The Secret Garden
of the dinner.”
But they never found they could send away anything and the highly
polished condition of the empty plates returned to the pantry awakened
much comment.
“I do wish,” Colin would say also, “I do wish the slices of ham were
thicker, and one muffin each is not enough for anyone.”
“It’s enough for a person who is going to die,” answered Mary when
first she heard this, “but it’s not enough for a person who is going to
live. I sometimes feel as if I could eat three when those nice fresh
heather and gorse smells from the moor come pouring in at the open
window.”
The morning that Dickon—after they had been enjoying themselves in the
garden for about two hours—went behind a big rosebush and brought forth
two tin pails and revealed that one was full of rich new milk with
cream on the top of it, and that the other held cottage-made currant
buns folded in a clean blue and white napkin, buns so carefully tucked
in that they were still hot, there was a riot of surprised joyfulness.
What a wonderful thing for Mrs. Sowerby to think of! What a kind,
clever woman she must be! How good the buns were! And what delicious
fresh milk!
“Magic is in her just as it is in Dickon,” said Colin. “It makes her
think of ways to do things—nice things. She is a Magic person. Tell her
we are grateful, Dickon—extremely grateful.”
He was given to using rather grown-up phrases at times. He enjoyed
them. He liked this so much that he improved upon it.
“Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme.”
And then forgetting his grandeur he fell to and stuffed himself with
buns and drank milk out of the pail in copious draughts in the manner
of any hungry little boy who had been taking unusual exercise and
breathing in moorland air and whose breakfast was more than two hours
behind him.
This was the beginning of many agreeable incidents of the same kind.
They actually awoke to the fact that as Mrs. Sowerby had fourteen
people to provide food for she might not have enough to satisfy two
extra appetites every day. So they asked her to let them send some of
their shillings to buy things.
Dickon made the stimulating discovery that in the wood in the park
outside the garden where Mary had first found him piping to the wild
creatures there was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort
of tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it. Roasted
eggs were a previously unknown luxury and very hot potatoes with salt
and fresh butter in them were fit for a woodland king—besides being
deliciously satisfying. You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as
many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the
mouths of fourteen people.
Every beautiful morning the Magic was worked by the mystic circle under
the plum-tree which provided a canopy of thickening green leaves after
its brief blossom-time was ended. After the ceremony Colin always took
his walking exercise and throughout the day he exercised his newly
found power at intervals. Each day he grew stronger and could walk more
steadily and cover more ground. And each day his belief in the Magic
grew stronger—as well it might. He tried one experiment after another
as he felt himself gaining strength and it was Dickon who showed him
the best things of all.
“Yesterday,” he said one morning after an absence, “I went to Thwaite
for mother an’ near th’ Blue Cow Inn I seed Bob Haworth. He’s the
strongest chap on th’ moor. He’s the champion wrestler an’ he can jump
higher than any other chap an’ throw th’ hammer farther. He’s gone all
th’ way to Scotland for th’ sports some years. He’s knowed me ever
since I was a little ’un an’ he’s a friendly sort an’ I axed him some
questions. Th’ gentry calls him a athlete and I thought o’ thee, Mester
Colin, and I says, ‘How did tha’ make tha’ muscles stick out that way,
Bob? Did tha’ do anythin’ extra to make thysel’ so strong?’ An’ he says
‘Well, yes, lad, I did. A strong man in a show that came to Thwaite
once showed me how to exercise my arms an’ legs an’ every muscle in my
body. An’ I says, ‘Could a delicate chap make himself stronger with
’em, Bob?’ an’ he laughed an’ says, ‘Art tha’ th’ delicate chap?’ an’ I
says, ‘No, but I knows a young gentleman that’s gettin’ well of a long
illness an’ I wish I knowed some o’ them tricks to tell him about.’ I
didn’t say no names an’ he didn’t ask none. He’s friendly same as I
said an’ he stood up an’ showed me good-natured like, an’ I imitated
what he did till I knowed it by heart.”
Colin had been listening excitedly.
“Can you show me?” he cried. “Will you?”
“Aye, to be sure,” Dickon answered, getting up. “But he says tha’ mun
do ’em gentle at first an’ be careful not to tire thysel’. Rest in
between times an’ take deep breaths an’ don’t overdo.”
“I’ll be careful,” said Colin. “Show me! Show me! Dickon, you are the
most Magic boy in the world!”
Dickon stood up on the grass and slowly went through a carefully
practical but simple series of muscle exercises. Colin watched them
with widening eyes. He could do a few while he was sitting down.
Presently he did a few gently while he stood upon his already steadied
feet. Mary began to do them also. Soot, who was watching the
performance, became much disturbed and left his branch and hopped about
restlessly because he could not do them too.
From that time the exercises were part of the day’s duties as much as
the Magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of
them each time they tried, and such appetites were the results that but
for the basket Dickon put down behind the bush each morning when he
arrived they would have been lost. But the little oven in the hollow
and Mrs. Sowerby’s bounties were so satisfying that Mrs. Medlock and
the nurse and Dr. Craven became mystified again. You can trifle with
your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the
brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and
oatcakes and buns and heather honey and clotted cream.
“They are eating next to nothing,” said the nurse. “They’ll die of
starvation if they can’t be persuaded to take some nourishment. And yet
see how they look.”
“Look!” exclaimed Mrs. Medlock indignantly. “Eh! I’m moithered to death
with them. They’re a pair of young Satans. Bursting their jackets one
day and the next turning up their noses at the best meals Cook can
tempt them with. Not a mouthful of that lovely young fowl and bread
sauce did they set a fork into yesterday—and the poor woman fair
_invented_ a pudding for them—and back it’s sent. She almost cried.
She’s afraid she’ll be blamed if they starve themselves into their
graves.”
Dr. Craven came and looked at Colin long and carefully, He wore an
extremely worried expression when the nurse talked with him and showed
him the almost untouched tray of breakfast she had saved for him to
look at—but it was even more worried when he sat down by Colin’s sofa
and examined him. He had been called to London on business and had not
seen the boy for nearly two weeks. When young things begin to gain
health they gain it rapidly. The waxen tinge had left, Colins skin and
a warm rose showed through it; his beautiful eyes were clear and the
hollows under them and in his cheeks and temples had filled out. His
once dark, heavy locks had begun to look as if they sprang healthily
from his forehead and were soft and warm with life. His lips were
fuller and of a normal color. In fact as an imitation of a boy who was
a confirmed invalid he was a disgraceful sight. Dr. Craven held his
chin in his hand and thought him over.
“I am sorry to hear that you do not eat anything,” he said. “That will
not do. You will lose all you have gained—and you have gained
amazingly. You ate so well a short time ago.”
“I told you it was an unnatural appetite,” answered Colin.
Mary was sitting on her stool nearby and she suddenly made a very queer
sound which she tried so violently to repress that she ended by almost
choking.
“What is the matter?” said Dr. Craven, turning to look at her.
Mary became quite severe in her manner.
“It was something between a sneeze and a cough,” she replied with
reproachful dignity, “and it got into my throat.”
“But,” she said afterward to Colin, “I couldn’t stop myself. It just
burst out because all at once I couldn’t help remembering that last big
potato you ate and the way your mouth stretched when you bit through
that thick lovely crust with jam and clotted cream on it.”
“Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?” Dr.
Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.
“There’s no way unless they dig it out of the earth or pick it off the
trees,” Mrs. Medlock answered. “They stay out in the grounds all day
and see no one but each other. And if they want anything different to
eat from what’s sent up to them they need only ask for it.”
“Well,” said Dr. Craven, “so long as going without food agrees with
them we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature.”
“So is the girl,” said Mrs. Medlock. “She’s begun to be downright
pretty since she’s filled out and lost her ugly little sour look. Her
hair’s grown thick and healthy looking and she’s got a bright color.
The glummest, ill-natured little thing she used to be and now her and
Master Colin laugh together like a pair of crazy young ones. Perhaps
they’re growing fat on that.”
“Perhaps they are,” said Dr. Craven. “Let them laugh.”
CHAPTER XXV.
THE CURTAIN
And the secret garden bloomed and bloomed and every morning revealed
new miracles. In the robin’s nest there were Eggs and the robin’s mate
sat upon them keeping them warm with her feathery little breast and
careful wings. At first she was very nervous and the robin himself was
indignantly watchful. Even Dickon did not go near the close-grown
corner in those days, but waited until by the quiet working of some
mysterious spell he seemed to have conveyed to the soul of the little
pair that in the garden there was nothing which was not quite like
themselves—nothing which did not understand the wonderfulness of what
was happening to them—the immense, tender, terrible, heart-breaking
beauty and solemnity of Eggs. If there had been one person in that
garden who had not known through all his or her innermost being that if
an Egg were taken away or hurt the whole world would whirl round and
crash through space and come to an end—if there had been even one who
did not feel it and act accordingly there could have been no happiness
even in that golden springtime air. But they all knew it and felt it
and the robin and his mate knew they knew it.
At first the robin watched Mary and Colin with sharp anxiety. For some
mysterious reason he knew he need not watch Dickon. The first moment he
set his dew-bright black eye on Dickon he knew he was not a stranger
but a sort of robin without beak or feathers. He could speak robin
(which is a quite distinct language not to be mistaken for any other).
To speak robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman.
Dickon always spoke it to the robin himself, so the queer gibberish he
used when he spoke to humans did not matter in the least. The robin
thought he spoke this gibberish to them because they were not
intelligent enough to understand feathered speech. His movements also
were robin. They never startled one by being sudden enough to seem
dangerous or threatening. Any robin could understand Dickon, so his
presence was not even disturbing.
But at the outset it seemed necessary to be on guard against the other
two. In the first place the boy creature did not come into the garden
on his legs. He was pushed in on a thing with wheels and the skins of
wild animals were thrown over him. That in itself was doubtful. Then