At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the
others.  Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found
Martha kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she
ate her breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and
after each breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge
moor which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky,
and after she had stared for a while she realized that if she did not
go out she would have to stay in and do nothing--and so she went out.
She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done, and
she did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along
the paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and
making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from
the moor.  She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind
which rushed at her face and roared and held her back as if it were
some giant she could not see.  But the big breaths of rough fresh air
blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good
for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and
brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.

But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one
morning knowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her
breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it
away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it
until her bowl was empty.

"Tha' got on well enough with that this mornin', didn't tha'?" said
Martha.

"It tastes nice today," said Mary, feeling a little surprised her self.

"It's th' air of th' moor that's givin' thee stomach for tha'
victuals," answered Martha.  "It's lucky for thee that tha's got
victuals as well as appetite.  There's been twelve in our cottage as
had th' stomach an' nothin' to put in it.  You go on playin' you out o'
doors every day an' you'll get some flesh on your bones an' you won't
be so yeller."

"I don't play," said Mary.  "I have nothing to play with."

"Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha.  "Our children plays with
sticks and stones.  They just runs about an' shouts an' looks at
things." Mary did not shout, but she looked at things.  There was
nothing else to do.  She walked round and round the gardens and
wandered about the paths in the park.  Sometimes she looked for Ben
Weatherstaff, but though several times she saw him at work he was too
busy to look at her or was too surly.  Once when she was walking toward
him he picked up his spade and turned away as if he did it on purpose.

One place she went to oftener than to any other.  It was the long walk
outside the gardens with the walls round them.  There were bare
flower-beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy grew
thickly.  There was one part of the wall where the creeping dark green
leaves were more bushy than elsewhere.  It seemed as if for a long time
that part had been neglected.  The rest of it had been clipped and made
to look neat, but at this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed
at all.

A few days after she had talked to Ben Weatherstaff, Mary stopped to
notice this and wondered why it was so.  She had just paused and was
looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a
gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of
the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting
forward to look at her with his small head on one side.

"Oh!" she cried out, "is it you--is it you?" And it did not seem at all
queer to her that she spoke to him as if she were sure that he would
understand and answer her.

He did answer.  He twittered and chirped and hopped along the wall as
if he were telling her all sorts of things.  It seemed to Mistress Mary
as if she understood him, too, though he was not speaking in words.  It
was as if he said:

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

Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the
wall she ran after him.  Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary--she
actually looked almost pretty for a moment.

"I like you! I like you!" she cried out, pattering down the walk; and
she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to do
in the least.  But the robin seemed to be quite satisfied and chirped
and whistled back at her.  At last he spread his wings and made a
darting flight to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang loudly.
That reminded Mary of the first time she had seen him.  He had been
swinging on a tree-top then and she had been standing in the orchard.
Now she was on the other side of the orchard and standing in the path
outside a wall--much lower down--and there was the same tree inside.

"It's in the garden no one can go into," she said to herself.  "It's
the garden without a door.  He lives in there.  How I wish I could see
what it is like!"

She ran up the walk to the green door she had entered the first
morning.  Then she ran down the path through the other door and then
into the orchard, and when she stood and looked up there was the tree
on the other side of the wall, and there was the robin just finishing
his song and, beginning to preen his feathers with his beak.

"It is the garden," she said.  "I am sure it is."

She walked round and looked closely at that side of the orchard wall,
but she only found what she had found before--that there was no door in
it.  Then she ran through the kitchen-gardens again and out into the
walk outside the long ivy-covered wall, and she walked to the end of it
and looked at it, but there was no door; and then she walked to the
other end, looking again, but there was no door.

"It's very queer," she said.  "Ben Weatherstaff said there was no door
and there is no door.  But there must have been one ten years ago,
because Mr. Craven buried the key."

This gave her so much to think of that she began to be quite interested
and feel that she was not sorry that she had come to Misselthwaite
Manor.  In India she had always felt hot and too languid to care much
about anything.  The fact was that the fresh wind from the moor had
begun to blow the cobwebs out of her young brain and to waken her up a
little.

She stayed out of doors nearly all day, and when she sat down to her
supper at night she felt hungry and drowsy and comfortable.  She did
not feel cross when Martha chattered away.  She felt as if she rather
liked to hear her, and at last she thought she would ask her a
question.  She asked it after she had finished her supper and had sat
down on the hearth-rug before the fire.

"Why did Mr. Craven hate the garden?" she said.

She had made Martha stay with her and Martha had not objected at all.
She was very young, and used to a crowded cottage full of brothers and
sisters, and she found it dull in the great servants' hall downstairs
where the footman and upper-housemaids made fun of her Yorkshire speech
and looked upon her as a common little thing, and sat and whispered
among themselves.  Martha liked to talk, and the strange child who had
lived in India, and been waited upon by "blacks," was novelty enough to
attract her.

She sat down on the hearth herself without waiting to be asked.

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

"Why did he hate it?" Mary persisted.

Martha tucked her feet under her and made herself quite comfortable.

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

Mary did not know what "wutherin'" meant until she listened, and then
she understood.  It must mean that hollow shuddering sort of roar which
rushed round and round the house as if the giant no one could see were
buffeting it and beating at the walls and windows to try to break in.
But one knew he could not get in, and somehow it made one feel very
safe and warm inside a room with a red coal fire.

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

Then Martha gave up her store of knowledge.

"Mind," she said, "Mrs. Medlock said it's not to be talked about.
There's lots o' things in this place that's not to be talked over.
That's Mr. Craven's orders.  His troubles are none servants' business,
he says.  But for th' garden he wouldn't be like he is.  It was Mrs.
Craven's garden that she had made when first they were married an' she
just loved it, an' they used to 'tend the flowers themselves.  An' none
o' th' gardeners was ever let to go in.  Him an' her used to go in an'
shut th' door an' stay there hours an' hours, readin' and talkin'. An'
she was just a bit of a girl an' there was an old tree with a branch
bent like a seat on it.  An' she made roses grow over it an' she used
to sit there.  But one day when she was sittin' there th' branch broke
an' she fell on th' ground an' was hurt so bad that next day she died.
Th' doctors thought he'd go out o' his mind an' die, too.  That's why
he hates it.  No one's never gone in since, an' he won't let any one
talk about it."

Mary did not ask any more questions.  She looked at the red fire and
listened to the wind "wutherin'." It seemed to be "wutherin'" louder
than ever.  At that moment a very good thing was happening to her.
Four good things had happened to her, in fact, since she came to
Misselthwaite Manor.  She had felt as if she had understood a robin and
that he had understood her; she had run in the wind until her blood had
grown warm; she had been healthily hungry for the first time in her
life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some one.

But as she was listening to the wind she began to listen to something
else.  She did not know what it was, because at first she could
scarcely distinguish it from the wind itself.  It was a curious
sound--it seemed almost as if a child were crying somewhere.  Sometimes
the wind sounded rather like a child crying, but presently Mistress
Mary felt quite sure this sound was inside the house, not outside it.
It was far away, but it was inside.  She turned round and looked at
Martha.

"Do you hear any one crying?" she said.

Martha suddenly looked confused.

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

"But listen," said Mary.  "It's in the house--down one of those long
corridors."

And at that very moment a door must have been opened somewhere
downstairs; for a great rushing draft blew along the passage and the
door of the room they sat in was blown open with a crash, and as they
both jumped to their feet the light was blown out and the crying sound
was swept down the far corridor so that it was to be heard more plainly
than ever.

"There!" said Mary.  "I told you so! It is some one crying--and it
isn't a grown-up person."

Martha ran and shut the door and turned the key, but before she did it
they both heard the sound of a door in some far passage shutting with a
bang, and then everything was quiet, for even the wind ceased
"wutherin'" for a few moments.

"It was th' wind," said Martha stubbornly.  "An' if it wasn't, it was
little Betty Butterworth, th' scullery-maid. She's had th' toothache
all day."

But something troubled and awkward in her manner made Mistress Mary
stare very hard at her.  She did not believe she was speaking the truth.

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary
looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and
cloud.  There could be no going out today.

"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked
Martha.

"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered.
"Eh! there does seem a lot of us then.  Mother's a good-tempered woman
but she gets fair moithered.  The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed
and plays there.  Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet.  He goes out just th'
same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as
doesn't show when it's fair weather.  He once found a little fox cub
half drowned in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his
shirt to keep it warm.  Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole
was swum out an' th' rest o' th' litter was dead.  He's got it at home
now.  He found a half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it
home, too, an' tamed it.  It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it
hops an' flies about with him everywhere."

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar
talk.  She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when
she stopped or went away.  The stories she had been told by her Ayah
when she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell
about the moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four
little rooms and never had quite enough to eat.  The children seemed to
tumble about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured
collie puppies.  Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon.
When Martha told stories of what "mother" said or did they always
sounded comfortable.

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

Martha looked perplexed.

"Can tha' knit?" she asked.

"No," answered Mary.

"Can tha' sew?"

"No."

"Can tha' read?"

"Yes."

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

"I haven't any books," said Mary.  "Those I had were left in India."

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

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly
inspired by a new idea.  She made up her mind to go and find it
herself.  She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock.  Mrs. Medlock seemed
always to be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room downstairs.
In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all.  In fact,
there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was
away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge
kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants'
hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and
where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out
of the way.

Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no
one troubled themselves about her in the least.  Mrs. Medlock came and
looked at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or
told her what to do.  She supposed that perhaps this was the English
way of treating children.  In India she had always been attended by her
Ayah, who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot.  She
had often been tired of her company.  Now she was followed by nobody
and was learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she
thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed
to her and put on.

"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood
waiting for her to put on her gloves for her.  "Our Susan Ann is twice
as sharp as thee an' she's only four year' old.  Sometimes tha' looks
fair soft in th' head."

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

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha
had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs.  She was
thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the
library.  She did not care very much about the library itself, because
she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind
the hundred rooms with closed doors.  She wondered if they were all
really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of
them.  Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how
many doors she could count? It would be something to do on this morning
when she could not go out.  She had never been taught to ask permission
to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would
not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk
about the house, even if she had seen her.

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then
she began her wanderings.  It was a long corridor and it branched into
other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted
to others again.  There were doors and doors, and there were pictures
on the walls.  Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious
landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer,
grand costumes made of satin and velvet.  She found herself in one long
gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits.  She had never
thought there could be so many in any house.  She walked slowly down
this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her.
She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was
doing in their house.  Some were pictures of children--little girls in
thick satin frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about
them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or
with big ruffs around their necks.  She always stopped to look at the
children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone,
and why they wore such odd clothes.  There was a stiff, plain little
girl rather like herself.  She wore a green brocade dress and held a
green parrot on her finger.  Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her.  "I wish you were
here."

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning.  It seemed
as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small
self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and
wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever
walked.  Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in
them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it
true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of
turning the handle of a door.  All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock
had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one
of them and turned it.  She was almost frightened for a moment when she
felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon
the door itself it slowly and heavily opened.  It was a massive door
and opened into a big bedroom.  There were embroidered hangings on the
wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about
the room.  A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor;
and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little
girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

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

After that she opened more doors and more.  She saw so many rooms that
she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred,
though she had not counted them.  In all of them there were old
pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them.  There
were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of
them.

In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were
all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little
elephants made of ivory.  They were of different sizes, and some had
their mahouts or palanquins on their backs.  Some were much bigger than
the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies.  Mary
had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants.  She
opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with
these for quite a long time.  When she got tired she set the elephants
in order and shut the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms,
she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something.  Just
after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound.
It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from
which it seemed to come.  In the corner of the sofa there was a
cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out
of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look.  The bright eyes belonged to
a little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion
and made a comfortable nest there.  Six baby mice were cuddled up
asleep near her.  If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms
there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me,"
said Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any
farther, and she turned back.  Two or three times she lost her way by
turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down
until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor
again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know
exactly where she was.

"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing
still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the
wall.  "I don't know which way to go.  How still everything is!"

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this
that the stillness was broken by a sound.  It was another cry, but not
quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a
fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.

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

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then
sprang back, feeling quite startled.  The tapestry was the covering of
a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of
the corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her
bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

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

"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary.  "I didn't know
which way to go and I heard some one crying." She quite hated Mrs.
Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

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

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one
passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own
room.

"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find
yourself locked up.  The master had better get you a governess, same as
he said he would.  You're one that needs some one to look sharp after
you.  I've got enough to do."

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went
and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage.  She did not cry, but ground
her teeth.

"There was some one crying--there was--there was!" she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out.  She had
found out a great deal this morning.  She felt as if she had been on a
long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all
the time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the
gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

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

"Look at the moor! Look at the moor!"

The rainstorm had ended and the gray mist and clouds had been swept
away in the night by the wind.  The wind itself had ceased and a
brilliant, deep blue sky arched high over the moorland.  Never, never
had Mary dreamed of a sky so blue.  In India skies were hot and
blazing; this was of a deep cool blue which almost seemed to sparkle
like the waters of some lovely bottomless lake, and here and there,
high, high in the arched blueness floated small clouds of snow-white
fleece.  The far-reaching world of the moor itself looked softly blue
instead of gloomy purple-black or awful dreary gray.

"Aye," said Martha with a cheerful grin.  "Th' storm's over for a bit.
It does like this at this time o' th' year.  It goes off in a night
like it was pretendin' it had never been here an' never meant to come
again.  That's because th' springtime's on its way.  It's a long way
off yet, but it's comin'."

"I thought perhaps it always rained or looked dark in England," Mary
said.

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

"What does that mean?" asked Mary seriously.  In India the natives
spoke different dialects which only a few people understood, so she was
not surprised when Martha used words she did not know.

Martha laughed as she had done the first morning.

"There now," she said.  "I've talked broad Yorkshire again like Mrs.
Medlock said I mustn't. 'Nowt o' th' soart' means
'nothin'-of-the-sort,'" slowly and carefully, "but it takes so long to
say it.  Yorkshire's th' sunniest place on earth when it is sunny.  I
told thee tha'd like th' moor after a bit.  Just you wait till you see
th' gold-colored gorse blossoms an' th' blossoms o' th' broom, an' th'
heather flowerin', all purple bells, an' hundreds o' butterflies
flutterin' an' bees hummin' an' skylarks soarin' up an' singin'. You'll
want to get out on it as sunrise an' live out on it all day like Dickon
does." "Could I ever get there?" asked Mary wistfully, looking through
her window at the far-off blue.  It was so new and big and wonderful
and such a heavenly color.

"I don't know," answered Martha.  "Tha's never used tha' legs since
tha' was born, it seems to me.  Tha' couldn't walk five mile.  It's
five mile to our cottage."

"I should like to see your cottage."

Martha stared at her a moment curiously before she took up her
polishing brush and began to rub the grate again.  She was thinking
that the small plain face did not look quite as sour at this moment as
it had done the first morning she saw it.  It looked just a trifle like
little Susan Ann's when she wanted something very much.

"I'll ask my mother about it," she said.  "She's one o' them that
nearly always sees a way to do things.  It's my day out today an' I'm
goin' home.  Eh! I am glad.  Mrs. Medlock thinks a lot o' mother.
Perhaps she could talk to her."

"I like your mother," said Mary.

"I should think tha' did," agreed Martha, polishing away.

"I've never seen her," said Mary.

"No, tha' hasn't," replied Martha.

She sat up on her heels again and rubbed the end of her nose with the
back of her hand as if puzzled for a moment, but she ended quite
positively.

"Well, she's that sensible an' hard workin' an' goodnatured an' clean
that no one could help likin' her whether they'd seen her or not.  When
I'm goin' home to her on my day out I just jump for joy when I'm
crossin' the moor."

"I like Dickon," added Mary.  "And I've never seen him."

"Well," said Martha stoutly, "I've told thee that th' very birds likes
him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an' ponies, an' th' foxes
themselves.  I wonder," staring at her reflectively, "what Dickon would
think of thee?"

"He wouldn't like me," said Mary in her stiff, cold little way.  "No
one does."

Martha looked reflective again.

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

Mary hesitated a moment and thought it over.

"Not at all--really," she answered.  "But I never thought of that
before."

Martha grinned a little as if at some homely recollection.

"Mother said that to me once," she said.  "She was at her wash-tub an'
I was in a bad temper an' talkin' ill of folk, an' she turns round on
me an' says: 'Tha' young vixen, tha'! There tha' stands sayin' tha'
doesn't like this one an' tha' doesn't like that one.  How does tha'
like thysel'?' It made me laugh an' it brought me to my senses in a
minute."

She went away in high spirits as soon as she had given Mary her
breakfast.  She was going to walk five miles across the moor to the
cottage, and she was going to help her mother with the washing and do
the week's baking and enjoy herself thoroughly.

Mary felt lonelier than ever when she knew she was no longer in the
house.  She went out into the garden as quickly as possible, and the
first thing she did was to run round and round the fountain flower
garden ten times.  She counted the times carefully and when she had
finished she felt in better spirits.  The sunshine made the whole place
look different.  The high, deep, blue sky arched over Misselthwaite as
well as over the moor, and she kept lifting her face and looking up
into it, trying to imagine what it would be like to lie down on one of
the little snow-white clouds and float about.  She went into the first
kitchen-garden and found Ben Weatherstaff working there with two other
gardeners.  The change in the weather seemed to have done him good.  He
spoke to her of his own accord.  "Springtime's comin,'" he said.
"Cannot tha' smell it?"

Mary sniffed and thought she could.

"I smell something nice and fresh and damp," she said.

"That's th' good rich earth," he answered, digging away.  "It's in a
good humor makin' ready to grow things.  It's glad when plantin' time
comes.  It's dull in th' winter when it's got nowt to do.  In th'
flower gardens out there things will be stirrin' down below in th'
dark.  Th' sun's warmin' 'em. You'll see bits o' green spikes stickin'
out o' th' black earth after a bit."

"What will they be?" asked Mary.

"Crocuses an' snowdrops an' daffydowndillys.  Has tha' never seen them?"

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

"These won't grow up in a night," said Weatherstaff.  "Tha'll have to
wait for 'em. They'll poke up a bit higher here, an' push out a spike
more there, an' uncurl a leaf this day an' another that.  You watch
'em."

"I am going to," answered Mary.

Very soon she heard the soft rustling flight of wings again and she
knew at once that the robin had come again.  He was very pert and
lively, and hopped about so close to her feet, and put his head on one
side and looked at her so slyly that she asked Ben Weatherstaff a
question.

"Do you think he remembers me?" she said.

"Remembers thee!" said Weatherstaff indignantly.  "He knows every
cabbage stump in th' gardens, let alone th' people.  He's never seen a
little wench here before, an' he's bent on findin' out all about thee.
Tha's no need to try to hide anything from him."

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

"What garden?" grunted Weatherstaff, becoming surly again.

"The one where the old rose-trees are." She could not help asking,
because she wanted so much to know.  "Are all the flowers dead, or do
some of them come again in the summer? Are there ever any roses?"

"Ask him," said Ben Weatherstaff, hunching his shoulders toward the
robin.  "He's the only one as knows.  No one else has seen inside it
for ten year'."

Ten years was a long time, Mary thought.  She had been born ten years
ago.

She walked away, slowly thinking.  She had begun to like the garden
just as she had begun to like the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother.
She was beginning to like Martha, too.  That seemed a good many people
to like--when you were not used to liking.  She thought of the robin as
one of the people.  She went to her walk outside the long, ivy-covered
wall over which she could see the tree-tops; and the second time she
walked up and down the most interesting and exciting thing happened to
her, and it was all through Ben Weatherstaff's robin.

She heard a chirp and a twitter, and when she looked at the bare
flower-bed at her left side there he was hopping about and pretending
to peck things out of the earth to persuade her that he had not
followed her.  But she knew he had followed her and the surprise so
filled her with delight that she almost trembled a little.

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

She chirped, and talked, and coaxed and he hopped, and flirted his tail
and twittered.  It was as if he were talking.  His red waistcoat was
like satin and he puffed his tiny breast out and was so fine and so
grand and so pretty that it was really as if he were showing her how
important and like a human person a robin could be.  Mistress Mary
forgot that she had ever been contrary in her life when he allowed her
to draw closer and closer to him, and bend down and talk and try to
make something like robin sounds.

Oh! to think that he should actually let her come as near to him as
that! He knew nothing in the world would make her put out her hand
toward him or startle him in the least tiniest way.  He knew it because
he was a real person--only nicer than any other person in the world.
She was so happy that she scarcely dared to breathe.

The flower-bed was not quite bare.  It was bare of flowers because the
perennial plants had been cut down for their winter rest, but there
were tall shrubs and low ones which grew together at the back of the
bed, and as the robin hopped about under them she saw him hop over a
small pile of freshly turned up earth.  He stopped on it to look for a
worm.  The earth had been turned up because a dog had been trying to
dig up a mole and he had scratched quite a deep hole.

Mary looked at it, not really knowing why the hole was there, and as
she looked she saw something almost buried in the newly-turned soil.
It was something like a ring of rusty iron or brass and when the robin
flew up into a tree nearby she put out her hand and picked the ring up.
It was more than a ring, however; it was an old key which looked as if
it had been buried a long time.

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

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

She looked at the key quite a long time.  She turned it over and over,
and thought about it.  As I have said before, she was not a child who
had been trained to ask permission or consult her elders about things.
All she thought about the key was that if it was the key to the closed
garden, and she could find out where the door was, she could perhaps
open it and see what was inside the walls, and what had happened to the
old rose-trees. It was because it had been shut up so long that she
wanted to see it.  It seemed as if it must be different from other
places and that something strange must have happened to it during ten
years.  Besides that, if she liked it she could go into it every day
and shut the door behind her, and she could make up some play of her
own and play it quite alone, because nobody would ever know where she
was, but would think the door was still locked and the key buried in
the earth.  The thought of that pleased her very much.

Living as it were, all by herself in a house with a hundred
mysteriously closed rooms and having nothing whatever to do to amuse
herself, had set her inactive brain to working and was actually
awakening her imagination.  There is no doubt that the fresh, strong,
pure air from the moor had a great deal to do with it.  Just as it had
given her an appetite, and fighting with the wind had stirred her
blood, so the same things had stirred her mind.  In India she had
always been too hot and languid and weak to care much about anything,
but in this place she was beginning to care and to want to do new
things.  Already she felt less "contrary," though she did not know why.

She put the key in her pocket and walked up and down her walk.  No one
but herself ever seemed to come there, so she could walk slowly and
look at the wall, or, rather, at the ivy growing on it.  The ivy was
the baffling thing.  Howsoever carefully she looked she could see
nothing but thickly growing, glossy, dark green leaves.  She was very
much disappointed.  Something of her contrariness came back to her as
she paced the walk and looked over it at the tree-tops inside.  It
seemed so silly, she said to herself, to be near it and not be able to
get in.  She took the key in her pocket when she went back to the
house, and she made up her mind that she would always carry it with her
when she went out, so that if she ever should find the hidden door she
would be ready.

Mrs. Medlock had allowed Martha to sleep all night at the cottage, but
she was back at her work in the morning with cheeks redder than ever
and in the best of spirits.

"I got up at four o'clock," she said.  "Eh! it was pretty on th' moor
with th' birds gettin' up an' th' rabbits scamperin' about an' th' sun
risin'. I didn't walk all th' way.  A man gave me a ride in his cart
an' I did enjoy myself."

She was full of stories of the delights of her day out.  Her mother had
been glad to see her and they had got the baking and washing all out of
the way.  She had even made each of the children a doughcake with a bit
of brown sugar in it.

"I had 'em all pipin' hot when they came in from playin' on th' moor.
An' th' cottage all smelt o' nice, clean hot bakin' an' there was a
good fire, an' they just shouted for joy.  Our Dickon he said our
cottage was good enough for a king."

In the evening they had all sat round the fire, and Martha and her
mother had sewed patches on torn clothes and mended stockings and
Martha had told them about the little girl who had come from India and
who had been waited on all her life by what Martha called "blacks"
until she didn't know how to put on her own stockings.

"Eh! they did like to hear about you," said Martha.  "They wanted to
know all about th' blacks an' about th' ship you came in.  I couldn't
tell 'em enough."

Mary reflected a little.

"I'll tell you a great deal more before your next day out," she said,
"so that you will have more to talk about.  I dare say they would like
to hear about riding on elephants and camels, and about the officers
going to hunt tigers."

"My word!" cried delighted Martha.  "It would set 'em clean off their
heads.  Would tha' really do that, Miss? It would be same as a wild
beast show like we heard they had in York once."

"India is quite different from Yorkshire," Mary said slowly, as she
thought the matter over.  "I never thought of that.  Did Dickon and
your mother like to hear you talk about me?"

"Why, our Dickon's eyes nearly started out o' his head, they got that
round," answered Martha.  "But mother, she was put out about your
seemin' to be all by yourself like.  She said, 'Hasn't Mr. Craven got
no governess for her, nor no nurse?' and I said, 'No, he hasn't, though
Mrs. Medlock says he will when he thinks of it, but she says he mayn't
think of it for two or three years.'"

"I don't want a governess," said Mary sharply.

"But mother says you ought to be learnin' your book by this time an'
you ought to have a woman to look after you, an' she says: 'Now,
Martha, you just think how you'd feel yourself, in a big place like
that, wanderin' about all alone, an' no mother.  You do your best to
cheer her up,' she says, an' I said I would."

Mary gave her a long, steady look.

"You do cheer me up," she said.  "I like to hear you talk."

Presently Martha went out of the room and came back with something held
in her hands under her apron.

"What does tha' think," she said, with a cheerful grin.  "I've brought
thee a present."

"A present!" exclaimed Mistress Mary.  How could a cottage full of
fourteen hungry people give any one a present!

"A man was drivin' across the moor peddlin'," Martha explained.  "An'
he stopped his cart at our door.  He had pots an' pans an' odds an'
ends, but mother had no money to buy anythin'. Just as he was goin'
away our 'Lizabeth Ellen called out, 'Mother, he's got skippin'-ropes
with red an' blue handles.' An' mother she calls out quite sudden,
'Here, stop, mister! How much are they?' An' he says 'Tuppence', an'
mother she began fumblin' in her pocket an' she says to me, 'Martha,
tha's brought me thy wages like a good lass, an' I've got four places
to put every penny, but I'm just goin' to take tuppence out of it to
buy that child a skippin'-rope,' an' she bought one an' here it is."

She brought it out from under her apron and exhibited it quite proudly.
It was a strong, slender rope with a striped red and blue handle at
each end, but Mary Lennox had never seen a skipping-rope before.  She
gazed at it with a mystified expression.

"What is it for?" she asked curiously.

"For!" cried out Martha.  "Does tha' mean that they've not got
skippin'-ropes in India, for all they've got elephants and tigers and
camels! No wonder most of 'em's black.  This is what it's for; just
watch me."

And she ran into the middle of the room and, taking a handle in each
hand, began to skip, and skip, and skip, while Mary turned in her chair
to stare at her, and the queer faces in the old portraits seemed to
stare at her, too, and wonder what on earth this common little cottager
had the impudence to be doing under their very noses.  But Martha did
not even see them.  The interest and curiosity in Mistress Mary's face
delighted her, and she went on skipping and counted as she skipped
until she had reached a hundred.

"I could skip longer than that," she said when she stopped.  "I've
skipped as much as five hundred when I was twelve, but I wasn't as fat
then as I am now, an' I was in practice."

Mary got up from her chair beginning to feel excited herself.

"It looks nice," she said.  "Your mother is a kind woman.  Do you think
I could ever skip like that?"

"You just try it," urged Martha, handing her the skipping-rope.  "You
can't skip a hundred at first, but if you practice you'll mount up.
That's what mother said.  She says, 'Nothin' will do her more good than
skippin' rope.  It's th' sensiblest toy a child can have.  Let her play
out in th' fresh air skippin' an' it'll stretch her legs an' arms an'
give her some strength in 'em.'"

It was plain that there was not a great deal of strength in Mistress
Mary's arms and legs when she first began to skip.  She was not very
clever at it, but she liked it so much that she did not want to stop.

"Put on tha' things and run an' skip out o' doors," said Martha.
"Mother said I must tell you to keep out o' doors as much as you could,
even when it rains a bit, so as tha' wrap up warm."

Mary put on her coat and hat and took her skipping-rope over her arm.
She opened the door to go out, and then suddenly thought of something
and turned back rather slowly.

"Martha," she said, "they were your wages.  It was your two-pence
really.  Thank you." She said it stiffly because she was not used to
thanking people or noticing that they did things for her.  "Thank you,"
she said, and held out her hand because she did not know what else to
do.

Martha gave her hand a clumsy little shake, as if she was not
accustomed to this sort of thing either.  Then she laughed.

"Eh! th' art a queer, old-womanish thing," she said.  "If tha'd been
our 'Lizabeth Ellen tha'd have given me a kiss."

Mary looked stiffer than ever.

"Do you want me to kiss you?"

Martha laughed again.

"Nay, not me," she answered.  "If tha' was different, p'raps tha'd want
to thysel'. But tha' isn't. Run off outside an' play with thy rope."

Mistress Mary felt a little awkward as she went out of the room.
Yorkshire people seemed strange, and Martha was always rather a puzzle
to her.  At first she had disliked her very much, but now she did not.
The skipping-rope was a wonderful thing.  She counted and skipped, and
skipped and counted, until her cheeks were quite red, and she was more
interested than she had ever been since she was born.  The sun was
shining and a little wind was blowing--not a rough wind, but one which
came in delightful little gusts and brought a fresh scent of newly
turned earth with it.  She skipped round the fountain garden, and up
one walk and down another.  She skipped at last into the kitchen-garden
and saw Ben Weatherstaff digging and talking to his robin, which was
hopping about him.  She skipped down the walk toward him and he lifted
his head and looked at her with a curious expression.  She had wondered
if he would notice her.  She wanted him to see her skip.

"Well!" he exclaimed.  "Upon my word.  P'raps tha' art a young 'un,
after all, an' p'raps tha's got child's blood in thy veins instead of
sour buttermilk.  Tha's skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my
name's Ben Weatherstaff.  I wouldn't have believed tha' could do it."

"I never skipped before," Mary said.  "I'm just beginning.  I can only
go up to twenty."

"Tha' keep on," said Ben.  "Tha' shapes well enough at it for a young
'un that's lived with heathen.  Just see how he's watchin' thee,"
jerking his head toward the robin.  "He followed after thee yesterday.
He'll be at it again today.  He'll be bound to find out what th'
skippin'-rope is.  He's never seen one.  Eh!" shaking his head at the
bird, "tha' curiosity will be th' death of thee sometime if tha'
doesn't look sharp."

Mary skipped round all the gardens and round the orchard, resting every
few minutes.  At length she went to her own special walk and made up
her mind to try if she could skip the whole length of it.  It was a
good long skip and she began slowly, but before she had gone half-way
down the path she was so hot and breathless that she was obliged to
stop.  She did not mind much, because she had already counted up to
thirty.  She stopped with a little laugh of pleasure, and there, lo and
behold, was the robin swaying on a long branch of ivy.  He had followed
her and he greeted her with a chirp.  As Mary had skipped toward him
she felt something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump,
and when she saw the robin she laughed again.

"You showed me where the key was yesterday," she said.  "You ought to
show me the door today; but I don't believe you know!"

The robin flew from his swinging spray of ivy on to the top of the wall
and he opened his beak and sang a loud, lovely trill, merely to show
off.  Nothing in the world is quite as adorably lovely as a robin when
he shows off--and they are nearly always doing it.

Mary Lennox had heard a great deal about Magic in her Ayah's stories,
and she always said that what happened almost at that moment was Magic.

One of the nice little gusts of wind rushed down the walk, and it was a
stronger one than the rest.  It was strong enough to wave the branches
of the trees, and it was more than strong enough to sway the trailing
sprays of untrimmed ivy hanging from the wall.  Mary had stepped close
to the robin, and suddenly the gust of wind swung aside some loose ivy
trails, and more suddenly still she jumped toward it and caught it in
her hand.  This she did because she had seen something under it--a
round knob which had been covered by the leaves hanging over it.  It
was the knob of a door.

She put her hands under the leaves and began to pull and push them
aside.  Thick as the ivy hung, it nearly all was a loose and swinging
curtain, though some had crept over wood and iron.  Mary's heart began
to thump and her hands to shake a little in her delight and excitement.
The robin kept singing and twittering away and tilting his head on one
side, as if he were as excited as she was.  What was this under her
hands which was square and made of iron and which her fingers found a
hole in?

It was the lock of the door which had been closed ten years and she put
her hand in her pocket, drew out the key and found it fitted the
keyhole.  She put the key in and turned it.  It took two hands to do
it, but it did turn.

And then she took a long breath and looked behind her up the long walk
to see if any one was coming.  No one was coming.  No one ever did
come, it seemed, and she took another long breath, because she could
not help it, and she held back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushed
back the door which opened slowly--slowly.

Then she slipped through it, and shut it behind her, and stood with her
back against it, looking about her and breathing quite fast with
excitement, and wonder, and delight.

She was standing inside the secret garden.

It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could
imagine.  The high walls which shut it in were covered with the
leafless stems of climbing roses which were so thick that they were
matted together.  Mary Lennox knew they were roses because she had seen
a great many roses in India.  All the ground was covered with grass of
a wintry brown and out of it grew clumps of bushes which were surely
rosebushes if they were alive.  There were numbers of standard roses
which had so spread their branches that they were like little trees.
There were other trees in the garden, and one of the things which made
the place look strangest and loveliest was that climbing roses had run
all over them and swung down long tendrils which made light swaying
curtains, and here and there they had caught at each other or at a
far-reaching branch and had crept from one tree to another and made
lovely bridges of themselves.  There were neither leaves nor roses on
them now and Mary did not know whether they were dead or alive, but
their thin gray or brown branches and sprays looked like a sort of hazy
mantle spreading over everything, walls, and trees, and even brown
grass, where they had fallen from their fastenings and run along the
ground.  It was this hazy tangle from tree to tree which made it all
look so mysterious.  Mary had thought it must be different from other
gardens which had not been left all by themselves so long; and indeed
it was different from any other place she had ever seen in her life.

"How still it is!" she whispered.  "How still!"

Then she waited a moment and listened at the stillness.  The robin, who
had flown to his treetop, was still as all the rest.  He did not even
flutter his wings; he sat without stirring, and looked at Mary.

"No wonder it is still," she whispered again.  "I am the first person
who has spoken in here for ten years."

She moved away from the door, stepping as softly as if she were afraid
of awakening some one.  She was glad that there was grass under her
feet and that her steps made no sounds.  She walked under one of the
fairy-like gray arches between the trees and looked up at the sprays
and tendrils which formed them.  "I wonder if they are all quite dead,"
she said.  "Is it all a quite dead garden? I wish it wasn't."

If she had been Ben Weatherstaff she could have told whether the wood
was alive by looking at it, but she could only see that there were only
gray or brown sprays and branches and none showed any signs of even a
tiny leaf-bud anywhere.

But she was inside the wonderful garden and she could come through the
door under the ivy any time and she felt as if she had found a world
all her own.

The sun was shining inside the four walls and the high arch of blue sky
over this particular piece of Misselthwaite seemed even more brilliant
and soft than it was over the moor.  The robin flew down from his
tree-top and hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another.
He chirped a good deal and had a very busy air, as if he were showing
her things.  Everything was strange and silent and she seemed to be
hundreds of miles away from any one, but somehow she did not feel
lonely at all.  All that troubled her was her wish that she knew
whether all the roses were dead, or if perhaps some of them had lived
and might put out leaves and buds as the weather got warmer.  She did
not want it to be a quite dead garden.  If it were a quite alive
garden, how wonderful it would be, and what thousands of roses would
grow on every side!

Her skipping-rope had hung over her arm when she came in and after she
had walked about for a while she thought she would skip round the whole
garden, stopping when she wanted to look at things.  There seemed to
have been grass paths here and there, and in one or two corners there
were alcoves of evergreen with stone seats or tall moss-covered flower
urns in them.

As she came near the second of these alcoves she stopped skipping.
There had once been a flowerbed in it, and she thought she saw
something sticking out of the black earth--some sharp little pale green
points.  She remembered what Ben Weatherstaff had said and she knelt
down to look at them.

"Yes, they are tiny growing things and they might be crocuses or
snowdrops or daffodils," she whispered.

She bent very close to them and sniffed the fresh scent of the damp
earth.  She liked it very much.

"Perhaps there are some other ones coming up in other places," she
said.  "I will go all over the garden and look."

She did not skip, but walked.  She went slowly and kept her eyes on the
ground.  She looked in the old border beds and among the grass, and
after she had gone round, trying to miss nothing, she had found ever so
many more sharp, pale green points, and she had become quite excited
again.

"It isn't a quite dead garden," she cried out softly to herself.  "Even
if the roses are dead, there are other things alive."

She did not know anything about gardening, but the grass seemed so
thick in some of the places where the green points were pushing their
way through that she thought they did not seem to have room enough to
grow.  She searched about until she found a rather sharp piece of wood
and knelt down and dug and weeded out the weeds and grass until she
made nice little clear places around them.

"Now they look as if they could breathe," she said, after she had
finished with the first ones.  "I am going to do ever so many more.
I'll do all I can see.  If I haven't time today I can come tomorrow."

She went from place to place, and dug and weeded, and enjoyed herself
so immensely that she was led on from bed to bed and into the grass
under the trees.  The exercise made her so warm that she first threw
her coat off, and then her hat, and without knowing it she was smiling
down on to the grass and the pale green points all the time.

The robin was tremendously busy.  He was very much pleased to see
gardening begun on his own estate.  He had often wondered at Ben
Weatherstaff.  Where gardening is done all sorts of delightful things
to eat are turned up with the soil.  Now here was this new kind of
creature who was not half Ben's size and yet had had the sense to come
into his garden and begin at once.

Mistress Mary worked in her garden until it was time to go to her
midday dinner.  In fact, she was rather late in remembering, and when
she put on her coat and hat, and picked up her skipping-rope, she could
not believe that she had been working two or three hours.  She had been
actually happy all the time; and dozens and dozens of the tiny, pale
green points were to be seen in cleared places, looking twice as
cheerful as they had looked before when the grass and weeds had been
smothering them.

"I shall come back this afternoon," she said, looking all round at her
new kingdom, and speaking to the trees and the rose-bushes as if they
heard her.

Then she ran lightly across the grass, pushed open the slow old door
and slipped through it under the ivy.  She had such red cheeks and such
bright eyes and ate such a dinner that Martha was delighted.

"Two pieces o' meat an' two helps o' rice puddin'!" she said.  "Eh!
mother will be pleased when I tell her what th' skippin'-rope's done
for thee."

In the course of her digging with her pointed stick Mistress Mary had
found herself digging up a sort of white root rather like an onion.
She had put it back in its place and patted the earth carefully down on
it and just now she wondered if Martha could tell her what it was.

"Martha," she said, "what are those white roots that look like onions?"

"They're bulbs," answered Martha.  "Lots o' spring flowers grow from
'em. Th' very little ones are snowdrops an' crocuses an' th' big ones
are narcissuses an' jonquils and daffydowndillys.  Th' biggest of all
is lilies an' purple flags.  Eh! they are nice.  Dickon's got a whole
lot of 'em planted in our bit o' garden."

"Does Dickon know all about them?" asked Mary, a new idea taking
possession of her.

"Our Dickon can make a flower grow out of a brick walk.  Mother says he
just whispers things out o' th' ground."

"Do bulbs live a long time? Would they live years and years if no one
helped them?" inquired Mary anxiously.

"They're things as helps themselves," said Martha.  "That's why poor
folk can afford to have 'em. If you don't trouble 'em, most of 'em'll
work away underground for a lifetime an' spread out an' have little
'uns. There's a place in th' park woods here where there's snowdrops by
thousands.  They're the prettiest sight in Yorkshire when th' spring
comes.  No one knows when they was first planted."

"I wish the spring was here now," said Mary.  "I want to see all the
things that grow in England."

She had finished her dinner and gone to her favorite seat on the
hearth-rug.

"I wish--I wish I had a little spade," she said.  "Whatever does tha'
want a spade for?" asked Martha, laughing.  "Art tha' goin' to take to
diggin'? I must tell mother that, too."

Mary looked at the fire and pondered a little.  She must be careful if
she meant to keep her secret kingdom.  She wasn't doing any harm, but
if Mr. Craven found out about the open door he would be fearfully angry
and get a new key and lock it up forevermore.  She really could not
bear that.

"This is such a big lonely place," she said slowly, as if she were
turning matters over in her mind.  "The house is lonely, and the park
is lonely, and the gardens are lonely.  So many places seem shut up.  I
never did many things in India, but there were more people to look
at--natives and soldiers marching by--and sometimes bands playing, and
my Ayah told me stories.  There is no one to talk to here except you
and Ben Weatherstaff.  And you have to do your work and Ben
Weatherstaff won't speak to me often.  I thought if I had a little
spade I could dig somewhere as he does, and I might make a little
garden if he would give me some seeds."

Martha's face quite lighted up.

"There now!" she exclaimed, "if that wasn't one of th' things mother
said.  She says, 'There's such a lot o' room in that big place, why
don't they give her a bit for herself, even if she doesn't plant
nothin' but parsley an' radishes? She'd dig an' rake away an' be right
down happy over it.' Them was the very words she said."

"Were they?" said Mary.  "How many things she knows, doesn't she?"

"Eh!" said Martha.  "It's like she says: 'A woman as brings up twelve
children learns something besides her A B C. Children's as good as
'rithmetic to set you findin' out things.'"

"How much would a spade cost--a little one?" Mary asked.

"Well," was Martha's reflective answer, "at Thwaite village there's a
shop or so an' I saw little garden sets with a spade an' a rake an' a
fork all tied together for two shillings.  An' they was stout enough to
work with, too."

"I've got more than that in my purse," said Mary.  "Mrs. Morrison gave
me five shillings and Mrs. Medlock gave me some money from Mr. Craven."

"Did he remember thee that much?" exclaimed Martha.

"Mrs. Medlock said I was to have a shilling a week to spend.  She gives
me one every Saturday.  I didn't know what to spend it on."

"My word! that's riches," said Martha.  "Tha' can buy anything in th'
world tha' wants.  Th' rent of our cottage is only one an' threepence
an' it's like pullin' eye-teeth to get it.  Now I've just thought of
somethin'," putting her hands on her hips.

"What?" said Mary eagerly.

"In the shop at Thwaite they sell packages o' flower-seeds for a penny
each, and our Dickon he knows which is th' prettiest ones an' how to
make 'em grow.  He walks over to Thwaite many a day just for th' fun of
it.  Does tha' know how to print letters?" suddenly.

"I know how to write," Mary answered.

Martha shook her head.

"Our Dickon can only read printin'. If tha' could print we could write
a letter to him an' ask him to go an' buy th' garden tools an' th'
seeds at th' same time."

"Oh! you're a good girl!" Mary cried.  "You are, really! I didn't know
you were so nice.  I know I can print letters if I try.  Let's ask Mrs.
Medlock for a pen and ink and some paper."

"I've got some of my own," said Martha.  "I bought 'em so I could print
a bit of a letter to mother of a Sunday.  I'll go and get it." She ran
out of the room, and Mary stood by the fire and twisted her thin little
hands together with sheer pleasure.

"If I have a spade," she whispered, "I can make the earth nice and soft
and dig up weeds.  If I have seeds and can make flowers grow the garden
won't be dead at all--it will come alive."

She did not go out again that afternoon because when Martha returned
with her pen and ink and paper she was obliged to clear the table and
carry the plates and dishes downstairs and when she got into the
kitchen Mrs. Medlock was there and told her to do something, so Mary
waited for what seemed to her a long time before she came back.  Then
it was a serious piece of work to write to Dickon.  Mary had been
taught very little because her governesses had disliked her too much to
stay with her.  She could not spell particularly well but she found
that she could print letters when she tried.  This was the letter
Martha dictated to her: "My Dear Dickon:

This comes hoping to find you well as it leaves me at present.  Miss
Mary has plenty of money and will you go to Thwaite and buy her some
flower seeds and a set of garden tools to make a flower-bed. Pick the
prettiest ones and easy to grow because she has never done it before
and lived in India which is different.  Give my love to mother and
every one of you.  Miss Mary is going to tell me a lot more so that on
my next day out you can hear about elephants and camels and gentlemen
going hunting lions and tigers.

                     "Your loving sister,
                     Martha Phoebe Sowerby."

"We'll put the money in th' envelope an' I'll get th' butcher boy to
take it in his cart.  He's a great friend o' Dickon's," said Martha.

"How shall I get the things when Dickon buys them?"

"He'll bring 'em to you himself.  He'll like to walk over this way."

"Oh!" exclaimed Mary, "then I shall see him! I never thought I should
see Dickon."

"Does tha' want to see him?" asked Martha suddenly, for Mary had looked
so pleased.

"Yes, I do.  I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved.  I want to see
him very much."

Martha gave a little start, as if she remembered something.  "Now to
think," she broke out, "to think o' me forgettin' that there; an' I
thought I was goin' to tell you first thing this mornin'. I asked
mother--and she said she'd ask Mrs. Medlock her own self."

"Do you mean--" Mary began.

"What I said Tuesday.  Ask her if you might be driven over to our
cottage some day and have a bit o' mother's hot oat cake, an' butter,
an' a glass o' milk."

It seemed as if all the interesting things were happening in one day.
To think of going over the moor in the daylight and when the sky was
blue! To think of going into the cottage which held twelve children!

"Does she think Mrs. Medlock would let me go?" she asked, quite
anxiously.

"Aye, she thinks she would.  She knows what a tidy woman mother is and
how clean she keeps the cottage."

"If I went I should see your mother as well as Dickon," said Mary,
thinking it over and liking the idea very much.  "She doesn't seem to
be like the mothers in India."

Her work in the garden and the excitement of the afternoon ended by
making her feel quiet and thoughtful.  Martha stayed with her until
tea-time, but they sat in comfortable quiet and talked very little.
But just before Martha went downstairs for the tea-tray, Mary asked a
question.

"Martha," she said, "has the scullery-maid had the toothache again
today?"

Martha certainly started slightly.

"What makes thee ask that?" she said.

"Because when I waited so long for you to come back I opened the door
and walked down the corridor to see if you were coming.  And I heard
that far-off crying again, just as we heard it the other night.  There
isn't a wind today, so you see it couldn't have been the wind."

"Eh!" said Martha restlessly.  "Tha' mustn't go walkin' about in
corridors an' listenin'. Mr. Craven would be that there angry there's
no knowin' what he'd do."

"I wasn't listening," said Mary.  "I was just waiting for you--and I
heard it.  That's three times."

"My word! There's Mrs. Medlock's bell," said Martha, and she almost ran
out of the room.

"It's the strangest house any one ever lived in," said Mary drowsily,
as she dropped her head on the cushioned seat of the armchair near her.
Fresh air, and digging, and skipping-rope had made her feel so
comfortably tired that she fell asleep.

Mary starts to settle into her new life at her uncle's manor. Each day passes by in a very similar way, with Mary eating breakfast and gazing at the moor, and then going outside in the cold, windy weather. Her more active lifestyle encourages her to start eating more, even the porridge which she initially disdained. There is one particular place in the garden that Mary likes to visit, a place that has been neglected and is now overgrown with ivy. She encounters the robin again which enlivens her and even makes her laugh. Mary realizes that her robin friend lives in the secret garden, the garden that is blocked off by a wall with no door into it. Mary wonders how there could possibly be no door, as Mr. Craven had buried a key to the garden 10 years earlier. In the evening, Mary tries to ask Martha about why Mr. Craven hated the garden so much as to close off access to it. Martha tells the girl that although it's not something that the servants are allowed to talk about, she knows that the garden was a place that Mr. and Mrs. Crowley loved to spend time in, until a branch fell and tragically killed Mrs. Crowley. It is a very windy night and the howling sounds of the wind remind Mary of a child crying, although the noises sound more inside of the house than outside of it. Mary asks Martha about the sound, but Martha assures her it is just the wind. At that moment, a door is blown open, startling both of them. Martha again denies that it is a crying child, but something in her persistent denial makes Mary believe she is not telling the truth. The next day, it is pouring rain. Mary notices how quiet it is in the mansion, and how infrequently she sees any of the servants. She also notices how Martha does not attentively wait on her in the same way that Ayah had done. Mary decides to spend the morning exploring the house to see how many doors she can count. She ends up going into many of the rooms and finds many interesting things, including a mother mouse and its babies. Again, she hears the sound of a child crying. Right at this moment, she is caught by Mrs. Medlock, who is very angry that Mary is exploring the mansion without permission. She also denies, like Martha, that there is anyone crying, which frustrates Mary, who is sure of what she heard. Two days later, the rainy weather shifts and Mary wakes up to a beautiful blue sky. Mary asks Martha if she can visit her cottage sometime, but Martha is not sure that Mary would be able to walk the 5 miles it takes to get there. Martha tells her about her brother named Dickon, who spends all his time outdoors, and Mary exclaims that she already likes him without meeting him, and then wonders out loud if he would like her back. She admits that she does not even like herself. Mary goes out to visit Ben in the garden, who seems in better spirits. Mary realizes how she is growing to like the people around her more and more. She encounters the robin again, which seems to recognize her. The robin guides her to a flowerbed near the locked up garden, where Mary finds a key buried in the soil. She is shocked and then excited to realize that this is probably the key to the secret garden. Martha returns to the manor from her day at her cottage. She has had a wonderful day off and has entertained her many siblings with stories of Mary. Martha gives Mary a jumprope to play with. Mary goes out to the garden again and sees the robin. Remembering the key she found the day before, she goes to unlock the door of the secret garden. She feels extremely delighted as she steps through the door. The garden is very still and lush, with a mysterious quality due to having been left to grow without human intervention for 10 years. Mary walks through the garden and finds tiny flowers and many roses. The robin follows her as she explores. She returns home with bright eyes, red cheeks, and a big appetite for lunch, which Martha appreciates. Mary asks Martha where she can get a spade, dreaming about how she can dig in the garden and discover different bulbs. She realizes, however, she must not say too much so she doesn't reveal that she has been in the secret garden, as this would cause Mr. Craven much distress. Martha tells Mary to ask Dickon to get some packages of flower seeds for her. Mary is very excited by this offer. Martha helps Mary to print a letter to Dickon. Martha also invites Mary to come to her cottage and meet all 12 of her siblings as well as her mother. Tired from her adventurous day, Mary falls asleep quickly that night.

In this section of The Secret Garden, we see Mary start to grow and transform in her new setting at Misselthwaite Manor. The sour little girl who has been accustomed to be waited on by docile servants is beginning to evolve into a more cheerful and curious child. Martha does not act like Ayah in the sense of doing everything for Mary; instead she encourages Mary to go out and explore, to be more independent. The inner changes Mary experiences are mirrored externally in the weather, with the windy, cold English climate "stirring her blood" and inspiring Mary to explore the rich landscape around her, especially the mysterious gardens. In new circumstances, she can no longer be passive and complacent with life. It is as if Mary is learning for the first time who she really is beyond her former role as the coddled daughter of wealthy parents. Without the backdrop of India, Mary must rediscover her own sense of self. In these chapters, we are made to see how Mary carries much insecurity about herself, perhaps as a result of being neglected by her family from such a young age. This lack of confidence shows up when Martha speaks about Mary potentially meeting her siblings, especially her popular brother Dicken. Mary wonders aloud if anyone would like to have her as a friend. Although it is clear Mary craves new connections, she still has a gruff, mistrusting layer to herself that she must slowly start to shed. For Mary, being at Misselthwaite Manor is a humbling experience. This is demonstrated in the story when Mary finally starts looking forward to eating her porridge; a food that she initially detested, believing it was beneath her standards. No one around her will indulge her every whim and thus she must learn to appreciate what she is given. This change of heart does not come easily; rather it requires that Mary comes to terms with her previous spoiled lifestyle and disagreeable nature. Martha is often the one helping to show this truth to Mary, such as when she tells Mary quite bluntly that she needs to grow up. Though somewhat hurt at first, Mary can also appreciate Martha's honesty and the way it makes her "think about new things." The narrative of The Secret Garden unfolds in such a way as to leave much mystery and suspense for the reader to ponder. One such instance of this is the multiple times that Mary hears a child crying inside. Although Mary is certain of the sound, the adults around her deny any such thing, thus leaving Mary to wonder from where the crying could possibly come. There is also a certain spookiness in the setting of the manor, with its massive amount of empty rooms and gardens that have mostly been locked up and abandoned, and with Mr. Craven refusing to show himself. The little details of the setting, such as the interesting objects Mary finds in some of the rooms, serves to slowly draw out a better picture of who Mr. Craven is and what has taken place at his strange estate. One mystery that is made somewhat more clear in these pages is that of Archibald's beloved wife. The circumstances of her death are something that the servants have been ordered to keep hidden, yet Mary is eager to know the truth. Martha reveals to her that Mrs. Craven died in an accident in the garden, which is why it has been locked up and neglected for 10 years. Through this information as well as Mary's intense interest in accessing the secret garden, the author foreshadows the important role this place will have in the plot going forward. Despite the haunted feeling that is palpable throughout the house and gardens, Mary desires to explore the new territory and bring her youthful spark into a space long deserted and left to die.