The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett (recommended reading .TXT) đ
- Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Book online «The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett (recommended reading .TXT) đ». Author Frances Hodgson Burnett
âYou can do it! You can do it!â said Mary to herself. âI tell you, you can!â
Dickonâs round eyes were full of eager curiousness but he said not a word. Ben Weatherstaff looked on with interested face.
Colin persevered. After he had turned a few trowelfuls of soil he spoke exultantly to Dickon in his best Yorkshire.
âThaâ said as thaâd have me walkinâ about here same as other folkâ âanâ thaâ said thaâd have me digginâ. I thowt thaâ was just leeinâ to please me. This is only thâ first day anâ Iâve walkedâ âanâ here I am digginâ.â
Ben Weatherstaffâs mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he ended by chuckling.
âEh!â he said, âthat sounds as if thaâd got wits enow. Thaârt a Yorkshire lad for sure. Anâ thaârt digginâ, too. Howâd thaâ like to plant a bit oâ somethinâ? I can get thee a rose in a pot.â
âGo and get it!â said Colin, digging excitedly. âQuick! Quick!â
It was done quickly enough indeed. Ben Weatherstaff went his way forgetting rheumatics. Dickon took his spade and dug the hole deeper and wider than a new digger with thin white hands could make it. Mary slipped out to run and bring back a watering-can. When Dickon had deepened the hole Colin went on turning the soft earth over and over. He looked up at the sky, flushed and glowing with the strangely new exercise, slight as it was.
âI want to do it before the sun goes quiteâ âquite down,â he said.
Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back a few minutes just on purpose. Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass as fast as he could. He had begun to be excited, too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot from the mould.
âHere, lad,â he said, handing the plant to Colin. âSet it in the earth thyselâ same as thâ king does when he goes to a new place.â
The thin white hands shook a little and Colinâs flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the mould and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. It was filled in and pressed down and made steady. Mary was leaning forward on her hands and knees. Soot had flown down and marched forward to see what was being done. Nut and Shell chattered about it from a cherry-tree.
âItâs planted!â said Colin at last. âAnd the sun is only slipping over the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes. Thatâs part of the Magic.â
And Dickon helped him, and the Magicâ âor whatever it wasâ âso gave him strength that when the sun did slip over the edge and end the strange lovely afternoon for them there he actually stood on his two feetâ âlaughing.
XXIII MagicDr. Craven had been waiting some time at the house when they returned to it. He had indeed begun to wonder if it might not be wise to send someone out to explore the garden paths. When Colin was brought back to his room the poor man looked him over seriously.
âYou should not have stayed so long,â he said. âYou must not overexert yourself.â
âI am not tired at all,â said Colin. âIt has made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon.â
âI am not sure that I can allow it,â answered Dr. Craven. âI am afraid it would not be wise.â
âIt would not be wise to try to stop me,â said Colin quite seriously. âI am going.â
Even Mary had found out that one of Colinâs chief peculiarities was that he did not know in the least what a rude little brute he was with his way of ordering people about. He had lived on a sort of desert island all his life and as he had been the king of it he had made his own manners and had had no one to compare himself with. Mary had indeed been rather like him herself and since she had been at Misselthwaite had gradually discovered that her own manners had not been of the kind which is usual or popular. Having made this discovery she naturally thought it of enough interest to communicate to Colin. So she sat and looked at him curiously for a few minutes after Dr. Craven had gone. She wanted to make him ask her why she was doing it and of course she did.
âWhat are you looking at me for?â he said.
âIâm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven.â
âSo am I,â said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some satisfaction. âHe wonât get Misselthwaite at all now Iâm not going to die.â
âIâm sorry for him because of that, of course,â said Mary, âbut I was thinking just then that it must have been very horrid to have had to be polite for ten years to a boy who was always rude. I would never have done it.â
âAm I rude?â Colin inquired undisturbedly.
âIf you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man,â said Mary, âhe would have slapped you.â
âBut he darenât,â said Colin.
âNo, he darenât,â answered Mistress Mary, thinking the thing out quite without prejudice. âNobody ever dared to do anything you didnât likeâ âbecause you were going to die and things like that. You were such a poor thing.â
âBut,â announced Colin stubbornly, âI am not going to be a poor thing. I wonât let people think Iâm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon.â
âIt is always having your own way that has made you so queer,â Mary went on, thinking aloud.
Colin turned his head, frowning.
âAm I queer?â he demanded.
âYes,â answered Mary, âvery. But you neednât be cross,â she added impartially, âbecause so am I queerâ âand so is Ben
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