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.

Mary wakes up excited to start another day of gardening--only to find that it's the middle of the night, and the rain is so loud that it woke her up. Mary sulks. How dare the weather turn bad when she finally has something to look forward to? But obviously, if you're living in a house with over a hundred rooms, there is probably something to look at. She hears that quiet crying sound again, and she decides to go find it, even though it's late at night. She turns down a number of passages and finds a big room with a low fire and expensive furniture. There is a boy lying in bed, looking tired and annoyed. His name is Colin. There's a lot of confusion between Colin and Mary: Are they both sure that the other isn't a ghost? How is it possible that they can both be real? Two unknown, lonely children in the same house? What's going on here? It turns out that Colin is Mr. Craven's son. Colin was born when Mrs. Craven died, and Mr. Craven can't stand to look at him because he reminds Mr. Craven too much of his beloved dead wife. Mr. Craven is also worried that Colin is doomed to be "a hunchback" since Mr. Craven's shoulders are crooked, and that Colin is too sickly to live to adulthood. So Colin spends most of his time inside his giant mansion being fussed over. All of the servants have to do exactly what he tells them, or he'll throw the most over-the-top tantrums. But he doesn't really enjoy any of his hissy fits--in fact, he doesn't enjoy anything. Colin admits that some great doctor said he would be fine if he got out more in the fresh air and was less spoiled. But Colin hates going outside, so that's the end of that. Mary tells Colin about the Secret Garden and Colin seems interested at last. Colin decides that he would be willing to give fresh air a try if it's in the Secret Garden. Colin shows Mary a portrait hanging behind a curtain. It's of a beautiful woman who looks a lot like Colin. In fact, it's Colin's mother. Colin had the portrait covered because he's mad at her for dying and leaving him alone. Mary promises to come back to talk to Colin, and to tell him if she finds the Secret Garden Colin asks Mary to stay while he falls asleep, and she sings him a lullaby her Ayah used to sing to her.


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."

The next day, Mary tells Martha that she has seen the secret of Misselthwaite Manor: Colin Craven. Martha freaks out: She thinks she'll lose her job, or that Colin will throw a fit now that a stranger has seen him. Mary promises Martha that it's okay. Colin likes her, after all. A bell rings summoning Martha, who comes back to bring Mary to Colin. Colin behaves toward Martha like some young king or lord or something; Mary compares him to a "Rajah," which is a Sanskrit term for a prince. . Watching his bratty behavior, Mary tells Colin he is nothing at all like Dickon . As Mary and Colin sit together, Mrs. Medlock and Colin's doctor, Dr. Craven, come in. Dr. Craven thinks that Mary is exciting Colin too much, and that Colin should basically just lie there and think about being sick. Colin thinks that's stupid--Mary helps him forget about being sick, which is why he wants her there.


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.

As the rain goes on for a week and she doesn't really have any other options, Mary spends hours a day bonding with Colin. Colin hates having people look at him, because whenever they do, he knows what they're thinking: that he's going to die. Still, he thinks that he could stand to meet Dickon. The next morning, Mary gets up at dawn to find that it is spring. The weather is warm, and the moor is covered with green shoots, so she throws on her clothes and runs down to the Secret Garden, only to find that Dickon has already beaten her there. Dickon introduces her to a tame fox cub named Captain and a rook named Soot, who sits on Dickon's shoulder. The Secret Garden has clumps of blooming spring crocuses, and everything seems filled with joy and life. Even the robin is busy building a nest. Mary tells Dickon all about Colin. It turns out that Dickon already knows that Colin exists, but he's never seen him. Dickon thinks that Colin's problem is that he spends all of his time cooped up worrying. If Colin were outside watching the Secret Garden grow, he'd be too distracted by the surprises of nature to fret so much about himself.


They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in
returning to the house and was also in such a hurry to get back to her
work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment.

"Tell Colin that I can't come and see him yet," she said to Martha.
"I'm very busy in the garden."

Martha looked rather frightened.

"Eh! Miss Mary," she said, "it may put him all out of humor when I tell
him that."

But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not
a self-sacrificing person.

"I can't stay," she answered.  "Dickon's waiting for me;" and she ran
away.

The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been.
Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of
the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about.  Dickon had brought a
spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that
by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild place was not
likely to become a "gardener's garden" it would be a wilderness of
growing things before the springtime was over.

"There'll be apple blossoms an' cherry blossoms overhead," Dickon said,
working away with all his might.  "An' there'll be peach an' plum trees
in bloom against th' walls, an' th' grass'll be a carpet o' flowers."

The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and
the robin and his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of
lightning.  Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away
over the tree-tops in the park.  Each time he came back and perched
near Dickon and cawed several times as if he were relating his
adventures, and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the
robin.  Once when Dickon was so busy that he did not answer him at
first, Soot flew on to his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with
his large beak.  When Mary wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with
her under a tree and once he took his pipe out of his pocket and played
the soft strange little notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall
and looked and listened.

"Tha's a good bit stronger than tha' was," Dickon said, looking at her
as she was digging.  "Tha's beginning to look different, for sure."

Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.

"I'm getting fatter and fatter every day," she said quite exultantly.
"Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses.  Martha says my
hair is growing thicker.  It isn't so flat and stringy."

The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays
slanting under the trees when they parted.

"It'll be fine tomorrow," said Dickon.  "I'll be at work by sunrise."

"So will I," said Mary.

She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her.  She
wanted to tell Colin about Dickon's fox cub and the rook and about what
the springtime had been doing.  She felt sure he would like to hear.
So it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to
see Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful face.

"What is the matter?" she asked.  "What did Colin say when you told him
I couldn't come?"

"Eh!" said Martha, "I wish tha'd gone.  He was nigh goin' into one o'
his tantrums.  There's been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him
quiet.  He would watch the clock all th' time."

Mary's lips pinched themselves together.  She was no more used to
considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why an
ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best.  She
knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and
nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers and
need not make other people ill and nervous, too.  When she had had a
headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else also
had a headache or something quite as bad.  And she felt she was quite
right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong.

He was not on his sofa when she went into his room.  He was lying flat
on his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she came
in.  This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff
manner.

"Why didn't you get up?" she said.

"I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming," he
answered, without looking at her.  "I made them put me back in bed this
afternoon.  My back ached and my head ached and I was tired.  Why
didn't you come?" "I was working in the garden with Dickon," said Mary.

Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.

"I won't let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of
coming to talk to me," he said.

Mary flew into a fine passion.  She could fly into a passion without
making a noise.  She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what
happened.

"If you send Dickon away, I'll never come into this room again!" she
retorted.

"You'll have to if I want you," said Colin.

"I won't!" said Mary.

"I'll make you," said Colin.  "They shall drag you in."

"Shall they, Mr. Rajah!" said Mary fiercely.  "They may drag me in but
they can't make me talk when they get me here.  I'll sit and clench my
teeth and never tell you one thing.  I won't even look at you.  I'll
stare at the floor!"

They were a nice agreeable pair as they glared at each other.  If they
had been two little street boys they would have sprung at each other
and had a rough-and-tumble fight.  As it was, they did the next thing
to it.

"You are a selfish thing!" cried Colin.

"What are you?" said Mary.  "Selfish people always say that.  Any one
is selfish who doesn't do what they want.  You're more selfish than I
am.  You're the most selfish boy I ever saw."

"I'm not!" snapped Colin.  "I'm not as selfish as your fine Dickon is!
He keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all by myself.
He's selfish, if you like!"

Mary's eyes flashed fire.

"He's nicer than any other boy that ever lived!" she said.  "He's--he's
like an angel!" It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not
care.

"A nice angel!" Colin sneered ferociously.  "He's a common cottage boy
off the moor!"

"He's better than a common Rajah!" retorted Mary.  "He's a thousand
times better!"

Because she was the stronger of the two she was beginning to get the
better of him.  The truth was that he had never had a fight with any
one like himself in his life and, upon the whole, it was rather good
for him, though neither he nor Mary knew anything about that.  He
turned his head on his pillow and shut his eyes and a big tear was
squeezed out and ran down his cheek.  He was beginning to feel pathetic
and sorry for himself--not for any one else.

"I'm not as selfish as you, because I'm always ill, and I'm sure there
is a lump coming on my back," he said.  "And I am going to die besides."

"You're not!" contradicted Mary unsympathetically.

He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation.  He had never heard
such a thing said before.  He was at once furious and slightly pleased,
if a person could be both at one time.

"I'm not?" he cried.  "I am! You know I am! Everybody says so."

"I don't believe it!" said Mary sourly.  "You just say that to make
people sorry.  I believe you're proud of it.  I don't believe it! If
you were a nice boy it might be true--but you're too nasty!"

In spite of his invalid back Colin sat up in bed in quite a healthy
rage.

"Get out of the room!" he shouted and he caught hold of his pillow and
threw it at her.  He was not strong enough to throw it far and it only
fell at her feet, but Mary's face looked as pinched as a nutcracker.

"I'm going," she said.  "And I won't come back!" She walked to the door
and when she reached it she turned round and spoke again.

"I was going to tell you all sorts of nice things," she said.  "Dickon
brought his fox and his rook and I was going to tell you all about
them.  Now I won't tell you a single thing!"

She marched out of the door and closed it behind her, and there to her
great astonishment she found the trained nurse standing as if she had
been listening and, more amazing still--she was laughing.  She was a
big handsome young woman who ought not to have been a trained nurse at
all, as she could not bear invalids and she was always making excuses
to leave Colin to Martha or any one else who would take her place.
Mary had never liked her, and she simply stood and gazed up at her as
she stood giggling into her handkerchief..

"What are you laughing at?" she asked her.

"At you two young ones," said the nurse.  "It's the best thing that
could happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one to stand up
to him that's as spoiled as himself;" and she laughed into her
handkerchief again.  "If he'd had a young vixen of a sister to fight
with it would have been the saving of him."

"Is he going to die?"

"I don't know and I don't care," said the nurse.  "Hysterics and temper
are half what ails him."

"What are hysterics?" asked Mary.

"You'll find out if you work him into a tantrum after this--but at any
rate you've given him something to have hysterics about, and I'm glad
of it."

Mary went back to her room not feeling at all as she had felt when she
had come in from the garden.  She was cross and disappointed but not at
all sorry for Colin.  She had looked forward to telling him a great
many things and she had meant to try to make up her mind whether it
would be safe to trust him with the great secret.  She had been
beginning to think it would be, but now she had changed her mind
entirely.  She would never tell him and he could stay in his room and
never get any fresh air and die if he liked! It would serve him right!
She felt so sour and unrelenting that for a few minutes she almost
forgot about Dickon and the green veil creeping over the world and the
soft wind blowing down from the moor.

Martha was waiting for her and the trouble in her face had been
temporarily replaced by interest and curiosity.  There was a wooden box
on the table and its cover had been removed and revealed that it was
full of neat packages.

"Mr. Craven sent it to you," said Martha.  "It looks as if it had
picture-books in it."

Mary remembered what he had asked her the day she had gone to his room.
"Do you want anything--dolls--toys--books?" She opened the package
wondering if he had sent a doll, and also wondering what she should do
with it if he had.  But he had not sent one.  There were several
beautiful books such as Colin had, and two of them were about gardens
and were full of pictures.  There were two or three games and there was
a beautiful little writing-case with a gold monogram on it and a gold
pen and inkstand.

Everything was so nice that her pleasure began to crowd her anger out
of her mind.  She had not expected him to remember her at all and her
hard little heart grew quite warm.

"I can write better than I can print," she said, "and the first thing I
shall write with that pen will be a letter to tell him I am much
obliged."

If she had been friends with Colin she would have run to show him her
presents at once, and they would have looked at the pictures and read
some of the gardening books and perhaps tried playing the games, and he
would have enjoyed himself so much he would never once have thought he
was going to die or have put his hand on his spine to see if there was
a lump coming.  He had a way of doing that which she could not bear.
It gave her an uncomfortable frightened feeling because he always
looked so frightened himself.  He said that if he felt even quite a
little lump some day he should know his hunch had begun to grow.
Something he had heard Mrs. Medlock whispering to the nurse had given
him the idea and he had thought over it in secret until it was quite
firmly fixed in his mind.  Mrs. Medlock had said his father's back had
begun to show its crookedness in that way when he was a child.  He had
never told any one but Mary that most of his "tantrums" as they called
them grew out of his hysterical hidden fear.  Mary had been sorry for
him when he had told her.

"He always began to think about it when he was cross or tired," she
said to herself.  "And he has been cross today.  Perhaps--perhaps he
has been thinking about it all afternoon."

She stood still, looking down at the carpet and thinking.

"I said I would never go back again--" she hesitated, knitting her
brows--"but perhaps, just perhaps, I will go and see--if he wants
me--in the morning.  Perhaps he'll try to throw his pillow at me again,
but--I think--I'll go."

Colin throws a fit when Mary spends both the morning and the afternoon away from him. When Mary gets back to the Manor, she's all excited to tell Colin about the fox cub and Dickon and everything, but when she sees what a brat he's being, she immediately gets angry. Colin complains that his back and head are aching and Mary didn't visit, and then he accuses Dickon of being selfish by keeping Mary away from him. Colin says he's not selfish because he's sick and he's going to be a hunchback and he's going to die--so there. Mary yells that it's all a lie, that he just uses all of these worries to bully people into doing what he wants. Mary stomps off in a rage, swearing she'll never come back. She finds Colin's nurse laughing herself sick at the whole scene. The nurse, for the record, thinks that most of Colin's trouble is that no one stands up to him when he's hysterical. When Mary gets back to her rooms, she finds that Mr. Craven has sent her a bunch of picture books about gardening. She starts to soften toward Colin. Mary realizes that he often acts up like he does because he is really, honestly fearful that his back is going to grow wrong. And the more time he spends alone with his fear, the worse it gets.


She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the
garden and she was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought
her supper and she had eaten it, she was glad to go to bed.  As she
laid her head on the pillow she murmured to herself:

"I'll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then
afterward--I believe--I'll go to see him."

She thought it was the middle of the night when she was awakened by
such dreadful sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant.  What
was it--what was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew.
Doors were opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the
corridors and some one was crying and screaming at the same time,
screaming and crying in a horrible way.

"It's Colin," she said.  "He's having one of those tantrums the nurse
called hysterics.  How awful it sounds."

As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people
were so frightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather
than hear them.  She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and
shivering.

"I don't know what to do.  I don't know what to do," she kept saying.
"I can't bear it."

Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she
remembered how he had driven her out of the room and thought that
perhaps the sight of her might make him worse.  Even when she pressed
her hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep the awful
sounds out.  She hated them so and was so terrified by them that
suddenly they began to make her angry and she felt as if she should
like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten him as he was
frightening her.  She was not used to any one's tempers but her own.
She took her hands from her ears and sprang up and stamped her foot.

"He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop!  Somebody
ought to beat him!" she cried out.

Just then she heard feet almost running down the corridor and her door
opened and the nurse came in.  She was not laughing now by any means.
She even looked rather pale.

"He's worked himself into hysterics," she said in a great hurry.
"He'll do himself harm.  No one can do anything with him.  You come and
try, like a good child.  He likes you."

"He turned me out of the room this morning," said Mary, stamping her
foot with excitement.

The stamp rather pleased the nurse.  The truth was that she had been
afraid she might find Mary crying and hiding her head under the
bed-clothes.

"That's right," she said.  "You're in the right humor.  You go and
scold him.  Give him something new to think of.  Do go, child, as quick
as ever you can."

It was not until afterward that Mary realized that the thing had been
funny as well as dreadful--that it was funny that all the grown-up
people were so frightened that they came to a little girl just because
they guessed she was almost as bad as Colin himself.

She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the
higher her temper mounted.  She felt quite wicked by the time she
reached the door.  She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the
room to the four-posted bed.

"You stop!" she almost shouted.  "You stop! I hate you!  Everybody
hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you
scream yourself to death! You will scream yourself to death in a
minute, and I wish you would!" A nice sympathetic child could neither
have thought nor said such things, but it just happened that the shock
of hearing them was the best possible thing for this hysterical boy
whom no one had ever dared to restrain or contradict.

He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he
actually almost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the
furious little voice.  His face looked dreadful, white and red and
swollen, and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary did not
care an atom.

"If you scream another scream," she said, "I'll scream too--and I can
scream louder than you can and I'll frighten you, I'll frighten you!"

He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so.  The
scream which had been coming almost choked him.  The tears were
streaming down his face and he shook all over.

"I can't stop!" he gasped and sobbed.  "I can't--I can't!"

"You can!" shouted Mary.  "Half that ails you is hysterics and
temper--just hysterics--hysterics--hysterics!" and she stamped each
time she said it.

"I felt the lump--I felt it," choked out Colin.  "I knew I should.  I
shall have a hunch on my back and then I shall die," and he began to
writhe again and turned on his face and sobbed and wailed but he didn't
scream.

"You didn't feel a lump!" contradicted Mary fiercely.  "If you did it
was only a hysterical lump.  Hysterics makes lumps.  There's nothing
the matter with your horrid back--nothing but hysterics! Turn over and
let me look at it!"

She liked the word "hysterics" and felt somehow as if it had an effect
on him.  He was probably like herself and had never heard it before.

"Nurse," she commanded, "come here and show me his back this minute!"

The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together
near the door staring at her, their mouths half open.  All three had
gasped with fright more than once.  The nurse came forward as if she
were half afraid.  Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs.

"Perhaps he--he won't let me," she hesitated in a low voice.

Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs:

"Sh-show her! She-she'll see then!"

It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared.  Every rib could
be counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not
count them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage
little face.  She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse
turned her head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth.  There was
just a minute's silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while
Mary looked up and down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if
she had been the great doctor from London.

"There's not a single lump there!" she said at last.  "There's not a
lump as big as a pin--except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them
because you're thin.  I've got backbone lumps myself, and they used to
stick out as much as yours do, until I began to get fatter, and I am
not fat enough yet to hide them.  There's not a lump as big as a pin!
If you ever say there is again, I shall laugh!"

No one but Colin himself knew what effect those crossly spoken childish
words had on him.  If he had ever had any one to talk to about his
secret terrors--if he had ever dared to let himself ask questions--if
he had had childish companions and had not lain on his back in the huge
closed house, breathing an atmosphere heavy with the fears of people
who were most of them ignorant and tired of him, he would have found
out that most of his fright and illness was created by himself.  But he
had lain and thought of himself and his aches and weariness for hours
and days and months and years.  And now that an angry unsympathetic
little girl insisted obstinately that he was not as ill as he thought
he was he actually felt as if she might be speaking the truth.

"I didn't know," ventured the nurse, "that he thought he had a lump on
his spine.  His back is weak because he won't try to sit up.  I could
have told him there was no lump there." Colin gulped and turned his
face a little to look at her.

"C-could you?" he said pathetically.

"Yes, sir."

"There!" said Mary, and she gulped too.

Colin turned on his face again and but for his long-drawn broken
breaths, which were the dying down of his storm of sobbing, he lay
still for a minute, though great tears streamed down his face and wet
the pillow.  Actually the tears meant that a curious great relief had
come to him.  Presently he turned and looked at the nurse again and
strangely enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he spoke to her.

"Do you think--I could--live to grow up?" he said.

The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some
of the London doctor's words.

"You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give
way to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air."

Colin's tantrum had passed and he was weak and worn out with crying and
this perhaps made him feel gentle.  He put out his hand a little toward
Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantum having passed, she was
softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort
of making up.

"I'll--I'll go out with you, Mary," he said.  "I shan't hate fresh air
if we can find--" He remembered just in time to stop himself from
saying "if we can find the secret garden" and he ended, "I shall like
to go out with you if Dickon will come and push my chair.  I do so want
to see Dickon and the fox and the crow."

The nurse remade the tumbled bed and shook and straightened the
pillows.  Then she made Colin a cup of beef tea and gave a cup to Mary,
who really was very glad to get it after her excitement.  Mrs. Medlock
and Martha gladly slipped away, and after everything was neat and calm
and in order the nurse looked as if she would very gladly slip away
also.  She was a healthy young woman who resented being robbed of her
sleep and she yawned quite openly as she looked at Mary, who had pushed
her big footstool close to the four-posted bed and was holding Colin's
hand.

"You must go back and get your sleep out," she said.  "He'll drop off
after a while--if he's not too upset.  Then I'll lie down myself in the
next room."

"Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Ayah?" Mary
whispered to Colin.

His hand pulled hers gently and he turned his tired eyes on her
appealingly.

"Oh, yes!" he answered.  "It's such a soft song.  I shall go to sleep
in a minute."

"I will put him to sleep," Mary said to the yawning nurse.  "You can go
if you like."

"Well," said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance.  "If he doesn't
go to sleep in half an hour you must call me."

"Very well," answered Mary.

The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone
Colin pulled Mary's hand again.

"I almost told," he said; "but I stopped myself in time.  I won't talk
and I'll go to sleep, but you said you had a whole lot of nice things
to tell me.  Have you--do you think you have found out anything at all
about the way into the secret garden?"

Mary looked at his poor little tired face and swollen eyes and her
heart relented.

"Ye-es," she answered, "I think I have.  And if you will go to sleep I
will tell you tomorrow." His hand quite trembled.

"Oh, Mary!" he said.  "Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I
should live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Ayah
song--you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you
imagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep."

"Yes," answered Mary.  "Shut your eyes."

He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began
to speak very slowly and in a very low voice.

"I think it has been left alone so long--that it has grown all into a
lovely tangle.  I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed
until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the
ground--almost like a strange gray mist.  Some of them have died but
many--are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and
fountains of roses.  I think the ground is full of daffodils and
snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark.  Now
the spring has begun--perhaps--perhaps--"

The soft drone of her voice was making him stiller and stiller and she
saw it and went on.

"Perhaps they are coming up through the grass--perhaps there are
clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones--even now.  Perhaps the
leaves are beginning to break out and uncurl--and perhaps--the gray is
changing and a green gauze veil is creeping--and creeping
over--everything. And the birds are coming to look at it--because it
is--so safe and still.  And perhaps--perhaps--perhaps--" very softly
and slowly indeed, "the robin has found a mate--and is building a nest."

And Colin was asleep.

It's the middle of the night, and Mary hears horrible noises, like someone crying and screaming at the same time. It's Colin, and if his hissy fits have been bad before now, he's in the middle of a real doozy this time. Colin's tantrum is so bad that his nurse comes running to find Mary. The nurse is worried that he'll hurt himself if he won't stop. Mary is annoyed at all of this terrible fuss, especially since she doesn't exactly know what to do. She's angry at Colin for being so out of control, so she marches right over and gives him a piece of her mind. She warns Colin that if he keeps screaming, she'll scream louder. She demands that he turn over and show his back, and she'll prove that he's fine--just a crybaby. And indeed, Colin's back is perfectly straight, if a bit thin and nobbly. Colin is comforted by Mary's no-nonsense manner. This terrible, secret fear he's had all of this time--that his back isn't growing straight, just like his father's--turns out to be totally untrue. The nurse confirms that his back is fine, and that he will live to grow up if he gets some fresh air and controls his temper. Colin is so weak from relief that he is ready to go right to sleep. Mary offers to stay and sing to him the nursery song she sang before, so the nurse goes off to bed, and Mary sits with Colin telling him all of the things she thinks they would find if they opened the door to the Secret Garden.