The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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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
srteamed down his face and wet the pillow. Actually the
tears meant that a curious great relief had come to him.
Presently he turned and looked at the nurse again and
strangely enough he was not like a Rajah at all as he
spoke to her.

"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.

CHAPTER XVIII

"THA' MUNNOT WASTE NO TIME"

Of course Mary did not waken early the next morning.
She slept late because she was tired, and when Martha
brought her breakfast she told her that though.
Colin was quite quiet he was ill and feverish as he always
was after he had worn himself out with a fit of crying.
Mary ate her breakfast slowly as she listened.

"He says he wishes tha' would please go and see him as soon
as tha' can," Martha said. "It's queer what a fancy
he's took to thee. Tha' did give it him last night for
sure--didn't tha? Nobody else would have dared to do it.
Eh! poor lad! He's been spoiled till salt won't save him.
Mother says as th' two worst things as can happen to a
child is never to have his own way--or always to have it.
She doesn't know which is th' worst. Tha' was in a fine temper
tha'self, too. But he says to me when I went into his room,
`Please ask Miss Mary if she'll please come an, talk to me?'
Think o' him saying please! Will you go, Miss?" "I'll run
and see Dickon first," said Mary. "No, I'll go and see
Colin first and tell him--I know what I'll tell him,"
with a sudden inspiration.

She had her hat on when she appeared in Colin's room
and for a second he looked disappointed. He was in bed.
His face was pitifully white and there were dark circles
round his eyes.

"I'm glad you came," he said. "My head aches and I ache
all over because I'm so tired. Are you going somewhere?"

Mary went and leaned against his bed.

"I won't be long," she said. "I'm going to Dickon,
but I'll come back. Colin, it's--it's something about
the garden."

His whole face brightened and a little color came into it.

"Oh! is it?" he cried out. "I dreamed about it all night
I heard you say something about gray changing into green,
and I dreamed I was standing in a place all filled
with trembling little green leaves--and there were birds
on nests everywhere and they looked so soft and still.
I'll lie and think about it until you come back."

In five minutes Mary was with Dickon in their garden.
The fox and the crow were with him again and this time
he had brought two tame squirrels. "I came over on the
pony this mornin', " he said. "Eh! he is a good little
chap--Jump is! I brought these two in my pockets.
This here one he's called Nut an' this here other one's
called Shell."

When he said "Nut" one squirrel leaped on to his right
shoulder and when he said "Shell" the other one leaped
on to his left shoulder.

When they sat down on the grass with Captain curled at
their feet, Soot solemnly listening on a tree and Nut and
Shell nosing about close to them, it seemed to Mary that it
would be scarcely bearable to leave such delightfulness,
but when she began to tell her story somehow the look
in Dickon's funny face gradually changed her mind.
She could see he felt sorrier for Colin than she did.
He looked up at the sky and all about him.

"Just listen to them birds--th' world seems full
of 'em--all whistlin' an' pipin'," he said.
"Look at 'em dartin' about, an' hearken at 'em callin'
to each other. Come springtime seems like as if all th'
world's callin'. The leaves is uncurlin' so you can see
'em--an', my word, th' nice smells there is about!"
sniffing with his happy turned-up nose. "An' that poor
lad lyin' shut up an' seein' so little that he gets
to thinkin' o' things as sets him screamin'. Eh! my!
we mun get him out here--we mun get him watchin'
an listenin' an' sniffin' up th' air an' get him just soaked
through wi' sunshine. An' we munnot lose no time about it."

When he was very much interested he often spoke quite
broad Yorkshire though at other times he tried to modify
his dialect so that Mary could better understand.
But she loved his broad Yorkshire and had in fact been
trying to learn to speak it herself. So she spoke
a little now.

"Aye, that we mun," she said (which meant "Yes, indeed,
we must"). "I'll tell thee what us'll do first," she proceeded,
and Dickon grinned, because when the little wench tried
to twist her tongue into speaking Yorkshire it amused
him very much. "He's took a graidely fancy to thee.
He wants to see thee and he wants to see Soot an' Captain.
When I go back to the house to talk to him I'll ax him
if tha' canna' come an' see him tomorrow mornin'--an'.
bring tha' creatures wi' thee--an' then--in a bit,
when there's more leaves out, an' happen a bud or two,
we'll get him to come out an' tha' shall push him in his
chair an' we'll bring him here an' show him everything."

When she stopped she was quite proud of herself.
She had never made a long speech in Yorkshire before
and she had remembered very well.

"Tha' mun talk a bit o' Yorkshire like that to Mester Colin,"
Dickon chuckled. "Tha'll make him laugh an' there's nowt
as good for ill folk as laughin' is. Mother says she
believes as half a hour's good laugh every mornin'
'ud cure a chap as was makin' ready for typhus fever."

"I'm going to talk Yorkshire to him this very day,"
said Mary, chuckling herself.

The garden had reached the time when every day and every night
it seemed as if Magicians were passing through it drawing
loveliness out of the earth and the boughs with wands.
It was hard to go away and leave it all, particularly as Nut
had actually crept on to her dress and Shell had scrambled
down the trunk of the apple-tree they sat under and stayed
there looking at her with inquiring eyes. But she went back
to the house and when she sat down close to Colin's bed
he began to sniff as Dickon did though not in such an experienced way.

"You smell like flowers and--and fresh things," he cried
out quite joyously. "What is it you smell of? It's cool
and warm and sweet all at the same time."

"It's th' wind from th' moor," said Mary. "It comes o' sittin'
on th' grass under a tree wi' Dickon an' wi' Captain an'
Soot an' Nut an' Shell. It's th' springtime an' out o'
doors an' sunshine as smells so graidely."

She said it as broadly as she could, and you do not know
how broadly Yorkshire sounds until you have heard some
one speak it. Colin began to laugh.

"What are you doing?" he said. "I never heard you talk
like that before. How funny it sounds."

"I'm givin' thee a bit o' Yorkshire," answered Mary triumphantly.
`I canna' talk as graidely as Dickon an' Martha can but tha'
sees I can shape a bit. Doesn't tha' understand a bit o'
Yorkshire when tha' hears it? An' tha' a Yorkshire lad thysel'
bred an' born! Eh! I wonder tha'rt not ashamed o'
thy face."

And then she began to laugh too and they both laughed until
they could not stop themselves and they laughed until
the room echoed and Mrs. Medlock opening the door to come
in drew back into the corridor and stood listening amazed.

"Well, upon my word!" she said, speaking rather broad
Yorkshire herself because there was no one to hear
her and she was so astonished. "Whoever heard th'
like! Whoever on earth would ha' thought it!"

There was so much to talk about. It seemed as if Colin
could never hear enough of Dickon and Captain and Soot
and Nut and Shell and the pony whose name was Jump.
Mary had run round into the wood with Dickon to see Jump.
He was a tiny little shaggy moor pony with thick locks
hanging over his eyes and with a pretty face and a nuzzling
velvet nose. He was rather thin with living on moor
grass but he was as tough and wiry as if the muscle
in his little legs had been made of steel springs.
He had lifted his head and whinnied softly the moment
he saw Dickon and he had trotted up to him and put his
head across his shoulder and then Dickon had talked into
his ear and Jump had talked back in odd little whinnies
and puffs and snorts. Dickon had made him give Mary
his small front hoof and kiss her on her cheek with his
velvet muzzle.

"Does he really understand everything Dickon says?"
Colin asked.

"It seems as if he does," answered Mary. "Dickon says
anything will understand if you're friends with it for sure,
but you have to be friends for sure."

Colin lay quiet a little while and his strange gray
eyes seemed to be staring at the wall, but Mary saw
he was thinking.

"I wish I was friends with things," he said at last,
"but I'm not. I never had anything to be friends with,
and I can't bear people."

"Can't you bear me?" asked Mary.

"Yes, I can," he answered. "It's funny but I even like you."

"Ben Weatherstaff said I was like him," said Mary.
"He said he'd warrant we'd both got the same nasty tempers.
I think you are like him too. We are all three alike--you
and I and Ben Weatherstaff. He said we were neither
of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked.
But I don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew the robin
and Dickon."

"Did you feel as if you hated people?"

"Yes," answered Mary without any affectation.
"I should have detested you if I had seen you before
I saw the robin and Dickon."

Colin put out his thin hand and touched her.

"Mary," he said, "I wish I hadn't said what I did about
sending Dickon away. I hated you when you said he was
like an angel and I laughed at you but--but perhaps he is."

"Well, it was rather funny to say it," she admitted frankly,
"because his nose does turn up and he has a big mouth
and his clothes have patches all over them and he talks
broad Yorkshire, but--but if an angel did come to Yorkshire
and live on the moor--if there was a Yorkshire angel--I
believe he'd understand the green things and know how to
make them grow and he would know how to talk to the wild
creatures as Dickon does and they'd know he was friends for sure."

"I shouldn't mind Dickon looking at me," said Colin;
"I want to see him."

"I'm glad you said that," answered Mary, "because--because--"

Quite suddenly it came into her mind that this was the
minute to tell him. Colin knew something new was coming.

"Because what?" he cried eagerly.

Mary was so anxious that she got up from her stool
and came to him and caught hold of both his hands.

"Can I trust you? I trusted Dickon because birds trusted him.
Can I trust you--for sure--for sure?" she implored.

Her face was so solemn that he almost whispered his answer.

"Yes--yes!"

"Well, Dickon will come to see you tomorrow morning,
and he'll bring his creatures with him."

"Oh! Oh!" Colin cried out in delight.

"But that's not all," Mary went on, almost pale with
solemn excitement. "The rest is better. There is a door
into the garden. I found it. It is under the ivy on the wall."

If he had been a strong healthy boy Colin would probably
have shouted "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!" but he was weak
and rather hysterical; his eyes grew bigger and bigger
and he gasped for breath.

"Oh! Mary!" he cried out with a half sob. "Shall I see
it? Shall I get into it? Shall I live to get into it?"
and he clutched her hands and dragged her toward him.

"Of course you'll see it!" snapped Mary indignantly.
"Of course you'll live to get into it! Don't be silly!"

And she was so un-hysterical and natural and childish
that she brought him to his senses and he began to laugh
at himself and a few minutes afterward she was sitting
on her stool again telling him not what she imagined
the secret garden to be like but what it really was,
and Colin's aches and tiredness were forgotten and he
was listening enraptured.

"It is just what you thought it would be," he said at last.
"It sounds just as if you had really seen it. You know I
said that when you told me first."

Mary hesitated about two minutes and then boldly spoke
the truth.

"I had seen it--and I had been in," she said. "I found
the key and got in weeks ago. But I daren't tell you--I
daren't because I was so afraid I couldn't trust you--for sure!"

CHAPTER XIX

"IT HAS COME!"

Of course Dr. Craven had been sent for the morning after
Colin had had his tantrum. He was always sent for at
once when such a thing occurred and he always found,
when he arrived, a white shaken boy lying on his bed,
sulky and still so hysterical that he was ready to break
into fresh sobbing at the least word. In fact, Dr. Craven
dreaded and detested the difficulties of these visits.
On this occasion he was away from Misselthwaite Manor
until afternoon.

"How is he?" he asked Mrs. Medlock rather irritably when he arrived.
"He will break a blood-vessel in one of those fits some day.
The boy is half insane with hysteria and self-indulgence."

"Well, sir," answered Mrs. Medlock, "you'll scarcely believe
your eyes when you see him. That plain sour-faced child
that's almost as bad as himself has just bewitched him.
How she's done it there's no telling. The Lord knows
she's nothing to look at and you scarcely ever hear
her speak, but she did what none of us dare do.
She just flew at him like a little cat last night,
and stamped her feet and ordered him to stop screaming,
and somehow she startled him so that he actually did stop,
and this afternoon--well just come up and see, sir.
It's past crediting."

The scene which Dr. Craven beheld when he entered his
patient's room was indeed rather astonishing to him.
As Mrs. Medlock opened the door he heard laughing
and chattering. Colin was on his sofa in his dressing-gown
and he was sitting up quite straight looking at a picture
in one of the garden books and talking to the plain
child who at that moment could scarcely be called plain
at all because her face was so glowing with enjoyment.

"Those long spires of blue ones--we'll have a lot of those,"
Colin was announcing. "They're called Del-phin-iums."

"Dickon says they're larkspurs made big and grand,"
cried Mistress Mary. "There are clumps there already."

Then they saw Dr. Craven and stopped. Mary became quite
still and Colin looked fretful.

"I am sorry to hear you were ill last night, my boy,"
Dr. Craven said a trifle nervously. He was rather a
nervous man.

"I'm better now--much better," Colin answered,
rather like a Rajah. "I'm going out in my chair
in a day or two if it is fine. I want some fresh air."

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