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The story becomes yet more mysterious. Mary's curiosity gets her into trouble when she begins to explore the house. She meets a mouse, and hears a strange sound again.

Natasha continues her enchanting reading of this classic novel .

CHAPTER VI

"THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING-THERE WAS!"

The next day the rain poured down in torrents again, and when Mary
looked out of her window the moor was almost hidden by gray mist and
cloud. There could be no going out today.

"What do you do in your cottage when it rains like this?" she asked
Martha.

"Try to keep from under each other's feet mostly," Martha answered.
"Eh! there does seem a lot of us then. Mother's a good-tempered woman
but she gets fair moithered. The biggest ones goes out in th' cow-shed
and plays there. Dickon he doesn't mind th' wet. He goes out just th'
same as if th' sun was shinin'. He says he sees things on rainy days as
doesn't show when it's fair weather. He once found a little fox cub
half drowned in its hole and he brought it home in th' bosom of his
shirt to keep it warm. Its mother had been killed nearby an' th' hole
was swum out an' th' rest o' th' litter was dead. He's got it at home
now. He found a half-drowned young crow another time an' he brought it
home, too, an' tamed it. It's named Soot because it's so black, an' it
hops an' flies about with him everywhere."

The time had come when Mary had forgotten to resent Martha's familiar
talk. She had even begun to find it interesting and to be sorry when
she stopped or went away. The stories she had been told by her Ayah
when she lived in India had been quite unlike those Martha had to tell
about the moorland cottage which held fourteen people who lived in four
little rooms and never had quite enough to eat. The children seemed to
tumble about and amuse themselves like a litter of rough, good-natured
collie puppies. Mary was most attracted by the mother and Dickon.
When Martha told stories of what "mother" said or did they always
sounded comfortable.

"If I had a raven or a fox cub I could play with it," said Mary. "But
I have nothing."

Martha looked perplexed.

"Can tha' knit?" she asked.

"No," answered Mary.

"Can tha' sew?"

"No."

"Can tha' read?"

"Yes."

"Then why doesn't tha, read somethin', or learn a bit o' spellin'?
Tha'st old enough to be learnin' thy book a good bit now."

"I haven't any books," said Mary. "Those I had were left in India."

"That's a pity," said Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock'd let thee go into th'
library, there's thousands o' books there."

Mary did not ask where the library was, because she was suddenly
inspired by a new idea. She made up her mind to go and find it
herself. She was not troubled about Mrs. Medlock. Mrs. Medlock seemed
always to be in her comfortable housekeeper's sitting-room downstairs.
In this queer place one scarcely ever saw any one at all. In fact,
there was no one to see but the servants, and when their master was
away they lived a luxurious life below stairs, where there was a huge
kitchen hung about with shining brass and pewter, and a large servants'
hall where there were four or five abundant meals eaten every day, and
where a great deal of lively romping went on when Mrs. Medlock was out
of the way.

Mary's meals were served regularly, and Martha waited on her, but no
one troubled themselves about her in the least. Mrs. Medlock came and
looked at her every day or two, but no one inquired what she did or
told her what to do. She supposed that perhaps this was the English
way of treating children. In India she had always been attended by her
Ayah, who had followed her about and waited on her, hand and foot. She
had often been tired of her company. Now she was followed by nobody
and was learning to dress herself because Martha looked as though she
thought she was silly and stupid when she wanted to have things handed
to her and put on.

"Hasn't tha' got good sense?" she said once, when Mary had stood
waiting for her to put on her gloves for her. "Our Susan Ann is twice
as sharp as thee an' she's only four year' old. Sometimes tha' looks
fair soft in th' head."

Mary had worn her contrary scowl for an hour after that, but it made
her think several entirely new things.

She stood at the window for about ten minutes this morning after Martha
had swept up the hearth for the last time and gone downstairs. She was
thinking over the new idea which had come to her when she heard of the
library. She did not care very much about the library itself, because
she had read very few books; but to hear of it brought back to her mind
the hundred rooms with closed doors. She wondered if they were all
really locked and what she would find if she could get into any of
them. Were there a hundred really? Why shouldn't she go and see how
many doors she could count? It would be something to do on this morning
when she could not go out. She had never been taught to ask permission
to do things, and she knew nothing at all about authority, so she would
not have thought it necessary to ask Mrs. Medlock if she might walk
about the house, even if she had seen her.

She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then
she began her wanderings. It was a long corridor and it branched into
other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted
to others again. There were doors and doors, and there were pictures
on the walls. Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious
landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer,
grand costumes made of satin and velvet. She found herself in one long
gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits. She had never
thought there could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down
this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her.
She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was
doing in their house. Some were pictures of children-little girls in
thick satin frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about
them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or
with big ruffs around their necks. She always stopped to look at the
children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone,
and why they wore such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little
girl rather like herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a
green parrot on her finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were
here."

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed
as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small
self, wandering about upstairs and down, through narrow passages and
wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever
walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in
them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it
true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of
turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock
had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one
of them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she
felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon
the door itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door
and opened into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the
wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about
the room. A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor;
and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little
girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that
she makes me feel queer."

After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that
she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred,
though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old
pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There
were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of
them.

In one room, which looked like a lady's sitting-room, the hangings were
all embroidered velvet, and in a cabinet were about a hundred little
elephants made of ivory. They were of different sizes, and some had
their mahouts or palanquins on their backs. Some were much bigger than
the others and some were so tiny that they seemed only babies. Mary
had seen carved ivory in India and she knew all about elephants. She
opened the door of the cabinet and stood on a footstool and played with
these for quite a long time. When she got tired she set the elephants
in order and shut the door of the cabinet.

In all her wanderings through the long corridors and the empty rooms,
she had seen nothing alive; but in this room she saw something. Just
after she had closed the cabinet door she heard a tiny rustling sound.
It made her jump and look around at the sofa by the fireplace, from
which it seemed to come. In the corner of the sofa there was a
cushion, and in the velvet which covered it there was a hole, and out
of the hole peeped a tiny head with a pair of frightened eyes in it.

Mary crept softly across the room to look. The bright eyes belonged to
a little gray mouse, and the mouse had eaten a hole into the cushion
and made a comfortable nest there. Six baby mice were cuddled up
asleep near her. If there was no one else alive in the hundred rooms
there were seven mice who did not look lonely at all.

"If they wouldn't be so frightened I would take them back with me,"
said Mary.

She had wandered about long enough to feel too tired to wander any
farther, and she turned back. Two or three times she lost her way by
turning down the wrong corridor and was obliged to ramble up and down
until she found the right one; but at last she reached her own floor
again, though she was some distance from her own room and did not know
exactly where she was.

"I believe I have taken a wrong turning again," she said, standing
still at what seemed the end of a short passage with tapestry on the
wall. "I don't know which way to go. How still everything is!"

It was while she was standing here and just after she had said this
that the stillness was broken by a sound. It was another cry, but not
quite like the one she had heard last night; it was only a short one, a
fretful childish whine muffled by passing through walls.

"It's nearer than it was," said Mary, her heart beating rather faster.
"And it is crying."

She put her hand accidentally upon the tapestry near her, and then
sprang back, feeling quite startled. The tapestry was the covering of
a door which fell open and showed her that there was another part of
the corridor behind it, and Mrs. Medlock was coming up it with her
bunch of keys in her hand and a very cross look on her face.

"What are you doing here?" she said, and she took Mary by the arm and
pulled her away. "What did I tell you?"

"I turned round the wrong corner," explained Mary. "I didn't know
which way to go and I heard some one crying." She quite hated Mrs.
Medlock at the moment, but she hated her more the next.

"You didn't hear anything of the sort," said the housekeeper. "You
come along back to your own nursery or I'll box your ears."

And she took her by the arm and half pushed, half pulled her up one
passage and down another until she pushed her in at the door of her own
room.

"Now," she said, "you stay where you're told to stay or you'll find
yourself locked up. The master had better get you a governess, same as
he said he would. You're one that needs some one to look sharp after
you. I've got enough to do."

She went out of the room and slammed the door after her, and Mary went
and sat on the hearth-rug, pale with rage. She did not cry, but ground
her teeth.

"There was some one crying-there was-there was!" she said to herself.

She had heard it twice now, and sometime she would find out. She had
found out a great deal this morning. She felt as if she had been on a
long journey, and at any rate she had had something to amuse her all
the time, and she had played with the ivory elephants and had seen the
gray mouse and its babies in their nest in the velvet cushion.

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The story becomes yet more mysterious. Mary's curiosity gets her into trouble when she begins to explore the house. She meets a mouse, and hears a strange sound again. Natasha continues her enchanting reading of this classic novel . CHAPTER VI "THERE WAS SOME ONE CRYING-THERE WAS!"

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Games : Make a Mangrove . PLUM LANDING | PBS KIDS

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Can you build a sustainable mangrove ecosystem on land and underwater? Add plants and animals to create habitats and food chains in this online PLUM LANDING game.

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Listen to Ch. 5 and write a summary

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THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR. A Robin delights Mary in the grounds of the manor, and later she hears a strange cry.

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Mary Lennox wakes up in Misselthwaite Manor and meets Martha, a serving girl who is not all like any of the servants she has known in India. She speaks her mind to Mary. Out in the grounds, she meets another native of Yorkshire, Ben Weatherstaff, who is grumpy and straight-taking - rather like Mary.

This is a long chapter, full of human interest, and it includes a very charming description of a friendly garden robin. Some of the conversation between Mary and Martha touches upon race and class and is very much of its time. Their exchange can provoke thought and discusion about how far attitudes have changed over the years.

MARTHA

When she opened her eyes in the morning it was because a young
housemaid had come into her room to light the fire and was kneeling on
the hearth-rug raking out the cinders noisily. Mary lay and watched
her for a few moments and then began to look about the room. She had
never seen a room at all like it and thought it curious and gloomy.
The walls were covered with tapestry with a forest scene embroidered on
it. There were fantastically dressed people under the trees and in the
distance there was a glimpse of the turrets of a castle. There were
hunters and horses and dogs and ladies. Mary felt as if she were in
the forest with them. Out of a deep window she could see a great
climbing stretch of land which seemed to have no trees on it, and to
look rather like an endless, dull, purplish sea.

"What is that?" she said, pointing out of the window.

Martha, the young housemaid, who had just risen to her feet, looked and
pointed also. "That there?" she said.

"Yes."

"That's th' moor," with a good-natured grin. "Does tha' like it?"

"No," answered Mary. "I hate it."

"That's because tha'rt not used to it," Martha said, going back to her
hearth. "Tha' thinks it's too big an' bare now. But tha' will like
it."

"Do you?" inquired Mary.

Mary listened to her with a grave, puzzled expression. The native
servants she had been used to in India were not in the least like this.
They were obsequious and servile and did not presume to talk to their
masters as if they were their equals. They made salaams and called
them "protector of the poor" and names of that sort. Indian servants
were commanded to do things, not asked. It was not the custom to say
"please" and "thank you" and Mary had always slapped her Ayah in the
face when she was angry. She wondered a little what this girl would do
if one slapped her in the face. She was a round, rosy,
good-natured-looking creature, but she had a sturdy way which made
Mistress Mary wonder if she might not even slap back-if the person who
slapped her was only a little girl.

"You are a strange servant," she said from her pillows, rather
haughtily.

Martha sat up on her heels, with her blacking-brush in her hand, and
laughed, without seeming the least out of temper.

"Eh! I know that," she said. "If there was a grand Missus at
Misselthwaite I should never have been even one of th' under
house-maids. I might have been let to be scullerymaid but I'd never
have been let upstairs. I'm too common an' I talk too much Yorkshire.
But this is a funny house for all it's so grand. Seems like there's
neither Master nor Mistress except Mr. Pitcher an' Mrs. Medlock. Mr.
Craven, he won't be troubled about anythin' when he's here, an' he's
nearly always away. Mrs. Medlock gave me th' place out o' kindness.
She told me she could never have done it if Misselthwaite had been like
other big houses." "Are you going to be my servant?" Mary asked, still
in her imperious little Indian way.

Martha began to rub her grate again.

"I'm Mrs. Medlock's servant," she said stoutly. "An' she's Mr.
Craven's-but I'm to do the housemaid's work up here an' wait on you a
bit. But you won't need much waitin' on."

"Who is going to dress me?" demanded Mary.

Martha sat up on her heels again and stared. She spoke in broad
Yorkshire in her amazement.

"Canna' tha' dress thysen!" she said.

"What do you mean? I don't understand your language," said Mary.

"Eh! I forgot," Martha said. "Mrs. Medlock told me I'd have to be
careful or you wouldn't know what I was sayin'. I mean can't you put
on your own clothes?"

"No," answered Mary, quite indignantly. "I never did in my life. My
Ayah dressed me, of course."

"It is different in India," said Mistress Mary disdainfully. She could
scarcely stand this.

But Martha was not at all crushed.

Mary sat up in bed furious.

"What!" she said. "What! You thought I was a native. You-you
daughter of a pig!"

Martha stared and looked hot.

"Who are you callin' names?" she said. "You needn't be so vexed.
That's not th' way for a young lady to talk. I've nothin' against th'
blacks. When you read about 'em in tracts they're always very
religious. You always read as a black's a man an' a brother. I've
never seen a black an' I was fair pleased to think I was goin' to see
one close. When I come in to light your fire this mornin' I crep' up
to your bed an' pulled th' cover back careful to look at you. An'
there you was," disappointedly, "no more black than me-for all you're
so yeller."

"Eh! you mustn't cry like that there!" she begged. "You mustn't for
sure. I didn't know you'd be vexed. I don't know anythin' about
anythin'-just like you said. I beg your pardon, Miss. Do stop cryin'."

There was something comforting and really friendly in her queer
Yorkshire speech and sturdy way which had a good effect on Mary. She
gradually ceased crying and became quiet. Martha looked relieved.

When Mary at last decided to get up, the clothes Martha took from the
wardrobe were not the ones she had worn when she arrived the night
before with Mrs. Medlock.

"Those are not mine," she said. "Mine are black."

She looked the thick white wool coat and dress over, and added with
cool approval:

"Those are nicer than mine."

"I hate black things," said Mary.

"Why doesn't tha' put on tha' own shoes?" she said when Mary quietly
held out her foot.

"My Ayah did it," answered Mary, staring. "It was the custom."

It had not been the custom that Mistress Mary should do anything but
stand and allow herself to be dressed like a doll, but before she was
ready for breakfast she began to suspect that her life at Misselthwaite
Manor would end by teaching her a number of things quite new to
her-things such as putting on her own shoes and stockings, and picking
up things she let fall. If Martha had been a well-trained fine young
lady's maid she would have been more subservient and respectful and
would have known that it was her business to brush hair, and button
boots, and pick things up and lay them away. She was, however, only an
untrained Yorkshire rustic who had been brought up in a moorland
cottage with a swarm of little brothers and sisters who had never
dreamed of doing anything but waiting on themselves and on the younger
ones who were either babies in arms or just learning to totter about
and tumble over things.

"Where did he get it?" asked Mary.

Mary had never possessed an animal pet of her own and had always
thought she should like one. So she began to feel a slight interest in
Dickon, and as she had never before been interested in any one but
herself, it was the dawning of a healthy sentiment. When she went into
the room which had been made into a nursery for her, she found that it
was rather like the one she had slept in. It was not a child's room,
but a grown-up person's room, with gloomy old pictures on the walls and
heavy old oak chairs. A table in the center was set with a good
substantial breakfast. But she had always had a very small appetite,
and she looked with something more than indifference at the first plate
Martha set before her.

"I don't want it," she said.

"Tha' doesn't want thy porridge!" Martha exclaimed incredulously.

"No."

"Tha' doesn't know how good it is. Put a bit o' treacle on it or a bit
o' sugar."

"I don't want it," repeated Mary.

"Eh!" said Martha. "I can't abide to see good victuals go to waste.
If our children was at this table they'd clean it bare in five minutes."

"Why?" said Mary coldly. "Why!" echoed Martha. "Because they scarce
ever had their stomachs full in their lives. They're as hungry as
young hawks an' foxes."

"I don't know what it is to be hungry," said Mary, with the
indifference of ignorance.

Martha looked indignant.

"Why don't you take it to them?" suggested Mary.

"It's not mine," answered Martha stoutly. "An' this isn't my day out.
I get my day out once a month same as th' rest. Then I go home an'
clean up for mother an' give her a day's rest."

Mary drank some tea and ate a little toast and some marmalade.

"You wrap up warm an' run out an' play you," said Martha. "It'll do
you good and give you some stomach for your meat."

Mary went to the window. There were gardens and paths and big trees,
but everything looked dull and wintry.

"Out? Why should I go out on a day like this?" "Well, if tha' doesn't
go out tha'lt have to stay in, an' what has tha' got to do?"

Mary glanced about her. There was nothing to do. When Mrs. Medlock
had prepared the nursery she had not thought of amusement. Perhaps it
would be better to go and see what the gardens were like.

"Who will go with me?" she inquired.

Martha stared.

Martha found her coat and hat for her and a pair of stout little boots
and she showed her her way downstairs.

"Why?" asked Mary in spite of herself. Here was another locked door
added to the hundred in the strange house.

"Mr. Craven had it shut when his wife died so sudden. He won't let no
one go inside. It was her garden. He locked th' door an' dug a hole
and buried th' key. There's Mrs. Medlock's bell ringing-I must run."

After she was gone Mary turned down the walk which led to the door in
the shrubbery. She could not help thinking about the garden which no
one had been into for ten years. She wondered what it would look like
and whether there were any flowers still alive in it. When she had
passed through the shrubbery gate she found herself in great gardens,
with wide lawns and winding walks with clipped borders. There were
trees, and flower-beds, and evergreens clipped into strange shapes, and
a large pool with an old gray fountain in its midst. But the
flower-beds were bare and wintry and the fountain was not playing.
This was not the garden which was shut up. How could a garden be shut
up? You could always walk into a garden.

She went through the door and found that it was a garden with walls all
round it and that it was only one of several walled gardens which
seemed to open into one another. She saw another open green door,
revealing bushes and pathways between beds containing winter
vegetables. Fruit-trees were trained flat against the wall, and over
some of the beds there were glass frames. The place was bare and ugly
enough, Mary thought, as she stood and stared about her. It might be
nicer in summer when things were green, but there was nothing pretty
about it now.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"One o' th' kitchen-gardens," he answered.

"What is that?" said Mary, pointing through the other green door.

"Another of 'em," shortly. "There's another on t'other side o' th'
wall an' there's th' orchard t'other side o' that."

"Can I go in them?" asked Mary.

"If tha' likes. But there's nowt to see."

Mary made no response. She went down the path and through the second
green door. There, she found more walls and winter vegetables and
glass frames, but in the second wall there was another green door and
it was not open. Perhaps it led into the garden which no one had seen
for ten years. As she was not at all a timid child and always did what
she wanted to do, Mary went to the green door and turned the handle.
She hoped the door would not open because she wanted to be sure she had
found the mysterious garden-but it did open quite easily and she
walked through it and found herself in an orchard. There were walls
all round it also and trees trained against them, and there were bare
fruit-trees growing in the winter-browned grass-but there was no green
door to be seen anywhere. Mary looked for it, and yet when she had
entered the upper end of the garden she had noticed that the wall did
not seem to end with the orchard but to extend beyond it as if it
enclosed a place at the other side. She could see the tops of trees
above the wall, and when she stood still she saw a bird with a bright
red breast sitting on the topmost branch of one of them, and suddenly
he burst into his winter song-almost as if he had caught sight of her
and was calling to her.

She stopped and listened to him and somehow his cheerful, friendly
little whistle gave her a pleased feeling-even a disagreeable little
girl may be lonely, and the big closed house and big bare moor and big
bare gardens had made this one feel as if there was no one left in the
world but herself. If she had been an affectionate child, who had been
used to being loved, she would have broken her heart, but even though
she was "Mistress Mary Quite Contrary" she was desolate, and the
bright-breasted little bird brought a look into her sour little face
which was almost a smile. She listened to him until he flew away. He
was not like an Indian bird and she liked him and wondered if she
should ever see him again. Perhaps he lived in the mysterious garden
and knew all about it.

Perhaps it was because she had nothing whatever to do that she thought
so much of the deserted garden. She was curious about it and wanted to
see what it was like. Why had Mr. Archibald Craven buried the key? If
he had liked his wife so much why did he hate her garden? She wondered
if she should ever see him, but she knew that if she did she should not
like him, and he would not like her, and that she should only stand and
stare at him and say nothing, though she should be wanting dreadfully
to ask him why he had done such a queer thing.

"People never like me and I never like people," she thought. "And I
never can talk as the Crawford children could. They were always
talking and laughing and making noises."

She thought of the robin and of the way he seemed to sing his song at
her, and as she remembered the tree-top he perched on she stopped
rather suddenly on the path.

"I believe that tree was in the secret garden-I feel sure it was," she
said. "There was a wall round the place and there was no door."

"I have been into the other gardens," she said.

"There was nothin' to prevent thee," he answered crustily.

"I went into the orchard."

"There was no dog at th' door to bite thee," he answered.

"There was no door there into the other garden," said Mary.

"What garden?" he said in a rough voice, stopping his digging for a
moment.

"The one on the other side of the wall," answered Mistress Mary.
"There are trees there-I saw the tops of them. A bird with a red
breast was sitting on one of them and he sang."

"Here he is," chuckled the old man, and then he spoke to the bird as if
he were speaking to a child.

"Where has tha' been, tha' cheeky little beggar?" he said. "I've not
seen thee before today. Has tha, begun tha' courtin' this early in th'
season? Tha'rt too forrad."

"Will he always come when you call him?" she asked almost in a whisper.

"What kind of a bird is he?" Mary asked.

It was the queerest thing in the world to see the old fellow. He
looked at the plump little scarlet-waistcoated bird as if he were both
proud and fond of him.

"There's no knowin'. The old ones turn 'em out o' their nest an' make
'em fly an' they're scattered before you know it. This one was a
knowin' one an' he knew he was lonely."

Mistress Mary went a step nearer to the robin and looked at him very
hard.

"I'm lonely," she said.

She had not known before that this was one of the things which made her
feel sour and cross. She seemed to find it out when the robin looked
at her and she looked at the robin.

The old gardener pushed his cap back on his bald head and stared at her
a minute.

"Art tha' th' little wench from India?" he asked.

Mary nodded.

"Then no wonder tha'rt lonely. Tha'lt be lonlier before tha's done,"
he said.

He began to dig again, driving his spade deep into the rich black
garden soil while the robin hopped about very busily employed.

"What is your name?" Mary inquired.

He stood up to answer her.

"Ben Weatherstaff," he answered, and then he added with a surly
chuckle, "I'm lonely mysel' except when he's with me," and he jerked
his thumb toward the robin. "He's th' only friend I've got."

"I have no friends at all," said Mary. "I never had. My Ayah didn't
like me and I never played with any one."

It is a Yorkshire habit to say what you think with blunt frankness, and
old Ben Weatherstaff was a Yorkshire moor man.

"What did he do that for?" asked Mary.

"He's made up his mind to make friends with thee," replied Ben. "Dang
me if he hasn't took a fancy to thee."

"To me?" said Mary, and she moved toward the little tree softly and
looked up.

"Why," he cried out, "tha' said that as nice an' human as if tha' was a
real child instead of a sharp old woman. Tha' said it almost like
Dickon talks to his wild things on th' moor."

"Do you know Dickon?" Mary asked, turning round rather in a hurry.

"He has flown over the wall!" Mary cried out, watching him. "He has
flown into the orchard-he has flown across the other wall-into the
garden where there is no door!"

"He lives there," said old Ben. "He came out o' th' egg there. If
he's courtin', he's makin' up to some young madam of a robin that lives
among th' old rose-trees there."

"Rose-trees," said Mary. "Are there rose-trees?"

Ben Weatherstaff took up his spade again and began to dig.

"There was ten year' ago," he mumbled.

"I should like to see them," said Mary. "Where is the green door?
There must be a door somewhere."

Ben drove his spade deep and looked as uncompanionable as he had looked
when she first saw him.

"There was ten year' ago, but there isn't now," he said.

And he actually stopped digging, threw his spade over his shoulder and
walked off, without even glancing at her or saying good-by.

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Mary Lennox wakes up in Misselthwaite Manor and meets Martha, a serving girl who is not all like any of the servants she has known in India. She speaks her mind to Mary. Out in the grounds, she meets another native of Yorkshire, Ben Weatherstaff, who is grumpy and straight-taking - rather like Mary.

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Computer Work Station

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Suitable for grades 4 - 8, Rooting Out Words lets you determine the root & meaning of each word. Answer correctly to win. Play Rooting Out Words online, here.

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Listening Work Station

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ACROSS THE MOOR. Marry travels by train with Mrs. Medlock and has her first view of the Yorkshire Moors and hears a broad Yorkshire accent.