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
âThe great scientific discoveries I am going to make,â he went on, âwill be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely anyone knows anything about it except a few people in old booksâ âand Mary a little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesnât know he knows it. He charms animals and people. I would never have let him come to see me if he had not been an animal charmerâ âwhich is a boy charmer, too, because a boy is an animal. I am sure there is Magic in everything, only we have not sense enough to get hold of it and make it do things for usâ âlike electricity and horses and steam.â
This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and really could not keep still.
âAye, aye, sir,â he said and he began to stand up quite straight.
âWhen Mary found this garden it looked quite dead,â the orator proceeded. âThen something began pushing things up out of the soil and making things out of nothing. One day things werenât there and another they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be scientific. I keep saying to myself, âWhat is it? What is it?â Itâs something. It canât be nothing! I donât know its name so I call it Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes it up and draws it. Sometimes since Iâve been in the garden Iâve looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this gardenâ âin all the places. The Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live to be a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me strong. I donât know how to do it but I think that if you keep thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to stand that first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, âYou can do it! You can do it!â and I did. I had to try myself at the same time, of course, but her Magic helped meâ âand so did Dickonâs. Every morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am going to say, âMagic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!â And you must all do it, too. That is my experiment. Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?â
âAye, aye, sir!â said Ben Weatherstaff. âAye, aye!â
âIf you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment succeeds. You learn things by saying them over and over and thinking about them until they stay in your mind forever and I think it will be the same with Magic. If you keep calling it to come to you and help you it will get to be part of you and it will stay and do things.â
âI once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs who said words over and over thousands of times,â said Mary.
âIâve heard Jem Fettleworthâs wife say thâ same thing over thousands oâ timesâ âcallinâ Jem a drunken brute,â said Ben Weatherstaff dryly. âSummat allus come oâ that, sure enough. He gave her a good hidinâ anâ went to thâ Blue Lion anâ got as drunk as a lord.â
Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he cheered up.
âWell,â he said, âyou see something did come of it. She used the wrong Magic until she made him beat her. If sheâd used the right Magic and had said something nice perhaps he wouldnât have got as drunk as a lord and perhapsâ âperhaps he might have bought her a new bonnet.â
Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little old eyes.
âThaârt a clever lad as well as a straight-legged one, Mester Colin,â he said. âNext time I see Bess Fettleworth Iâll give her a bit of a hint oâ what Magic will do for her. Sheâd be rare anâ pleased if thâ sinetifik âsperiment workedâ âanâ so âud Jem.â
Dickon had stood listening to the lecture, his round eyes shining with curious delight. Nut and Shell were on his shoulders and he held a long-eared white rabbit in his arm and stroked and stroked it softly while it laid its ears along its back and enjoyed itself.
âDo you think the experiment will work?â Colin asked him, wondering what he was thinking. He so often wondered what Dickon was thinking when he saw him looking at him or at one of his âcreaturesâ with his
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