The Secret Garden
soft swish o’ drops on th’ heather an’ I just sniff an’ sniff. My nose
end fair quivers like a rabbit’s, mother says.”
“Do you never catch cold?” inquired Mary, gazing at him wonderingly.
She had never seen such a funny boy, or such a nice one.
“Not me,” he said, grinning. “I never ketched cold since I was born. I
wasn’t brought up nesh enough. I’ve chased about th’ moor in all
weathers same as th’ rabbits does. Mother says I’ve sniffed up too much
fresh air for twelve year’ to ever get to sniffin’ with cold. I’m as
tough as a white-thorn knobstick.”
He was working all the time he was talking and Mary was following him
and helping him with her fork or the trowel.
“There’s a lot of work to do here!” he said once, looking about quite
exultantly.
“Will you come again and help me to do it?” Mary begged. “I’m sure I
can help, too. I can dig and pull up weeds, and do whatever you tell
me. Oh! do come, Dickon!”
“I’ll come every day if tha’ wants me, rain or shine,” he answered
stoutly. “It’s the best fun I ever had in my life—shut in here an’
wakenin’ up a garden.”
“If you will come,” said Mary, “if you will help me to make it alive
I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do,” she ended helplessly. What could you
do for a boy like that?
“I’ll tell thee what tha’ll do,” said Dickon, with his happy grin.
“Tha’ll get fat an’ tha’ll get as hungry as a young fox an’ tha’ll
learn how to talk to th’ robin same as I do. Eh! we’ll have a lot o’
fun.”
He began to walk about, looking up in the trees and at the walls and
bushes with a thoughtful expression.
“I wouldn’t want to make it look like a gardener’s garden, all clipped
an’ spick an’ span, would you?” he said. “It’s nicer like this with
things runnin’ wild, an’ swingin’ an’ catchin’ hold of each other.”
“Don’t let us make it tidy,” said Mary anxiously. “It wouldn’t seem
like a secret garden if it was tidy.”
Dickon stood rubbing his rusty-red head with a rather puzzled look.
“It’s a secret garden sure enough,” he said, “but seems like someone
besides th’ robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year’
ago.”
“But the door was locked and the key was buried,” said Mary. “No one
could get in.”
“That’s true,” he answered. “It’s a queer place. Seems to me as if
there’d been a bit o’ prunin’ done here an’ there, later than ten year’
ago.”
“But how could it have been done?” said Mary.
He was examining a branch of a standard rose and he shook his head.
“Aye! how could it!” he murmured. “With th’ door locked an’ th’ key
buried.”
Mistress Mary always felt that however many years she lived she should
never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow. Of
course, it did seem to begin to grow for her that morning. When Dickon
began to clear places to plant seeds, she remembered what Basil had
sung at her when he wanted to tease her.
“Are there any flowers that look like bells?” she inquired.
“Lilies o’ th’ valley does,” he answered, digging away with the trowel,
“an’ there’s Canterbury bells, an’ campanulas.”
“Let’s plant some,” said Mary.
“There’s lilies o’ th, valley here already; I saw ’em. They’ll have
growed too close an’ we’ll have to separate ’em, but there’s plenty.
Th’ other ones takes two years to bloom from seed, but I can bring you
some bits o’ plants from our cottage garden. Why does tha’ want ’em?”
Then Mary told him about Basil and his brothers and sisters in India
and of how she had hated them and of their calling her “Mistress Mary
Quite Contrary.”
“They used to dance round and sing at me. They sang—
‘Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And marigolds all in a row.’
I just remembered it and it made me wonder if there were really flowers
like silver bells.”
She frowned a little and gave her trowel a rather spiteful dig into the
earth.
“I wasn’t as contrary as they were.”
But Dickon laughed.
“Eh!” he said, and as he crumbled the rich black soil she saw he was
sniffing up the scent of it. “There doesn’t seem to be no need for no
one to be contrary when there’s flowers an’ such like, an’ such lots o’
friendly wild things runnin’ about makin’ homes for themselves, or
buildin’ nests an’ singin’ an’ whistlin’, does there?”
Mary, kneeling by him holding the seeds, looked at him and stopped
frowning.
“Dickon,” she said, “you are as nice as Martha said you were. I like
you, and you make the fifth person. I never thought I should like five
people.”
Dickon sat up on his heels as Martha did when she was polishing the
grate. He did look funny and delightful, Mary thought, with his round
blue eyes and red cheeks and happy looking turned-up nose.
“Only five folk as tha’ likes?” he said. “Who is th’ other four?”
“Your mother and Martha,” Mary checked them off on her fingers, “and
the robin and Ben Weatherstaff.”
Dickon laughed so that he was obliged to stifle the sound by putting
his arm over his mouth.
“I know tha’ thinks I’m a queer lad,” he said, “but I think tha’ art
th’ queerest little lass I ever saw.”
Then Mary did a strange thing. She leaned forward and asked him a
question she had never dreamed of asking anyone before. And she tried
to ask it in Yorkshire because that was his language, and in India a
native was always pleased if you knew his speech.
“Does tha’ like me?” she said.
“Eh!” he answered heartily, “that I does. I likes thee wonderful, an’
so does th’ robin, I do believe!”
“That’s two, then,” said Mary. “That’s two for me.”
And then they began to work harder than ever and more joyfully. Mary
was startled and sorry when she heard the big clock in the courtyard
strike the hour of her midday dinner.
“I shall have to go,” she said mournfully. “And you will have to go
too, won’t you?”
Dickon grinned.
“My dinner’s easy to carry about with me,” he said. “Mother always lets
me put a bit o’ somethin’ in my pocket.”
He picked up his coat from the grass and brought out of a pocket a
lumpy little bundle tied up in a quite clean, coarse, blue and white
handkerchief. It held two thick pieces of bread with a slice of
something laid between them.
“It’s oftenest naught but bread,” he said, “but I’ve got a fine slice
o’ fat bacon with it today.”
Mary thought it looked a queer dinner, but he seemed ready to enjoy it.
“Run on an’ get thy victuals,” he said. “I’ll be done with mine first.
I’ll get some more work done before I start back home.”
He sat down with his back against a tree.
“I’ll call th’ robin up,” he said, “and give him th’ rind o’ th’ bacon
to peck at. They likes a bit o’ fat wonderful.”
Mary could scarcely bear to leave him. Suddenly it seemed as if he
might be a sort of wood fairy who might be gone when she came into the
garden again. He seemed too good to be true. She went slowly half-way
to the door in the wall and then she stopped and went back.
“Whatever happens, you—you never would tell?” she said.
His poppy-colored cheeks were distended with his first big bite of
bread and bacon, but he managed to smile encouragingly.
“If tha’ was a missel thrush an’ showed me where thy nest was, does
tha’ think I’d tell anyone? Not me,” he said. “Tha’ art as safe as a
missel thrush.”
And she was quite sure she was.
CHAPTER XII.
“MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?”
Mary ran so fast that she was rather out of breath when she reached her
room. Her hair was ruffled on her forehead and her cheeks were bright
pink. Her dinner was waiting on the table, and Martha was waiting near
it.
“Tha’s a bit late,” she said. “Where has tha’ been?”
“I’ve seen Dickon!” said Mary. “I’ve seen Dickon!”
“I knew he’d come,” said Martha exultantly. “How does tha’ like him?”
“I think—I think he’s beautiful!” said Mary in a determined voice.
Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.
“Well,” she said, “he’s th’ best lad as ever was born, but us never
thought he was handsome. His nose turns up too much.”
“I like it to turn up,” said Mary.
“An’ his eyes is so round,” said Martha, a trifle doubtful. “Though
they’re a nice color.”
“I like them round,” said Mary. “And they are exactly the color of the
sky over the moor.”
Martha beamed with satisfaction.
“Mother says he made ’em that color with always lookin’ up at th’ birds
an’ th’ clouds. But he has got a big mouth, hasn’t he, now?”
“I love his big mouth,” said Mary obstinately. “I wish mine were just
like it.”
Martha chuckled delightedly.
“It’d look rare an’ funny in thy bit of a face,” she said. “But I
knowed it would be that way when tha’ saw him. How did tha’ like th’
seeds an’ th’ garden tools?”
“How did you know he brought them?” asked Mary.
“Eh! I never thought of him not bringin’ ’em. He’d be sure to bring ’em
if they was in Yorkshire. He’s such a trusty lad.”
Mary was afraid that she might begin to ask difficult questions, but
she did not. She was very much interested in the seeds and gardening
tools, and there was only one moment when Mary was frightened. This was
when she began to ask where the flowers were to be planted.
“Who did tha’ ask about it?” she inquired.
“I haven’t asked anybody yet,” said Mary, hesitating.
“Well, I wouldn’t ask th’ head gardener. He’s too grand, Mr. Roach is.”
“I’ve never seen him,” said Mary. “I’ve only seen undergardeners and
Ben Weatherstaff.”
“If I was you, I’d ask Ben Weatherstaff,” advised Martha. “He’s not
half as bad as he looks, for all he’s so crabbed. Mr. Craven lets him
do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an’ he
used to make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he’d find you a corner
somewhere out o’ the way.”
“If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one _could_ mind my
having it, could they?” Mary said anxiously.
“There wouldn’t be no reason,” answered Martha. “You wouldn’t do no
harm.”
Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the
table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but
Martha stopped her.
“I’ve got somethin’ to tell you,” she said. “I thought I’d let you eat
your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back this mornin’ and I think he
wants to see you.”
Mary turned quite pale.
“Oh!” she said. “Why! Why! He didn’t want to see me when I came. I
heard Pitcher say he didn’t.”
“Well,” explained Martha, “Mrs. Medlock says it’s because o’ mother.
She was walkin’ to Thwaite village an’ she met him. She’d never spoke
to him before, but Mrs. Craven had been to our cottage two or three
times. He’d forgot, but mother hadn’t an’ she made bold to stop him. I
don’t know what she said to him about you but she said somethin’ as put
him in th’ mind to see you before he goes away again, tomorrow.”
“Oh!” cried Mary, “is he going away tomorrow? I am so glad!”
“He’s goin’ for a long time. He mayn’t come back till autumn or winter.
He’s goin’ to travel in foreign places. He’s always doin’ it.”
“Oh! I’m so glad—so glad!” said Mary thankfully.
If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be
time to watch the secret garden come alive. Even if he found out then
and took it away from her she would have had that much at least.
“When do you think he will want to see—”
She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs.
Medlock walked in. She had on her best black dress and cap, and her
collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man’s face
on it. It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years
ago, and she always wore it when she was dressed up. She looked nervous
and excited.
“Your hair’s rough,” she said quickly. “Go and brush it. Martha, help
her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him
in his study.”