver bells."

She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the
earth.

"I wasn't as contrary as they were."

But Dickon laughed.

"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?"

Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped
frowning.

"Dickon," she said, "you are as nice as Martha said you were.  I like
you, and you make the fifth person.  I never thought I should like five
people."

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 turned-up nose.

"Only five folk as tha' likes?" he said.  "Who is th' other four?"

"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 language, and in India a
native was always pleased if you knew his speech.

"Does tha' like me?" she said.

"Eh!" he answered heartily, "that I does.  I likes thee wonderful, an'
so does th' robin, I do believe!"

"That's two, then," said Mary.  "That's two for me."

And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully.  Mary
was startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard
strike the hour of her midday dinner.

"I shall have to go," she said mournfully.  "And you will have to go
too, won't you?"

Dickon grinned.

"My dinner's easy to carry about with me," he said.  "Mother always
lets me put a bit o' somethin' in my pocket."

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 between them.

"It's oftenest naught but bread," he said, "but I've got a fine slice
o' fat bacon with it today."

Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it.

"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 back home."

He sat down with his back against a tree.

"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 half-way
to the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.

"Whatever happens, you--you never would tell?" she said.

His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of
bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.

"If tha' was a missel thrush an' showed me where thy nest was, does
tha' think I'd tell any one? Not me," he said.  "Tha' art as safe as a
missel thrush."

And she was quite sure she was.

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
it.

"Tha's a bit late," she said.  "Where has tha' been?"

"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary.  "I've seen Dickon!"

"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly.  "How does tha' like him?"

"I think--I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice.

Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.

"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never
thought he was handsome.  His nose turns up too much."

"I like it to turn up," said Mary.

"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful.  "Though
they're a nice color." "I like them round," said Mary.  "And they are
exactly the color of the sky over the moor."

Martha beamed with satisfaction.

"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds
an' th' clouds.  But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?"

"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately.  "I wish mine were just
like it."

Martha chuckled delightedly.

"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.  How did tha' like th'
seeds an' th' garden tools?"

"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary.

"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 trusty lad."

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 she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted.

"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired.

"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating.  "Well, I
wouldn't ask th' head gardener.  He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."

"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 anxiously.

"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha.  "You wouldn't do no
harm."

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the
table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but
Martha stopped her.

"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said.  "I thought I'd let you eat
your dinner first.  Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he
wants to see you."

Mary turned quite pale.

"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."

"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away tomorrow? I am so glad!"

"He's goin' for a long time.  He mayn't come back till autumn or
winter.  He's goin' to travel in foreign places.  He's always doin' it."

"Oh! I'm so glad--so glad!" said Mary thankfully.

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.

"When do you think he will want to see--"

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 dressed up.  She looked
nervous and excited.

"Your hair's rough," she said quickly.  "Go and brush it.  Martha, help
her to slip on her best dress.  Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him
in his study."

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 of her.

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 the fire, and Mrs. Medlock spoke to him.

"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said.

"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 shoulders and spoke to her.

"Come here!" he said.

Mary went to him.

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.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Mary.

"Do they take good care of you?"

"Yes."

He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.

"You are very thin," he said.

"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest
way.

What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely
saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly
keep his thoughts upon her.

"I forgot you," he said.  "How could I remember you? I intended to send
you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot."

"Please," began Mary.  "Please--" and then the lump in her throat
choked her.

"What do you want to say?" he inquired.

"I am--I am too big for a nurse," said Mary.  "And please--please don't
make me have a governess yet."

He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.

"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absentmindedly.

Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.

"Is she--is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.

"Yes, I think so," he replied.

"She knows about children," said Mary.  "She has twelve.  She knows."

He seemed to rouse himself.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did
not tremble.  "I never liked it in India.  It makes me hungry here, and
I am getting fatter."

He was watching her.

"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good.  Perhaps it will," he said.
"She thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess."

"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor,"
argued Mary.

"Where do you play?" he asked next.

"Everywhere," gasped Mary.  "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope. I
skip and run--and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick
up out of the earth.  I don't do any harm."

"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice.  "You could not
do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like."

Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see
the excited lump which she felt jump into it.  She came a step nearer
to him.

"May I?" she said tremulously.

Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.

"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 to-day because Mrs. Sowerby said I ought to see you.  Her
daughter had talked about you.  She thought you needed fresh air and
freedom and running about."

"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself.

"She ought to," said Mr. Craven.  "I thought her rather bold to stop me
on the moor, but she said--Mrs. 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 sudden thought had struck him.  "Do you want toys, books,
dolls?"

"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?"

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound
and that they were not the ones she had meant to say.  Mr. Craven
looked quite startled.

"Earth!" he repeated.  "What do you mean?"

"To plant seeds in--to make things grow--to see them come alive," Mary
faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

"Do you--care about gardens so much," he said slowly.

"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary.  "I was always ill and
tired and it was too hot.  I sometimes made little beds in the sand and
stuck flowers in them.  But here it is different."

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

"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 make it come alive."

"May I take it from anywhere--if it's not wanted?"

"Anywhere," he answered.  "There! You must go now, I am tired." He
touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock.  "Good-by. I shall be away all
summer."

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 come and see her now
and then and she may sometimes go to the cottage."

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 fond of Martha's mother.

"Thank you, sir," she said.  "Susan Sowerby and me went to school
together and she's as sensible and good-hearted 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 healthy-minded--if 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 not do any harm and I may do what I like--anywhere!"

"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?"

"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face
is so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together."

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 five-mile 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 empty--except for the robin
who had just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush
watching her.  "He's gone," she said woefully.  "Oh! was he--was
he--was he only a wood fairy?"

Something white fastened to the standard rose-bush 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.  Underneath were the printed letters
and they said:

"I will cum bak."

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 missel thrush on her nest,
as large as life an' twice as natural."

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
queer, common boy!

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 up in bed and felt miserable
and angry.

"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 pane!

"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 before."

The door of her room was ajar and the sound came down the corridor, a
far-off 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. Medlock--I don't care!"

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
tapestry--the 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 far-off 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 then to the right again.  Yes, there was the tapestry door.

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 crying in that room, and it
was quite a young Someone.

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 four-posted bed hung with brocade, and on the bed was
lying a boy, crying fretfully.

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep
again and was dreaming without knowing it.

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 at her, his gray eyes opening so wide that they
seemed immense.

"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper.  "Are you
a ghost?"

"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.

"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so.  "I am Colin."

"Who is Colin?" she faltered.

"I am Colin Craven.  Who are you?"

"I am Mary Lennox.  Mr. Craven is my uncle."

"He is my father," said the boy.

"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.

She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.

"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 real I am.  For a minute I
thought you might be a dream too."

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"From my own room.  The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I
heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was.  What were you
crying for?"

"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached.  Tell me your
name again."

"Mary Lennox.  Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a
little more as if he believed in her reality.

"No," he answered.  "They daren't."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because I should have been afraid you would see me.  I won't let
people see me and talk me over."

"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.

"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 to think I may be like him."

"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said.  "What a queer house!
Everything is a kind of secret.  Rooms are locked up and gardens are
locked up--and you!  Have you been locked up?"

"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it.
It tires me too much."

"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured.

"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep.  He doesn't want to see me."

"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.

A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.

"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 heard people talking.  He almost
hates me."

"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to
herself.

"What garden?" the boy asked.

"Oh! just--just 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 don't believe I'm awake."

"We're both awake," said Mary.  She glanced round the room with its
high ceiling and shadowy corners and dim fire-light.  "It looks quite
like a dream, and it's the middle of the night, and everybody in the
house is asleep--everybody but us.  We are wide awake."

"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.

Mary thought of something all at once.

"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go
away?"

He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.

"No," he said.  "I should be sure you were a dream if you went.  If you
are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk.  I want to hear
about you."

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 hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.

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 splendid books.

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 subject.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so
are you."

"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.

"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was
buried.  And it has been locked for ten years."

Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.

"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he
exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

"It--it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously.  "He
locked the door.  No one--no 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? Had she never looked for the door? Had she
never asked the gardeners?

"They won't talk about it," said Mary.  "I think they have been told
not to answer questions."

"I would make them," said Colin.

"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened.  If he could
make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

"Everyone is obliged to please me.  I told you that," he said.  "If I
were to live, this place would sometime belong to me.  They all know
that.  I would make them tell me."

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
spoke of not living.

"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was
curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.

"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."

"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

"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 it until I cry and
cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know
who it was.  Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget
the garden.

"I dare say," he answered.  "Let us talk about something else.  Talk
about that garden.  Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

"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 would be getting fresh air.  I am going to make them
open the door."

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like
stars and looked more immense than ever.

"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
spoiled--everything! Dickon would never come back.  She would never
again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't--don't--don't--don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed.  "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make
them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret
again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said.  "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see--you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves--if
there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy--if there was--and 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 that--that 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 all come alive--"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on.  "The bulbs will
live but the roses--"

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops.  They are working in the
earth now--pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."

"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 it would be
if it was a secret?"

He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on
his face.

"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to
grow up.  They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret.  But
I like this kind better."

"If you won't make them take you to the garden," pleaded Mary,
"perhaps--I feel almost sure I can find out how to get in sometime.
And then--if the doctor wants you to go out in your chair, and if you
can always do what you want to do, perhaps--perhaps we might find some
boy who would push you, and we could go alone and it would always be a
secret garden."

"I should--like--that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy.
"I should like that.  I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."

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 chose.

"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 have grown into a tangle
perhaps."

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the
roses which might have clambered from tree to tree and hung down--about
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 herself, with his
big eyes and heavy locks of hair.

"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 of things you know.  I feel
as if you had been inside that garden."

She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything.  He
evidently did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a
surprise.

"I am going to let you look at something," he said.  "Do you see that
rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?"

Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it.  It was a
curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

"Yes," she answered.

"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin.  "Go and pull it."

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."

"How queer!" said Mary.

"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 curtain again."

Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.

"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like
yours--at least they are the same shape and color.  Why is the curtain
drawn over her?"

He moved uncomfortably.

"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 of silence and then Mary spoke.

"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 talk to me every day.  I am glad
you came."

"So am I," said Mary.  "I will come as often as I can, but"--she
hesitated--"I shall have to look every day for the garden door."

"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward."

He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke
again.

"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said.  "I will not tell them
until they find out.  I can always send the nurse out of the room and
say that I want to be by myself.  Do you know Martha?"

"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary.  "She waits on me."

He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.

"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
come here."

Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked
questions about the crying.

"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said.

"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."

"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly.

"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will
do what my Ayah used to do in India.  I will pat your hand and stroke
it and sing something quite low."

"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.

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 she got up softly, took her candle and crept away without
making a sound.

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 always knitting when she was doing
nothing else.

"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down.
"Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say."

"I have.  I have found out what the crying was," said Mary.

Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled
eyes.

"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed.  "Never!"

"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 found him."

Martha's face became red with fright.

"Eh! Miss Mary!" she said half crying.  "Tha' shouldn't have done
it--tha' shouldn't! Tha'll get me in trouble.  I never told thee
nothin' about him--but 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 came."

"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 call our souls our own."

"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 go.  He let me see his mother's picture.  Before I left him I
sang him to sleep."

Martha fairly gasped with amazement.

"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 strangers look at him."

"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 told thee and I shall be
packed back to mother."

"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 firmly.  "And he says
everybody is obliged to do as he pleases."

"Aye, that's true enough--th' 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 when he wants me."

"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place--I shall for sure!"

"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!"

"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.

"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long
breath.

"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 questions.  And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must
not."

"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.

"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."

"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked.  "He didn't look like one."

"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 it--keepin' 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 rough--in a polite way.  He said there'd been
too much medicine and too much lettin' him have his own way."

"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.

"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 talkin'.'"

"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.

"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
picture-books an' take medicine.  He's weak and hates th' trouble o'
bein' taken out o' doors, an' he gets cold so easy he says it makes him
ill."

Mary sat and looked at the fire.  "I wonder," she said slowly, "if it
would not do him good to go out into a garden and watch things growing.
It did me good."

"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 cried himself into a fever an' was ill all night."

"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said
Mary.

"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha.  "Tha' may as well
know that at th' start."

Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.

"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 picture-books. 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 as quick as you can."

Mary was quite willing to go quickly.  She did not want to see Colin as
much as she wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.

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 dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded
cushion.  He had a red spot on each cheek.

"Come in," he said.  "I've been thinking about you all morning."

"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary.  "You don't know
how frightened Martha is.  She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me
about you and then she will be sent away."

He frowned.

"Go and tell her to come here," he said.  "She is in the next room."

Mary went and brought her back.  Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes.
Colin was still frowning.

"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded.

"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red.

"Has Medlock to do what I please?"

"Everybody has, sir," said Martha.

"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock
send you away if she finds it out?"

"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.

"I'll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing,"
said Master Craven grandly.  "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you."

"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir."

"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 wondering.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her.  "What are you
thinking about?"

"I am thinking about two things."

"What are they? Sit down and tell me."

"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 them--in a
minute.  I think they would have been killed if they hadn't."

"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first
tell me what the second thing was."

"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon."

"Who is Dickon?" he said.  "What a queer name!"

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 him nearer.

"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 a pipe and they come and listen."

There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one
suddenly toward him.  "There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,"
he exclaimed.  "Come and look at it."

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he
turned to one of them.

"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.

"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 in soft
chirps."

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and
the spots on his cheeks burned.

"Tell me some more about him," he said.

"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 that grows or lives on the moor."

"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.  It's their world."

"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at
her.

"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 gorse smelling like honey--and
all full of bees and butterflies."

"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly.  He
looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and
wondering what it was.

"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.

"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.

Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.

"You might--sometime."

He moved as if he were startled.

"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 almost boasted about it.

"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly.  "They
are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice.  They wish
I would, too."

Mistress Mary felt quite contrary.  She pinched her lips together.

"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?"

"The servants--and 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.  I think my father wishes it, too."

"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately.

That made Colin turn and look at her again.

"Don't you?" he said.

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 die?"

"No.".

"What did he say?"

"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 he was in a temper."

"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 flying--or 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 mouth--and his cheeks are as red--as red as
cherries." She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression
quite changed at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide
open eyes.

"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 about Dickon.  And then
we will look at your pictures."

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 week--and the children who got
fat on the moor grass like the wild ponies.  And about Dickon's
mother--and the skipping-rope--and the moor with the sun on it--and
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 before--and
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
ten-year-old creatures--instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a
sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

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 we have never once thought
of," he said.  "We are cousins."

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 door opened and in walked Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock.

Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back
because he had accidentally bumped against her.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almost starting
out of her head.  "Good Lord!"

"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward.  "What does it mean?"

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 and dog had walked into the room.

"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said.  "I asked her to come and
talk to me.  I like her.  She must come and talk to me whenever I send
for her."

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 talk--they all have their orders."

"Nobody told her anything," said Colin.  "She heard me crying and found
me herself.  I am glad she came.  Don't be silly, Medlock."

Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain
that he dare not oppose his patient.  He sat down by Colin and felt his
pulse.

"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 done.

"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock.
"But"--thinking the matter over--"he looked better this morning before
she came into the room."

"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 now.  Tell nurse, Medlock."

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 things he was not to
forget.

Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed 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,
however--and he sighed rather heavily as he went down the corridor.

"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 about Rajahs."

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 his face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa.

"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 little.

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 trusted--if he really could--wouldn'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.  This child looked nicer.  Even Martha had seen a
change in her.

"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 bit."

"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 way an' there's a bit o'
red in tha' cheeks."

If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be
good for Colin.  But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps
he would not like to see Dickon.

"Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one
day.

"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 hand.  She was so frightened she ran away."

"She thought you had gone mad like a dog," said Mary, not at all
admiringly.

"I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning.

"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your
room?" said Mary.  Then she began to smile slowly.

"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 don't care."

"Would you hate it if--if a boy looked at you?" Mary asked uncertainly.

He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.

"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over
every word, "there's one boy I believe I shouldn't mind.  It's that boy
who knows where the foxes live--Dickon."

"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary.

"The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over,
"perhaps that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer and I am
a boy animal."

Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both
laughing a great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in
his hole very funny indeed.

What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.

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 warm--warm!" she said.  "It will make the green points push up
and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle
with all their might under the earth."

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 like this.
No one is up.  I don't even hear the stable boys."

A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.

"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!"

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 paths towards the secret garden.

"It is all different already," she said.  "The grass is greener and
things are sticking up everywhere 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 caw--caw of a
crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up,
there sat a big glossy-plumaged blue-black 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 apple-tree and under the apple-tree
was lying a little reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both of them
were watching the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was
kneeling on the grass working hard.

Mary flew across the grass to him.

"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out.  "How could you get here so early!
How could you! The sun has only just got up!"

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' nest-buildin' 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 here.  I couldn't have stayed away.
Why, th' garden was lyin' here waitin'!"

Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running
herself.

"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said.  "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!"

Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed 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 both felt same as I did."

Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary.
When Dickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and
Captain trotted quietly close to his side.

"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."

He looked puzzled but smiled.

"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
red-breasted 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 in a church.

"We munnot stir," he whispered in broad Yorkshire.  "We munnot scarce
breathe.  I knowed he was mate-huntin' 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' he'll know us'll not be
in his way."

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 could.

"It's part o' th' springtime, this nest-buildin' 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 something else.  There is something I
want to tell you."

"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon.
"What is it tha's got to tell me?"

"Well--do you know about Colin?" she whispered.

He turned his head to look at her.

"What does tha' know about him?" he asked.

"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 him forget about being ill and
dying," answered Mary.

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 him an' I don't like havin'
to hide things."

"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary.

"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'?'"

Mary always wanted to hear about mother.

"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear.

Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.

"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'.'"

"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary.

"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 far-off 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 four-posted bed in the corner.  When she described the small
ivory-white face and the strange black-rimmed 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 different in his miserable bit of a face."

"Do you think he wants to die?" whispered Mary.

"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 hunchback."

"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 feel a lump coming he
should go crazy and scream himself to death."

"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon.
"No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things."

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 round the garden.

"When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was
gray.  Look round now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference."

Mary looked and caught her breath a little.

"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing.  It is as if a green mist
were creeping over it.  It's almost like a green gauze veil."

"Aye," said Dickon.  "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's
all gone.  Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?"

"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'
rose-bushes, 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."

Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back.

"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.  I warrant it'd be better than doctor's
stuff."

"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 branch wonderin' where it'd be best to put that twig
he's got in his beak."

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' th' egg.  Get on with
thee, lad.  Tha'st got no time to lose."

"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."

Dickon laughed too and went on talking.

"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin.  "Us is near
bein' wild things ourselves.  Us is nest-buildin' too, bless thee.
Look out tha' doesn't tell on us."

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 dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell
their secret for the world.

Mary starts spending more and more time in the garden, which she has taken to calling "the secret garden." She likes the feeling of being in a hidden place where no one else knows where she is. She focuses her time on weeding and exploring the different plants in the garden. She starts being more friendly with Ben Weatherstaff, who is warming up to her. They talk about roses and Mary asks him how to know if roses are dead or not, thinking of the roses she encountered in her secret garden. Ben becomes slightly suspicious at Mary's eagerness to know about the roses and tells her to stop asking him questions. Mary encounters Dickon, Martha's 12-year-old brother, in one of the gardens. Dickon already knows who Mary is, even though this is the first time they have met. Martha has told him a lot about Mary. Dickon has received Mary's letter and has come with supplies to help Mary plant her seeds. Mary notices how easygoing Dickon is and she feels shy in his presence. The robin comes to greet them and Dickon talks about his natural connection with animals. When Dickon asks where they will plant the seeds, Mary momentarily panics. Then she decides to tell Dickon about the secret garden, asking him to keep it a secret. Dickon and Mary enter the garden and Dickon shows her different plants. When he sees the roses, he can tell that some of there are still alive. They work on planting seeds. They both agree that they will work on the garden every day, but not in a way to make it too tidy, because that would take away its beauty. Mary tells Dickon he is one of five people she likes. Then spontaneously, she asks him whether he likes her, and she herself is surprised at her forthrightness. Dickon says he does and that the robin likes her too. Mary is sad when the clock strikes and she has to leave for dinner. Mary runs back to her room to eat and tells Martha about meeting Dickon, gushing about how beautiful he is. After eating, Martha informs Mary that Mr. Craven is back home and wishes to see her before he leaves again the next day to travel for a few months. Mary is happy to hear that he will be gone for a long period of time, as it will give her and Dickon the opportunity to work on the garden without being caught by him. Mrs. Medlock comes in to help Mary dress up for the meeting. Mary is very nervous. When Mary meets Mr. Craven, she notes that he is not ugly, but looks very miserable. He asks Mary how she is and says he has forgotten to send her a governess to take care of her. Mary immediately begs him not to find her a governess, as this would limit her freedom. Mr. Craven agrees and tells her this is the same advice Martha's mother, Mrs. Sowerby, has given him. He says he knows nothing about children and is too unwell to take care of her, but he wants her to be happy. Mary spontaneously asks him if she can take a bit of soil for gardening, and her question surprises Mr. Craven. He says that of course she can. Mr. Craven sends Mary away. Mary is delighted at the news that she will not have a governess. She races back to the secret garden, expecting Dickon to be there, but he is gone. He has left a note with a drawing of a bird on its nest, saying that he will return soon. That night Mary looks forward to meeting with Dickon the next day. She is disappointed then when it starts to heavily rain. She can't fall asleep and starts to hear the sound of the crying child again. She decides to venture out to discover what the noise is herself. She finds that the crying is coming from one particular room, and so she enters the room. There, she is surprised to see a young boy crying on the bed. The boy is equally surprised to see Mary. The boy is Colin Craven. He explains that he is the son of Mr. Craven and that he is always ill and bedridden. Mr. Craven and the servants do not talk about him. Colin tells Mary that his father mostly avoids him because his presence reminds of him of Mrs. Craven, which is too painful for Mr. Craven to bear. Colin is in disbelief that Mary is there and keeps asking if he is dreaming. Mary sits down and tells him about herself. Mary mentions the secret garden that was locked up right after the death of Mrs. Craven. Colin is very eager to hear about the garden, as no one has ever told him about it. Colin reveals how because he is so sickly and the heir to his father's estate, all the servants do whatever he tells them. He imagines asking them to bring him to the secret garden, knowing they would have to oblige. Mary panics and tries to convince him that they should work on the garden in secret and he agrees. Mary stays with Colin until he falls asleep. In the morning, Mary tells Martha that she has found out about Colin. Martha panics, as she knows she will get in trouble if anyone were to find out that Mary knows about Colin. Martha is surprised that Colin was nice to Mary; usually he is quite badly behaved and rude. Colin requests that Mary visit him again that evening. Mary tells Colin that he reminds her of a rajah, a name for Indian princes who wear jewels and are waited on by servants. She also tells him that he is very different from Dickon. Colin again mentions how everyone says he will die at a young age, which disturbs Mary. She suggests Colin should meet Dickon to lift his spirits. The two children talk for a long time and end up laughing and joking as if they are two normal children. All of a sudden, Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven, the cousin of Mr. Craven, walk into the room and are very shocked to see Mary there. Colin insists that everything is fine, and that he wishes to have his cousin Mary come and visit him whenever he wants. The adults are worried Colin is becoming too excited and will get ill, but the boy insists that he feels better with Mary there. Dr. Craven sternly reminds Colin that he sick and needs to be careful in the company of others. It rains all next week, so Mary spends her time mostly with Colin, talking and reading from picture books. Mrs. Medlock tells Mary that Colin has become much more agreeable and easy to care for since she started spending time with him. Finally one morning the sky is blue again and Mary wakes up early and goes to the garden. She notices how all the plants are sprouting after the rainy days. She finds that Dickon is already in the garden, working hard and being watched by a crow and a fox. They run around looking at all the newly blooming flowers. Mary tells Dickon about meeting Colin. They agree to try to get Colin to come out to the garden sometime.

Mary Lennox's new world continues to unfold, much like the roses in her beloved garden. The most striking development in these chapters is Mary's discovery of the secret garden and her dedication to reviving what has been a long neglected and hidden place. Throughout the book we will see how the author uses the garden as not just a narrative device but as a larger means of symbolism, signifying life, death, and rebirth. For example, the garden has been left to wilt after the tragic death of Mrs. Craven. With the loss of life, Mr. Craven also shuts away the vibrant space of plants and flowers because he himself no longer has the will to live, which is shown through the description of his sad and vacant disposition. Yet the arrival of Mary introduces new life into what has become stagnant and hopeless. Mary herself has experienced a kind of resurrection, transforming from a sullen and apathetic little girl into a joyful and enthusiastic child eager to interact with the living world around her. It is Mary's enthusiasm that becomes like a seed of hope that inseminates the various characters she encounters. When she first meets her uncle, Mr. Craven, Mary declares that she wants to be left alone to play outside rather than have a governess. Her passionate interest in the gardens reminds Mr. Craven of his wife, who also loved nature, and we see a hint of a smile momentarily wash away his unhappy demeanor. Mary's positive influence on others can also be seen in her surprising meeting of Mr. Craven's son, Colin. Colin has been relegated to bed for all 10 years of his life due to apparent illness. After being told by everyone around him that he is sick and incapable, Colin has accepted this and has lost all interest in playing or going outside. He even tells Mary that he believes he may die at a young age. Mary will not accept this grim statement, and she tries to lift his spirits through her stories of the garden and the friendly robin. It only takes Mary's happy presence in his room to enliven Colin, allowing him to shed the disagreeable and spoiled character that he is known for by all the servants of the estate. Through the character of Colin, we are meant to ponder the true cause of health and vitality. Colin has been locked away his whole life supposedly because he is too sick to leave his bed. But it is exactly that Colin is so isolated and neglected by his own father--for whom Colin is solely a painful reminder of his lost wife--that seems to augment his symptoms. What dwells in the darkness of secrecy--whether it be Mr. Craven's son or the abandoned garden--can never truly be destroyed. Burdened by grief, Mr. Craven desires for the past to fully die. Yet this attitude has seemed to only prolong his suffering rather than allow him to heal. With Mary, it is shown that it only takes a bit of love and nurturance for those things on the verge of death to become reborn. All of Mary's energy is now going into the garden and reviving the plants after 10 years of neglect. We see Mary team up with Martha's brother, the exuberant and kind-hearted Dickon. It becomes obvious that Mary has developed a strong liking of Dickon. Beyond the typical crush she may harbor, Mary's attraction to Dickon also has to do with the fact that he represents the stark opposite of Mary's former identity. Dickon is a simple and unpretentious child who makes friends easily and exudes the sort of happiness that Mary is just beginning to feel for the first time in her life. His profound connection with nature is also something Mary greatly admires. Frances Hodgson Burnett makes these scenes come alive through her vivid language, especially in the scenes that illustrate the garden life at Misselthwaite Manor. For example, in Chapter 11, when Mary brings Dickon to the secret garden for the first time, we are shown this hidden treasure through the eyes of the curious children. As they wander around the densely packed plants, they encounter "a curtain of tangled sprays and branches," and "moist green" leaves shooting through "lifeless-looking" wood. It is not a common sight to see an overgrown garden, but its lushness makes it all the more magical place for Mary and Dickon.