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
âI did it! The Magic worked!â he cried. âThat is my first scientific discovery.â
âWhat will Dr. Craven say?â broke out Mary.
âHe wonât say anything,â Colin answered, âbecause he will not be told. This is to be the biggest secret of all. No one is to know anything about it until I have grown so strong that I can walk and run like any other boy. I shall come here every day in my chair and I shall be taken back in it. I wonât have people whispering and asking questions and I wonât let my father hear about it until the experiment has quite succeeded. Then sometime when he comes back to Misselthwaite I shall just walk into his study and say âHere I am; I am like any other boy. I am quite well and I shall live to be a man. It has been done by a scientific experiment.âââ
âHe will think he is in a dream,â cried Mary. âHe wonât believe his eyes.â
Colin flushed triumphantly. He had made himself believe that he was going to get well, which was really more than half the battle, if he had been aware of it. And the thought which stimulated him more than any other was this imagining what his father would look like when he saw that he had a son who was as straight and strong as other fathersâ sons. One of his darkest miseries in the unhealthy morbid past days had been his hatred of being a sickly weak-backed boy whose father was afraid to look at him.
âHeâll be obliged to believe them,â he said. âOne of the things I am going to do, after the Magic works and before I begin to make scientific discoveries, is to be an athlete.â
âWe shall have thee takinâ to boxinâ in a week or so,â said Ben Weatherstaff. âThaâlt end wiâ winninâ thâ Belt anâ beinâ champion prizefighter of all England.â
Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.
âWeatherstaff,â he said, âthat is disrespectful. You must not take liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works I shall not be a prizefighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer.â
âAx pardonâ âax pardon, sir,â answered Ben, touching his forehead in salute. âI ought to have seed it wasnât a jokinâ matter,â but his eyes twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining strength and spirit.
XXIV âLet Them LaughâThe secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and herbs for his mother. In the company of his âcreaturesâ he did wonders there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.
âWeâd never get on as comfortable as we do,â Mrs. Sowerby said, âif it wasnât for Dickonâs garden. Anythingâll grow for him. His âtaters and cabbages is twice thâ size of anyone elseâs anâ theyâve got a flavor with âem as nobodyâs has.â
When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him. After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on and hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses of the stones were to be seen.
âAll a chapâs got to do to make âem thrive, mother,â he would say, âis to be friends with âem for sure. Theyâre just like thâ âcreatures.â If theyâre thirsty give âem a drink and if theyâre hungry give âem a bit oâ food. They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if Iâd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless.â
It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only told that âMester Colinâ had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with Miss Mary and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it was agreed between the two children that Dickonâs mother might âcome into the secret.â Somehow it was not doubted that she was âsafe for sure.â
So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him, the doubt of Mester Colin and the final drama of his introduction to the hidden domain, combined with the incident of Ben Weatherstaffâs angry face peering over the wall and Mester Colinâs sudden indignant strength, made Mrs. Sowerbyâs nice-looking face quite change color several times.
âMy word!â she said. âIt was a good thing that little lass came to thâ Manor. Itâs been thâ makinâ oâ her anâ
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