The Secret Garden

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

“You can have as much earth as you want,” he said. “You remind me of some one else who loved the earth and things that grow. When you see a bit of earth you want,” with something like a smile, “take it, child, and make it come alive.”

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

There were some roughly printed letters on it and a sort of picture. At first she could not tell what it was. Then she saw it was meant for a nest with a bird sitting on it. Underneath were the printed letters and they said: “I will cum bak.”

Then Mary knew Dickon had meant the picture to be a message. He had meant that she might be sure he would keep her secret. Her garden was her nest and she was like a missel thrush.

he was given all sorts of wonderful things to amuse himself with. He never seemed to have been amused, however.

Mary had not known that she herself had been spoiled, but she could see quite plainly that this mysterious boy had been. He thought that the whole world belonged to him.

“I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me,” he said rather shyly. “Shut your eyes,” said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, “and I will do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke it and sing something quite low.”

“If he ever gets angry at me, I’ll never go and see him again,” said Mary. “He’ll have thee if he wants thee,” said Martha. “Tha’ may as well know that at th’ start.”

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

“Once in India I saw a boy who was a Rajah. He had rubies and emeralds and diamonds stuck all over him. He spoke to his people just as you spoke to Martha. Everybody had to do everything he told them — in a minute. I think they would have been killed if they hadn’t.”

“He is Martha’s brother. He is twelve years old,” she explained. “He is not like any one else in the world. He can charm foxes and squirrels and birds just as the natives in India charm snakes. He plays a very soft tune on a pipe and they come and listen.”

“But he doesn’t call it Magic. He says it’s because he lives on the moor so much and he knows their ways. He says he feels sometimes as if he was a bird or a rabbit himself, he likes them so. I think he asked the robin questions. It seemed as if they talked to each other in soft chirps.”

“How do you know?” said Mary unsympathetically. She didn’t like the way he had of talking about dying. She did not feel very sympathetic. She felt rather as if he almost boasted about it.

“If they wished I would,” she said, “I wouldn’t.

‘The lad might live if he would make up his mind to it.

“See here,” she said. “Don’t let us talk about dying; I don’t like it. Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then we will look at your pictures.”

And it was all so alive that Mary talked more than she had ever talked before — and Colin both talked and listened as he had never done either before. And they both began to laugh over nothings as children will when they are happy together.

And they laughed so that in the end they were making as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural ten-year-old creatures — instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

“Do you know there is one thing we have never once thought of,” he said. “We are cousins.”

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

“I am better. She makes me better.

Mary thought that there seemed to be a number of uncomfortable things he was not to forget.

“I want to forget it,” he said at last. “She makes me forget it. That is why I want her.”

“It must be very early,” she said. “The little clouds are all pink and I’ve never seen the sky look like this. No one is up. I don’t even hear the stable boys.”

Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing.

It was the caw — caw of a crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up, there sat a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her very wisely indeed.

“You never kiss a person in that way,” she said when she lifted her head. “Flowers are so different.”

There was every joy on earth in the secret garden that morning,

You can lose a friend in springtime easier than any other season if you’re too curious.”

“They say as Mr. Craven can’t bear to see him when he’s awake an’ it’s because his eyes is so like his mother’s an’ yet looks so different in his miserable bit of a face.”

“I was thinkin’ that if he was out here he wouldn’t be watchin’ for lumps to grow on his back; he’d be watchin’ for buds to break on th’ rose-bushes, an’ he’d likely be healthier,”

“Us’d not be thinkin’ he’d better never been born. Us’d be just two children watchin’ a garden grow, an’ he’d be another. Two lads an’ a little lass just lookin’ on at th’ springtime.

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

“You are a selfish thing!” cried Colin. “What are you?” said Mary. “Selfish people always say that. Any one is selfish who doesn’t do what they want. You’re more selfish than I am. You’re the most selfish boy I ever saw.”

“I’m not!” snapped Colin. “I’m not as selfish as your fine Dickon is! He keeps you playing in the dirt when he knows I am all by myself. He’s selfish, if you like!” Mary’s eyes flashed fire. “He’s nicer than any other boy that ever lived!” she said. “He’s — he’s like an angel!” It might sound rather silly to say that but she did not care. “A nice angel!” Colin sneered ferociously. “He’s a common cottage boy off the moor!” “He’s better than a common Rajah!” retorted Mary. “He’s a thousand times better!”

He was beginning to feel pathetic and sorry for himself — not for any one else.

“I’m not as selfish as you, because I’m always ill, and I’m sure there is a lump coming on my back,” he said. “And I am going to die besides.” “You’re not!” contradicted Mary unsympathetically. He opened his eyes quite wide with indignation. He had never heard such a thing said before. He was at once furious and slightly pleased, if a person could be both at the same time.

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

“It’s the best thing that could happen to the sickly pampered thing to have some one to stand up to him that’s as spoiled as himself;” and she laughed into her handkerchief again. “If he’d had a young vixen of a sister to fight with it would have been the saving of him.”

entirely. She would never tell him and he could stay in his room and never get any fresh air and die if he liked!

“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.

“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.

His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary did not care an atom.

The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together near the door staring at her, their mouths half open.

She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth.

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.

“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.”

He put out his hand a little toward Mary, and I am glad to say that, her own tantrum having passed, she was softened too and met him half-way with her hand, so that it was a sort of making up.