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The final chapter of our classic series is read by Natasha.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN THE GARDEN

In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have
been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found
out than in any century before. In this new century hundreds of things
still more astounding will be brought to light. At first people refuse
to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to
hope it can be done, then they see it can be done--then it is done and
all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago. One of the
new things people began to find out in the last century was that
thoughts--just mere thoughts--are as powerful as electric batteries--as
good for one as sunlight is, or as bad for one as poison. To let a sad
thought or a bad one get into your mind is as dangerous as letting a
scarlet fever germ get into your body. If you let it stay there after
it has got in you may never get over it as long as you live.

So long as Colin shut himself up in his room and thought only of his
fears and weakness and his detestation of people who looked at him and
reflected hourly on humps and early death, he was a hysterical
half-crazy little hypochondriac who knew nothing of the sunshine and
the spring and also did not know that he could get well and could stand
upon his feet if he tried to do it. When new beautiful thoughts began
to push out the old hideous ones, life began to come back to him, his
blood ran healthily through his veins and strength poured into him like
a flood. His scientific experiment was quite practical and simple and
there was nothing weird about it at all. Much more surprising things
can happen to any one who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought
comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it
out by putting in an agreeable determinedly courageous one. Two things
cannot be in one place.

"Where, you tend a rose, my lad,
A thistle cannot grow."

While the secret garden was coming alive and two children were coming
alive with it, there was a man wandering about certain far-away
beautiful places in the Norwegian fiords and the valleys and mountains
of Switzerland and he was a man who for ten years had kept his mind
filled with dark and heart-broken thinking. He had not been
courageous; he had never tried to put any other thoughts in the place
of the dark ones. He had wandered by blue lakes and thought them; he
had lain on mountain-sides with sheets of deep blue gentians blooming
all about him and flower breaths filling all the air and he had thought
them. A terrible sorrow had fallen upon him when he had been happy and
he had let his soul fill itself with blackness and had refused
obstinately to allow any rift of light to pierce through. He had
forgotten and deserted his home and his duties. When he traveled
about, darkness so brooded over him that the sight of him was a wrong
done to other people because it was as if he poisoned the air about him
with gloom. Most strangers thought he must be either half mad or a man
with some hidden crime on his soul. He, was a tall man with a drawn
face and crooked shoulders and the name he always entered on hotel
registers was, "Archibald Craven, Misselthwaite Manor, Yorkshire,
England."

But the light had never seemed to touch himself until one day when he
realized that for the first time in ten years a strange thing had
happened. He was in a wonderful valley in the Austrian Tyrol and he
had been walking alone through such beauty as might have lifted, any
man's soul out of shadow. He had walked a long way and it had not
lifted his. But at last he had felt tired and had thrown himself down
to rest on a carpet of moss by a stream. It was a clear little stream
which ran quite merrily along on its narrow way through the luscious
damp greenness. Sometimes it made a sound rather like very low
laughter as it bubbled over and round stones. He saw birds come and
dip their heads to drink in it and then flick their wings and fly away.
It seemed like a thing alive and yet its tiny voice made the stillness
seem deeper. The valley was very, very still.

As he sat gazing into the clear running of the water, Archibald Craven
gradually felt his mind and body both grow quiet, as quiet as the
valley itself. He wondered if he were going to sleep, but he was not.
He sat and gazed at the sunlit water and his eyes began to see things
growing at its edge. There was one lovely mass of blue forget-me-nots
growing so close to the stream that its leaves were wet and at these he
found himself looking as he remembered he had looked at such things
years ago. He was actually thinking tenderly how lovely it was and
what wonders of blue its hundreds of little blossoms were. He did not
know that just that simple thought was slowly filling his mind--filling
and filling it until other things were softly pushed aside. It was as
if a sweet clear spring had begun to rise in a stagnant pool and had
risen and risen until at last it swept the dark water away. But of
course he did not think of this himself. He only knew that the valley
seemed to grow quieter and quieter as he sat and stared at the bright
delicate blueness. He did not know how long he sat there or what was
happening to him, but at last he moved as if he were awakening and he
got up slowly and stood on the moss carpet, drawing a long, deep, soft
breath and wondering at himself. Something seemed to have been unbound
and released in him, very quietly.

"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper, and he passed his hand over
his forehead. "I almost feel as if--I were alive!"

"I am going to live forever and ever and ever!"

"Perhaps," he thought, "my body is growing stronger."

It was growing stronger but--because of the rare peaceful hours when
his thoughts were changed--his soul was slowly growing stronger, too.
He began to think of Misselthwaite and wonder if he should not go home.
Now and then he wondered vaguely about his boy and asked himself what
he should feel when he went and stood by the carved four-posted bed
again and looked down at the sharply chiseled ivory-white face while it
slept and, the black lashes rimmed so startlingly the close-shut eyes.
He shrank from it.

He did not know when he fell asleep and when he began to dream; his
dream was so real that he did not feel as if he were dreaming. He
remembered afterward how intensely wide awake and alert he had thought
he was. He thought that as he sat and breathed in the scent of the
late roses and listened to the lapping of the water at his feet he
heard a voice calling. It was sweet and clear and happy and far away.
It seemed very far, but he heard it as distinctly as if it had been at
his very side.

"Archie! Archie! Archie!" it said, and then again, sweeter and clearer
than before, "Archie! Archie!"

He thought he sprang to his feet not even startled. It was such a real
voice and it seemed so natural that he should hear it.

"Lilias! Lilias!" he answered. "Lilias! where are you?"

"In the garden," it came back like a sound from a golden flute. "In
the garden!"

And then the dream ended. But he did not awaken. He slept soundly and
sweetly all through the lovely night. When he did awake at last it was
brilliant morning and a servant was standing staring at him. He was an
Italian servant and was accustomed, as all the servants of the villa
were, to accepting without question any strange thing his foreign
master might do. No one ever knew when he would go out or come in or
where he would choose to sleep or if he would roam about the garden or
lie in the boat on the lake all night. The man held a salver with some
letters on it and he waited quietly until Mr. Craven took them. When
he had gone away Mr. Craven sat a few moments holding them in his hand
and looking at the lake. His strange calm was still upon him and
something more--a lightness as if the cruel thing which had been done
had not happened as he thought--as if something had changed. He was
remembering the dream--the real--real dream.

"In the garden!" he said, wondering at himself. "In the garden! But
the door is locked and the key is buried deep."

"Dear Sir:

Your obedient servant,
Susan Sowerby."

Mr. Craven read the letter twice before he put it back in its envelope.
He kept thinking about the dream.

"I will go back to Misselthwaite," he said. "Yes, I'll go at once."

And he went through the garden to the villa and ordered Pitcher to
prepare for his return to England.

In a few days he was in Yorkshire again, and on his long railroad
journey he found himself thinking of his boy as he had never thought in
all the ten years past. During those years he had only wished to
forget him. Now, though he did not intend to think about him, memories
of him constantly drifted into his mind. He remembered the black days
when he had raved like a madman because the child was alive and the
mother was dead. He had refused to see it, and when he had gone to
look at it at last it had been, such a weak wretched thing that
everyone had been sure it would die in a few days. But to the surprise
of those who took care of it the days passed and it lived and then
everyone believed it would be a deformed and crippled creature.

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself.
"Ten years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything--quite
too late. What have I been thinking of!"

"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good
and control him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to
Misselthwaite."

"If you divide that into eight parts there will be half a crown for
each of, you," he said.

Then amid grins and chuckles and bobbing of curtsies he drove away,
leaving ecstasy and nudging elbows and little jumps of joy behind.

"I will try to find the key," he said. "I will try to open the door.
I must--though I don't know why."

"How is Master Colin, Medlock?" he inquired. "Well, sir," Mrs. Medlock
answered, "he's--he's different, in a manner of speaking."

"Worse?" he suggested.

Mrs. Medlock really was flushed.

"Well, you see, sir," she tried to explain, "neither Dr. Craven, nor
the nurse, nor me can exactly make him out."

"Why is that?"

"To tell the truth, sir, Master Colin might be better and he might be
changing for the worse. His appetite, sir, is past understanding--and
his ways--"

"Has he become more--more peculiar?" her master, asked, knitting his
brows anxiously.

"That's it, sir. He's growing very peculiar--when you compare him with
what he used to be. He used to eat nothing and then suddenly he began
to eat something enormous--and then he stopped again all at once and
the meals were sent back just as they used to be. You never knew, sir,
perhaps, that out of doors he never would let himself be taken. The
things we've gone through to get him to go out in his chair would leave
a body trembling like a leaf. He'd throw himself into such a state
that Dr. Craven said he couldn't be responsible for forcing him. Well,
sir, just without warning--not long after one of his worst tantrums he
suddenly insisted on being taken out every day by Miss Mary and Susan
Sowerby's boy Dickon that could push his chair. He took a fancy to
both Miss Mary and Dickon, and Dickon brought his tame animals, and, if
you'll credit it, sir, out of doors he will stay from morning until
night."

"How does he look?" was the next question.

"Where is Master Colin now?" Mr. Craven asked.

"In the garden, sir. He's always in the garden--though not a human
creature is allowed to go near for fear they'll look at him."

Mr. Craven scarcely heard her last words.

"In the garden," he said, and after he had sent Mrs. Medlock away he
stood and repeated it again and again. "In the garden!"

So he stopped and stood still, looking about him, and almost the moment
after he had paused he started and listened--asking himself if he were
walking in a dream.

Mr. Craven had extended them just in time to save him from falling as a
result of his unseeing dash against him, and when he held him away to
look at him in amazement at his being there he truly gasped for breath.

"Father," he said, "I'm Colin. You can't believe it. I scarcely can
myself. I'm Colin."

Like Mrs. Medlock, he did not understand what his father meant when he
said hurriedly:

"In the garden! In the garden!"

He said it all so like a healthy boy--his face flushed, his words
tumbling over each other in his eagerness--that Mr. Craven's soul shook
with unbelieving joy.

Colin put out his hand and laid it on his father's arm.

"Aren't you glad, Father?" he ended. "Aren't you glad? I'm going to
live forever and ever and ever!"

Mr. Craven put his hands on both the boy's shoulders and held him
still. He knew he dared not even try to speak for a moment.

"Take me into the garden, my boy," he said at last. "And tell me all
about it."

And so they led him in.

"I thought it would be dead," he said.

"Mary thought so at first," said Colin. "But it came alive."

Then they sat down under their tree--all but Colin, who wanted to stand
while he told the story.

Ben Weatherstaff's duties rarely took him away from the gardens, but on
this occasion he made an excuse to carry some vegetables to the kitchen
and being invited into the servants' hall by Mrs. Medlock to drink a
glass of beer he was on the spot--as he had hoped to be--when the most
dramatic event Misselthwaite Manor had seen during the present
generation actually took place. One of the windows looking upon the
courtyard gave also a glimpse of the lawn. Mrs. Medlock, knowing Ben
had come from the gardens, hoped that he might have caught sight of his
master and even by chance of his meeting with Master Colin.

"Did you see either of them, Weatherstaff?" she asked.

Ben took his beer-mug from his mouth and wiped his lips with the back
of his hand.

"Aye, that I did," he answered with a shrewdly significant air.

"Both of them?" suggested Mrs. Medlock.

"Both of 'em," returned Ben Weatherstaff. "Thank ye kindly, ma'am, I
could sup up another mug of it."

"Together?" said Mrs. Medlock, hastily overfilling his beer-mug in her
excitement.

"Together, ma'am," and Ben gulped down half of his new mug at one gulp.

"Where was Master Colin? How did he look? What did they say to each
other?"

And it was not two minutes before he swallowed the last of his beer and
waved his mug solemnly toward the window which took in through the
shrubbery a piece of the lawn.

"Look there," he said, "if tha's curious. Look what's comin' across
th' grass."

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The Secret Garden, Chapter 27 - Storynory

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The final chapter of our classic series is read by Natasha. CHAPTER XXVII IN THE GARDEN In each century since the beginning of the world wonderful things have been discovered. In the last century more amazing things were found out than in any century before.

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Read by Natasha.

Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's
incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures.

"Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up
an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap can answer him back. I
wouldn't be agen' lecturin' a bit mysel' sometimes."

But when Colin held forth under his tree old Ben fixed devouring eyes
on him and kept them there. He looked him over with critical
affection. It was not so much the lecture which interested him as the
legs which looked straighter and stronger each day, the boyish head
which held itself up so well, the once sharp chin and hollow cheeks
which had filled and rounded out and the eyes which had begun to hold
the light he remembered in another pair. Sometimes when Colin felt
Ben's earnest gaze meant that he was much impressed he wondered what he
was reflecting on and once when he had seemed quite entranced he
questioned him.

"What are you thinking about, Ben Weatherstaff?" he asked.

"I was thinkin'" answered Ben, "as I'd warrant tha's, gone up three or
four pound this week. I was lookin' at tha' calves an' tha' shoulders.
I'd like to get thee on a pair o' scales."

"It's the Magic and--and Mrs. Sowerby's buns and milk and things," said
Colin. "You see the scientific experiment has succeeded."

That morning Dickon was too late to hear the lecture. When he came he
was ruddy with running and his funny face looked more twinkling than
usual. As they had a good deal of weeding to do after the rains they
fell to work. They always had plenty to do after a warm deep sinking
rain. The moisture which was good for the flowers was also good for
the weeds which thrust up tiny blades of grass and points of leaves
which must be pulled up before their roots took too firm hold. Colin
was as good at weeding as any one in these days and he could lecture
while he was doing it. "The Magic works best when you work, yourself,"
he said this morning. "You can feel it in your bones and muscles. I
am going to read books about bones and muscles, but I am going to write
a book about Magic. I am making it up now. I keep finding out things."

It was not very long after he had said this that he laid down his
trowel and stood up on his feet. He had been silent for several
minutes and they had seen that he was thinking out lectures, as he
often did. When he dropped his trowel and stood upright it seemed to
Mary and Dickon as if a sudden strong thought had made him do it. He
stretched himself out to his tallest height and he threw out his arms
exultantly. Color glowed in his face and his strange eyes widened with
joyfulness. All at once he had realized something to the full.

"Mary! Dickon!" he cried. "Just look at me!"

They stopped their weeding and looked at him.

"Do you remember that first morning you brought me in here?" he
demanded.

Mary looked hard too, but she said nothing.

"Aye, that th' art!" said Dickon.

"I'm well! I'm well!" said Colin again, and his face went quite red all
over.

Ben Weatherstaff, who had been working near a rose-bush, glanced round
at him.

"Tha' might sing th' Doxology," he suggested in his dryest grunt. He
had no opinion of the Doxology and he did not make the suggestion with
any particular reverence.

But Colin was of an exploring mind and he knew nothing about the
Doxology.

"What is that?" he inquired.

"Dickon can sing it for thee, I'll warrant," replied Ben Weatherstaff.

Dickon answered with his all-perceiving animal charmer's smile.

"They sing it i' church," he said. "Mother says she believes th'
skylarks sings it when they gets up i' th' mornin'."

"If she says that, it must be a nice song," Colin answered. "I've
never been in a church myself. I was always too ill. Sing it, Dickon.
I want to hear it."

"Tha' must take off tha' cap," he said to Colin, "an' so mun tha',
Ben--an' tha' mun stand up, tha' knows."

Dickon stood out among the trees and rose-bushes and began to sing in
quite a simple matter-of-fact way and in a nice strong boy voice:

When he had finished, Ben Weatherstaff was standing quite still with
his jaws set obstinately but with a disturbed look in his eyes fixed on
Colin. Colin's face was thoughtful and appreciative.

"It is a very nice song," he said. "I like it. Perhaps it means just
what I mean when I want to shout out that I am thankful to the Magic."
He stopped and thought in a puzzled way. "Perhaps they are both the
same thing. How can we know the exact names of everything? Sing it
again, Dickon. Let us try, Mary. I want to sing it, too. It's my
song. How does it begin? 'Praise God from whom all blessings flow'?"

And they sang it again, and Mary and Colin lifted their voices as
musically as they could and Dickon's swelled quite loud and
beautiful--and at the second line Ben Weatherstaff raspingly cleared
his throat and at the third line he joined in with such vigor that it
seemed almost savage and when the "Amen" came to an end Mary observed
that the very same thing had happened to him which had happened when he
found out that Colin was not a cripple--his chin was twitching and he
was staring and winking and his leathery old cheeks were wet.

"I never seed no sense in th' Doxology afore," he said hoarsely, "but I
may change my mind i' time. I should say tha'd gone up five pound this
week Mester Colin--five on 'em!"

Colin was looking across the garden at something attracting his
attention and his expression had become a startled one.

"Who is coming in here?" he said quickly. "Who is it?"

The door in the ivied wall had been pushed gently open and a woman had
entered. She had come in with the last line of their song and she had
stood still listening and looking at them. With the ivy behind her,
the sunlight drifting through the trees and dappling her long blue
cloak, and her nice fresh face smiling across the greenery she was
rather like a softly colored illustration in one of Colin's books. She
had wonderful affectionate eyes which seemed to take everything in--all
of them, even Ben Weatherstaff and the "creatures" and every flower
that was in bloom. Unexpectedly as she had appeared, not one of them
felt that she was an intruder at all. Dickon's eyes lighted like lamps.

"It's mother--that's who it is!" he cried and went across the grass at
a run.

Colin began to move toward her, too, and Mary went with him. They both
felt their pulses beat faster.

"It's mother!" Dickon said again when they met halfway. "I knowed tha'
wanted to see her an' I told her where th' door was hid."

Colin held out his hand with a sort of flushed royal shyness but his
eyes quite devoured her face.

"Even when I was ill I wanted to see you," he said, "you and Dickon and
the secret garden. I'd never wanted to see any one or anything before."

The sight of his uplifted face brought about a sudden change in her
own. She flushed and the corners of her mouth shook and a mist seemed
to sweep over her eyes.

"Are you surprised because I am so well?" he asked. She put her hand
on his shoulder and smiled the mist out of her eyes. "Aye, that I am!"
she said; "but tha'rt so like thy mother tha' made my heart jump."

"Do you think," said Colin a little awkwardly, "that will make my
father like me?"

"Aye, for sure, dear lad," she answered and she gave his shoulder a
soft quick pat. "He mun come home--he mun come home."

Susan Sowerby laughed a comfortable laugh.

She put both hands on Mistress Mary's shoulders and looked her little
face over in a motherly fashion.

Susan Sowerby went round their garden with them and was told the whole
story of it and shown every bush and tree which had come alive. Colin
walked on one side of her and Mary on the other. Each of them kept
looking up at her comfortable rosy face, secretly curious about the
delightful feeling she gave them--a sort of warm, supported feeling.
It seemed as if she understood them as Dickon understood his
"creatures." She stooped over the flowers and talked about them as if
they were children. Soot followed her and once or twice cawed at her
and flew upon her shoulder as if it were Dickon's. When they told her
about the robin and the first flight of the young ones she laughed a
motherly little mellow laugh in her throat.

"I suppose learnin' 'em to fly is like learnin' children to walk, but
I'm feared I should be all in a worrit if mine had wings instead o'
legs," she said.

It was because she seemed such a wonderful woman in her nice moorland
cottage way that at last she was told about the Magic.

"Do you believe in Magic?" asked Colin after he had explained about
Indian fakirs. "I do hope you do."

"That I do, lad," she answered. "I never knowed it by that name but
what does th' name matter? I warrant they call it a different name i'
France an' a different one i' Germany. Th' same thing as set th' seeds
swellin' an' th' sun shinin' made thee a well lad an' it's th' Good
Thing. It isn't like us poor fools as think it matters if us is called
out of our names. Th' Big Good Thing doesn't stop to worrit, bless
thee. It goes on makin' worlds by th' million--worlds like us. Never
thee stop believin' in th' Big Good Thing an' knowin' th' world's full
of it--an' call it what tha' likes. Tha' wert singin' to it when I
come into th' garden."

She had packed a basket which held a regular feast this morning, and
when the hungry hour came and Dickon brought it out from its hiding
place, she sat down with them under their tree and watched them devour
their food, laughing and quite gloating over their appetites. She was
full of fun and made them laugh at all sorts of odd things. She told
them stories in broad Yorkshire and taught them new words. She laughed
as if she could not help it when they told her of the increasing
difficulty there was in pretending that Colin was still a fretful
invalid.

"You see we can't help laughing nearly all the time when we are
together," explained Colin. "And it doesn't sound ill at all. We try
to choke it back but it will burst out and that sounds worse than ever."

"Bless us all, I can see tha' has a good bit o' play actin' to do,"
said Susan Sowerby. "But tha' won't have to keep it up much longer.
Mester Craven'll come home."

"Do you think he will?" asked Colin. "Why?"

Susan Sowerby chuckled softly.

"I suppose it 'ud nigh break thy heart if he found out before tha' told
him in tha' own way," she said. "Tha's laid awake nights plannin' it."

"You are just what I--what I wanted," he said. "I wish you were my
mother--as well as Dickon's!"

All at once Susan Sowerby bent down and drew him with her warm arms
close against the bosom under the blue cloak--as if he had been
Dickon's brother. The quick mist swept over her eyes.

"Eh! dear lad!" she said. "Thy own mother's in this 'ere very garden,
I do believe. She couldna' keep out of it. Thy father mun come back
to thee--he mun!"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Secret Garden Chapter 26 - Storynory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read by Natasha. Their belief in the Magic was an abiding thing. After the morning's incantations Colin sometimes gave them Magic lectures. "Th' best thing about lecturin'," said Ben, "is that a chap can get up an' say aught he pleases an' no other chap can answer him back.

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Read by Natasha

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 when he began to stand up and move about he did it in a queer unaccustomed way and the others seemed to have to help him. The robin used to secrete himself in a bush and watch this anxiously, his head tilted first on one side and then on the other. He thought that the slow movements might mean that he was preparing to pounce, as cats do. When cats are preparing to pounce they creep over the ground very
slowly. The robin talked this over with his mate a great deal for a few days but after that he decided not to speak of the subject because her terror was so great that he was afraid it might be injurious to the Eggs.

When the boy began to walk by himself and even to move more quickly it was an immense relief. But for a long time--or it seemed a long time to the robin--he was a source of some anxiety. He did not act as the other humans did. He seemed very fond of walking but he had a way of sitting or lying down for a while and then getting up in a disconcerting manner to begin again.

One day the robin remembered that when he himself had been made to learn to fly by his parents he had done much the same sort of thing. He had taken short flights of a few yards and then had been obliged to rest. So it occurred to him that this boy was learning to fly--or rather to walk. He mentioned this to his mate and when he told her that the Eggs would probably conduct themselves in the same way after they were fledged she was quite comforted and even became eagerly interested and derived great pleasure from watching the boy over the edge of her nest--though she always thought that the Eggs would be much cleverer and learn more quickly. But then she said indulgently that humans were always more clumsy and slow than Eggs and most of them
never seemed really to learn to fly at all. You never met them in the air or on tree-tops.

After a while the boy began to move about as the others did, but all three of the children at times did unusual things. They would stand under the trees and move their arms and legs and heads about in a way which was neither walking nor running nor sitting down. They went through these movements at intervals every day and the robin was never able to explain to his mate what they were doing or tying to do. He could only say that he was sure that the Eggs would never flap about in such a manner; but as the boy who could speak robin so fluently was
doing the thing with them, birds could be quite sure that the actions were not of a dangerous nature. Of course neither the robin nor his mate had ever heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Haworth, and his exercises for making the muscles stand out like lumps. Robins are not like human beings; their muscles are always exercised from the first and so they develop themselves in a natural manner. If you have to fly about to find every meal you eat, your muscles do not become atrophied (atrophied means wasted away through want of use).

When the boy was walking and running about and digging and weeding like the others, the nest in the corner was brooded over by a great peace and content. Fears for the Eggs became things of the past. Knowing that your Eggs were as safe as if they were locked in a bank vault and the fact that you could watch so many curious things going on made setting a most entertaining occupation. On wet days the Eggs' mother sometimes felt even a little dull because the children did not come into the garden.

But even on wet days it could not be said that Mary and Colin were dull. One morning when the rain streamed down unceasingly and Colin was beginning to feel a little restive, as he was obliged to remain on his sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk about, Mary had an inspiration.

"Now that I am a real boy," Colin had said, "my legs and arms and all my body are so full of Magic that I can't keep them still. They want to be doing things all the time. Do you know that when I waken in the morning, Mary, when it's quite early and the birds are just shouting outside and everything seems just shouting for joy--even the trees and things we can't really hear--I feel as if I must jump out of bed and shout myself. If I did it, just think what would happen!"

Mary giggled inordinately.

"The nurse would come running and Mrs. Medlock would come running and they would be sure you had gone crazy and they'd send for the doctor,"she said.

Colin giggled himself. He could see how they would all look--how
horrified by his outbreak and how amazed to see him standing upright.

"I wish my father would come home," he said. "I want to tell him
myself. I'm always thinking about it--but we couldn't go on like this much longer. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too different. I wish it wasn't raining today."

It was then Mistress Mary had her inspiration.

"Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are in this house?"

"About a thousand, I suppose," he answered.

"There's about a hundred no one ever goes into," said Mary. "And one rainy day I went and looked into ever so many of them. No one ever knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me out. I lost my way when I was coming back and I stopped at the end of your corridor. That was the second time I heard you crying."

Colin started up on his sofa.

"A hundred rooms no one goes into," he said. "It sounds almost like a secret garden. Suppose we go and look at them. Wheel me in my chair and nobody would know we went."

"That's what I was thinking," said Mary. "No one would dare to follow us. There are galleries where you could run. We could do our exercises. There is a little Indian room where there is a cabinet full of ivory elephants. There are all sorts of rooms."

"Ring the bell," said Colin.

When the nurse came in he gave his orders.

"I want my chair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to look at the part of the house which is not used. John can push me as far as the picture-gallery because there are some stairs. Then he must go away and leave us alone until I send for him again."

Rainy days lost their terrors that morning. When the footman had
wheeled the chair into the picture-gallery and left the two together in obedience to orders, Colin and Mary looked at each other delighted. As soon as Mary had made sure that John was really on his way back to his own quarters below stairs, Colin got out of his chair.

"I am going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, "and then I am going to jump and then we will do Bob Haworth's exercises."

And they did all these things and many others. They looked at the portraits and found the plain little girl dressed in green brocade and holding the parrot on her finger.

"All these," said Colin, "must be my relations. They lived a long time ago. That parrot one, I believe, is one of my great, great, great, great aunts. She looks rather like you, Mary--not as you look now but as you looked when you came here. Now you are a great deal fatter and better looking."

"So are you," said Mary, and they both laughed.

They went to the Indian room and amused themselves with the ivory
elephants. They found the rose-colored brocade boudoir and the hole in the cushion the mouse had left, but the mice had grown up and run away and the hole was empty. They saw more rooms and made more discoveries than Mary had made on her first pilgrimage. They found new corridors and corners and flights of steps and new old pictures they liked and weird old things they did not know the use of. It was a curiously entertaining morning and the feeling of wandering about in the same house with other people but at the same time feeling as if one were miles away from them was a fascinating thing.

"I'm glad we came," Colin said. "I never knew I lived in such a big queer old place. I like it. We will ramble about every rainy day. We shall always be finding new queer corners and things."

That morning they had found among other things such good appetites that when they returned to Colin's room it was not possible to send the luncheon away untouched.

When the nurse carried the tray down-stairs she slapped it down on the kitchen dresser so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly polished dishes and plates.

"Look at that!" she said. "This is a house of mystery, and those two children are the greatest mysteries in it."

"If they keep that up every day," said the strong young footman John, "there'd be small wonder that he weighs twice as much to-day as he did a month ago. I should have to give up my place in time, for fear of doing my muscles an injury."

That afternoon Mary noticed that something new had happened in Colin's room. She had noticed it the day before but had said nothing because she thought the change might have been made by chance. She said nothing today but she sat and looked fixedly at the picture over the mantel. She could look at it because the curtain had been drawn aside. That was the change she noticed.

"I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared a few minutes. "I always know when you want me to tell you something. You are wondering why the curtain is drawn back. I am going to keep it like that."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because it doesn't make me angry any more to see her laughing. I wakened when it was bright moonlight two nights ago and felt as if the Magic was filling the room and making everything so splendid that I couldn't lie still. I got up and looked out of the window. The room was quite light and there was a patch of moonlight on the curtain and somehow that made me go and pull the cord. She looked right down at me as if she were laughing because she was glad I was standing there. It
made me like to look at her. I want to see her laughing like that all the time. I think she must have been a sort of Magic person perhaps."

"You are so like her now," said Mary, "that sometimes I think perhaps you are her ghost made into a boy."

That idea seemed to impress Colin. He thought it over and then
answered her slowly.

"If I were her ghost--my father would be fond of me."

"Do you want him to be fond of you?" inquired Mary.

"I used to hate it because he was not fond of me. If he grew fond of me I think I should tell him about the Magic. It might make him more cheerful."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read by Natasha 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.

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"LET THEM LAUGH"

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.

She asked a great many questions and her blue eyes were full of deep
thinking.

"What for, i' Mercy's name?" asked Mrs. Sowerby.

Dickon chuckled.

"He does it to keep them from guessin' what's happened. If the doctor
knew he'd found out he could stand on his feet he'd likely write and
tell Mester Craven. Mester Colin's savin' th' secret to tell himself.
He's goin' to practise his Magic on his legs every day till his father
comes back an' then he's goin' to march into his room an' show him he's
as straight as other lads. But him an' Miss Mary thinks it's best plan
to do a bit o' groanin' an' frettin' now an' then to throw folk off th'
scent."

Mrs. Sowerby was laughing a low comfortable laugh long before he had
finished his last sentence.

"Mester Colin is carried down to his chair every time he goes out," he
explained. "An' he flies out at John, th' footman, for not carryin'
him careful enough. He makes himself as helpless lookin' as he can an'
never lifts his head until we're out o' sight o' th' house. An' he
grunts an' frets a good bit when he's bein' settled into his chair.
Him an' Miss Mary's both got to enjoyin' it an' when he groans an'
complains she'll say, 'Poor Colin! Does it hurt you so much? Are you so
weak as that, poor Colin?'--but th' trouble is that sometimes they can
scarce keep from burstin' out laughin'. When we get safe into the
garden they laugh till they've no breath left to laugh with. An' they
have to stuff their faces into Mester Colin's cushions to keep the
gardeners from hearin', if any of, 'em's about."

"Th' more they laugh th' better for 'em!" said Mrs. Sowerby, still
laughing herself. "Good healthy child laughin's better than pills any
day o' th' year. That pair'll plump up for sure."

Mrs. Sowerby laughed so heartily at the revelation of this difficulty
that she quite rocked backward and forward in her blue cloak, and
Dickon laughed with her.

"Your appetite. Is improving very much, Master Colin," the nurse had
said one day. "You used to eat nothing, and so many things disagreed
with you."

"Perhaps it is," said the nurse, still looking at him with a mystified
expression. "But I must talk to Dr. Craven about it."

"How she stared at you!" said Mary when she went away. "As if she
thought there must be something to find out."

"I won't have her finding out things," said Colin. "No one must begin
to find out yet." When Dr. Craven came that morning he seemed puzzled,
also. He asked a number of questions, to Colin's great annoyance.

"You stay out in the garden a great deal," he suggested. "Where do you
go?"

Colin put on his favorite air of dignified indifference to opinion.

"I will not let any one know where I go," he answered. "I go to a
place I like. Every one has orders to keep out of the way. I won't be
watched and stared at. You know that!"

"You seem to be out all day but I do not think it has done you harm--I
do not think so. The nurse says that you eat much more than you have
ever done before."

"Perhaps," said Colin, prompted by a sudden inspiration, "perhaps it is
an unnatural appetite."

"I do not think so, as your food seems to agree with you," said Dr.
Craven. "You are gaining flesh rapidly and your color is better."

"Hush-h! my boy," Dr. Craven soothed him. "Nothing shall be written
without your permission. You are too sensitive about things. You must
not undo the good which has been done."

He said no more about writing to Mr. Craven and when he saw the nurse
he privately warned her that such a possibility must not be mentioned
to the patient.

He made up his mind to eat less, but unfortunately it was not possible
to carry out this brilliant idea when he wakened each morning with an
amazing appetite and the table near his sofa was set with a breakfast
of home-made bread and fresh butter, snow-white eggs, raspberry jam and
clotted cream. Mary always breakfasted with him and when they found
themselves at the table--particularly if there were delicate slices of
sizzling ham sending forth tempting odors from under a hot silver
cover--they would look into each other's eyes in desperation.

"I think we shall have to eat it all this morning, Mary," Colin always
ended by saying. "We can send away some of the lunch and a great deal
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 any one."

"Tell her she has been most bounteous and our gratitude is extreme."

"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!"

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."

"Is there any way in which those children can get food secretly?" Dr.
Craven inquired of Mrs. Medlock.

"Well," said Dr. Craven, "so long as going without food agrees with
them we need not disturb ourselves. The boy is a new creature."

"Perhaps they are," said Dr. Craven. "Let them laugh."

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The Secret Garden Chapter 24 - Storynory

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"LET THEM LAUGH" 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.

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Read by Natasha.

MAGIC

"You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert
yourself."

"I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. Tomorrow I
am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."

"I am not sure that I can allow it," answered Dr. Craven. "I am afraid
it would not be wise."

"It would not be wise to try to stop me," said Colin quite seriously.
"I am going."

Even Mary had found out that one of Colin's 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.

"What are you looking at me for?" he said.

"I'm thinking that I am rather sorry for Dr. Craven."

"So am I," said Colin calmly, but not without an air of some
satisfaction. "He won't get Misselthwaite at all now I'm not going to
die."

"Am I rude?" Colin inquired undisturbedly.

"If you had been his own boy and he had been a slapping sort of man,"
said Mary, "he would have slapped you."

"But he daren't," said Colin.

"But," announced Colin stubbornly, "I am not going to be a poor thing.
I won't let people think I'm one. I stood on my feet this afternoon."

"It is always having your own way that has made you so queer," Mary
went on, thinking aloud.

Colin turned his head, frowning.

"Am I queer?" he demanded.

"I don't want to be queer," said Colin. "I am not going to be," and he
frowned again with determination.

He was a very proud boy. He lay thinking for a while and then Mary saw
his beautiful smile begin and gradually change his whole face.

"I shall stop being queer," he said, "if I go every day to the garden.
There is Magic in there--good Magic, you know, Mary. I am sure there
is." "So am I," said Mary.

"Even if it isn't real Magic," Colin said, "we can pretend it is.
Something is there--something!"

"It's Magic," said Mary, "but not black. It's as white as snow."

They always called it Magic and indeed it seemed like it in the months
that followed--the wonderful months--the radiant months--the amazing
ones. Oh! the things which happened in that garden! If you have never
had a garden you cannot understand, and if you have had a garden you
will know that it would take a whole book to describe all that came to
pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease
pushing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in
the crevices of the walls. Then the green things began to show buds
and the buds began to unfurl and show color, every shade of blue, every
shade of purple, every tint and hue of crimson. In its happy days
flowers had been tucked away into every inch and hole and corner. Ben
Weatherstaff had seen it done and had himself scraped out mortar from
between the bricks of the wall and made pockets of earth for lovely
clinging things to grow on. Iris and white lilies rose out of the
grass in sheaves, and the green alcoves filled themselves with amazing
armies of the blue and white flower lances of tall delphiniums or
columbines or campanulas.

The seeds Dickon and Mary had planted grew as if fairies had tended
them. Satiny poppies of all tints danced in the breeze by the score,
gaily defying flowers which had lived in the garden for years and which
it might be confessed seemed rather to wonder how such new people had
got there. And the roses--the roses! Rising out of the grass, tangled
round the sun-dial, wreathing the tree trunks and hanging from their
branches, climbing up the walls and spreading over them with long
garlands falling in cascades--they came alive day by day, hour by hour.
Fair fresh leaves, and buds--and buds--tiny at first but swelling and
working Magic until they burst and uncurled into cups of scent
delicately spilling themselves over their brims and filling the garden
air.

Colin saw it all, watching each change as it took place. Every morning
he was brought out and every hour of each day when it didn't rain he
spent in the garden. Even gray days pleased him. He would lie on the
grass "watching things growing," he said. If you watched long enough,
he declared, you could see buds unsheath themselves. Also you could
make the acquaintance of strange busy insect things running about on
various unknown but evidently serious errands, sometimes carrying tiny
scraps of straw or feather or food, or climbing blades of grass as if
they were trees from whose tops one could look out to explore the
country. A mole throwing up its mound at the end of its burrow and
making its way out at last with the long-nailed paws which looked so
like elfish hands, had absorbed him one whole morning. Ants' ways,
beetles' ways, bees' ways, frogs' ways, birds' ways, plants' ways, gave
him a new world to explore and when Dickon revealed them all and added
foxes' ways, otters' ways, ferrets' ways, squirrels' ways, and trout'
and water-rats' and badgers' ways, there was no end to the things to
talk about and think over.

"Good morning, Ben Weatherstaff," he said. "I want you and Dickon and
Miss Mary to stand in a row and listen to me because I am going to tell
you something very important."

"I am going to try a scientific experiment," explained the Rajah.
"When I grow up I am going to make great scientific discoveries and I
am going to begin now with this experiment."

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff promptly, though this was the
first time he had heard of great scientific discoveries.

It was the first time Mary had heard of them, either, but even at this
stage she had begun to realize that, queer as he was, Colin had read
about a great many singular things and was somehow a very convincing
sort of boy. When he held up his head and fixed his strange eyes on
you it seemed as if you believed him almost in spite of yourself though
he was only ten years old--going on eleven. At this moment he was
especially convincing because he suddenly felt the fascination of
actually making a sort of speech like a grown-up person.

"The great scientific discoveries I am going to make," he went on,
"will be about Magic. Magic is a great thing and scarcely any one
knows anything about it except a few people in old books--and Mary a
little, because she was born in India where there are fakirs. I
believe Dickon knows some Magic, but perhaps he doesn't 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 charmer--which 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 us--like electricity and horses and steam."

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and
really could not keep still. "Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to
stand up quite straight.

"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator
proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and
making things out of nothing. One day things weren't 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, 'What is it? What is it?' It's
something. It can't be nothing! I don't 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 I've been in the garden I've
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 garden--in 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 don't 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, 'You can
do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had to try myself at the same
time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and so did Dickon's. Every
morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am
going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to
be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And you must all do it,
too. That is my experiment Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!"

"If 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." "I
once heard an officer in India tell my mother that there were fakirs
who said words over and over thousands of times," said Mary.

Colin drew his brows together and thought a few minutes. Then he
cheered up.

Ben Weatherstaff chuckled and there was shrewd admiration in his little
old eyes.

He smiled now and his smile was wider than usual.

"Aye," he answered, "that I do. It'll work same as th' seeds do when
th' sun shines on 'em. It'll work for sure. Shall us begin it now?"

Colin was delighted and so was Mary. Fired by recollections of fakirs
and devotees in illustrations Colin suggested that they should all sit
cross-legged under the tree which made a canopy.

"It will be like sitting in a sort of temple," said Colin. "I'm rather
tired and I want to sit down."

"Eh!" said Dickon, "tha' mustn't begin by sayin' tha'rt tired. Tha'
might spoil th' Magic."

Colin turned and looked at him--into his innocent round eyes.

"That's true," he said slowly. "I must only think of the Magic." It
all seemed most majestic and mysterious when they sat down in their
circle. Ben Weatherstaff felt as if he had somehow been led into
appearing at a prayer-meeting. Ordinarily he was very fixed in being
what he called "agen' prayer-meetin's" but this being the Rajah's
affair he did not resent it and was indeed inclined to be gratified at
being called upon to assist. Mistress Mary felt solemnly enraptured.
Dickon held his rabbit in his arm, and perhaps he made some charmer's
signal no one heard, for when he sat down, cross-legged like the rest,
the crow, the fox, the squirrels and the lamb slowly drew near and made
part of the circle, settling each into a place of rest as if of their
own desire.

"The 'creatures' have come," said Colin gravely. "They want to help
us."

Colin really looked quite beautiful, Mary thought. He held his head
high as if he felt like a sort of priest and his strange eyes had a
wonderful look in them. The light shone on him through the tree canopy.

"Now we will begin," he said. "Shall we sway backward and forward,
Mary, as if we were dervishes?"

"I canna' do no swayin' back'ard and for'ard," said Ben Weatherstaff.
"I've got th' rheumatics."

"The Magic will take them away," said Colin in a High Priest tone, "but
we won't sway until it has done it. We will only chant."

"I canna' do no chantin'" said Ben Weatherstaff a trifle testily.
"They turned me out o' th' church choir th' only time I ever tried it."

No one smiled. They were all too much in earnest. Colin's face was
not even crossed by a shadow. He was thinking only of the Magic.

"Then I will chant," he said. And he began, looking like a strange boy
spirit. "The sun is shining--the sun is shining. That is the Magic.
The flowers are growing--the roots are stirring. That is the Magic.
Being alive is the Magic--being strong is the Magic. The Magic is in
me--the Magic is in me. It is in me--it is in me. It's in every one
of us. It's in Ben Weatherstaff's back. Magic! Magic! Come and help!"

He said it a great many times--not a thousand times but quite a goodly
number. Mary listened entranced. She felt as if it were at once queer
and beautiful and she wanted him to go on and on. Ben Weatherstaff
began to feel soothed into a sort of dream which was quite agreeable.
The humming of the bees in the blossoms mingled with the chanting voice
and drowsily melted into a doze. Dickon sat cross-legged with his
rabbit asleep on his arm and a hand resting on the lamb's back. Soot
had pushed away a squirrel and huddled close to him on his shoulder,
the gray film dropped over his eyes. At last Colin stopped.

"Now I am going to walk round the garden," he announced.

Ben Weatherstaff's head had just dropped forward and he lifted it with
a jerk.

"You have been asleep," said Colin.

"Nowt o' th' sort," mumbled Ben. "Th' sermon was good enow--but I'm
bound to get out afore th' collection."

He was not quite awake yet.

"You're not in church," said Colin.

"Not me," said Ben, straightening himself. "Who said I were? I heard
every bit of it. You said th' Magic was in my back. Th' doctor calls
it rheumatics."

The Rajah waved his hand.

"That was the wrong Magic," he said. "You will get better. You have
my permission to go to your work. But come back tomorrow."

"I'd like to see thee walk round the garden," grunted Ben.

It was not an unfriendly grunt, but it was a grunt. In fact, being a
stubborn old party and not having entire faith in Magic he had made up
his mind that if he were sent away he would climb his ladder and look
over the wall so that he might be ready to hobble back if there were
any stumbling.

The Rajah did not object to his staying and so the procession was
formed. It really did look like a procession. Colin was at its head
with Dickon on one side and Mary on the other. Ben Weatherstaff walked
behind, and the "creatures" trailed after them, the lamb and the fox
cub keeping close to Dickon, the white rabbit hopping along or stopping
to nibble and Soot following with the solemnity of a person who felt
himself in charge.

It was a procession which moved slowly but with dignity. Every few
yards it stopped to rest. Colin leaned on Dickon's arm and privately
Ben Weatherstaff kept a sharp lookout, but now and then Colin took his
hand from its support and walked a few steps alone. His head was held
up all the time and he looked very grand.

"The Magic is in me!" he kept saying. "The Magic is making me strong!
I can feel it! I can feel it!"

It seemed very certain that something was upholding and uplifting him.
He sat on the seats in the alcoves, and once or twice he sat down on
the grass and several times he paused in the path and leaned on Dickon,
but he would not give up until he had gone all round the garden. When
he returned to the canopy tree his cheeks were flushed and he looked
triumphant.

"I did it! The Magic worked!" he cried. "That is my first scientific
discovery.".

"What will Dr. Craven say?" broke out Mary.

"He won't say anything," Colin answered, "because 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 won't have people whispering and asking questions
and I won't 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 'Here 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.'"

"He will think he is in a dream," cried Mary. "He won't believe his
eyes."

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 fathers'
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.

"He'll be obliged to believe them," he said.

"One 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."

"We shall have thee takin' to boxin' in a week or so," said Ben
Weatherstaff. "Tha'lt end wi' winnin' th' Belt an' bein' champion
prize-fighter of all England."

Colin fixed his eyes on him sternly.

"Weatherstaff," he said, "that is disrespectful. You must not take
liberties because you are in the secret. However much the Magic works
I shall not be a prize-fighter. I shall be a Scientific Discoverer."

"Ax pardon--ax pardon, sir" answered Ben, touching his forehead in
salute. "I ought to have seed it wasn't a jokin' matter," 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.

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The Secret Garden Chapter 23 - Storynory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Read by Natasha. MAGIC "You should not have stayed so long," he said. "You must not overexert yourself." "I am not tired at all," said Colin. "It has made me well. Tomorrow I am going out in the morning as well as in the afternoon."

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Ben Weatherstaff reveals that he too has been keeping a secret.

Read by Natasha.

WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN

When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary.

"Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door
under the ivy.

Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on
his cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling.

"I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it
quite grandly.

"I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered
Dickon. "An' tha's stopped."

"Yes, I've stopped," said Colin.

Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said.

"Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply.

Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin.

"Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these
'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump
of crocuses in the grass. Colin looked down at them.

"Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic than that
there--there couldna' be."

He drew himself up straighter than ever.

"I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet
away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here.
I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will
sit down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair."

He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully
steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that
he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight
that he looked tall.

When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him
standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath.

"What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his
attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud
face.

But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this:

"You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it!
You can do it! You can!" She was saying it to Colin because she wanted
to make Magic and keep him on his feet looking like that. She could
not bear that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not
give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked quite
beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben
Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way.

"Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback?
Have I got crooked legs?"

Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had
recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way.

"Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with
thysel'--hidin' out o' sight an' lettin' folk think tha' was cripple
an' half-witted?"

"Half-witted!" said Colin angrily. "Who thought that?"

"Lots o' fools," said Ben. "Th' world's full o' jackasses brayin' an'
they never bray nowt but lies. What did tha' shut thysel' up for?"

"Everyone thought I was going to die," said Colin shortly. "I'm not!"

And he said it with such decision Ben Weatherstaff looked him over, up
and down, down and up.

"Tha' die!" he said with dry exultation. "Nowt o' th' sort! Tha's got
too much pluck in thee. When I seed thee put tha' legs on th' ground
in such a hurry I knowed tha' was all right. Sit thee down on th' rug
a bit young Mester an' give me thy orders."

There was a queer mixture of crabbed tenderness and shrewd
understanding in his manner. Mary had poured out speech as rapidly as
she could as they had come down the Long Walk. The chief thing to be
remembered, she had told him, was that Colin was getting well--getting
well. The garden was doing it. No one must let him remember about
having humps and dying.

The Rajah condescended to seat himself on a rug under the tree.

"What work do you do in the gardens, Weatherstaff?" he inquired.

"Anythin' I'm told to do," answered old Ben. "I'm kep' on by
favor--because she liked me."

"She?" said Colin.

"Tha' mother," answered Ben Weatherstaff.

"My mother?" said Colin, and he looked about him quietly. "This was
her garden, wasn't it?"

"Aye, it was that!" and Ben Weatherstaff looked about him too. "She
were main fond of it."

"It is my garden now. I am fond of it. I shall come here every day,"
announced Colin. "But it is to be a secret. My orders are that no one
is to know that we come here. Dickon and my cousin have worked and
made it come alive. I shall send for you sometimes to help--but you
must come when no one can see you."

Ben Weatherstaff's face twisted itself in a dry old smile.

"I've come here before when no one saw me," he said.

"What!" exclaimed Colin.

"When?"

"Th' last time I was here," rubbing his chin and looking round, "was
about two year' ago."

"But no one has been in it for ten years!" cried Colin.

"There was no door!"

"I'm no one," said old Ben dryly. "An' I didn't come through th' door.
I come over th' wall. Th' rheumatics held me back th' last two year'."

"Tha' come an' did a bit o' prunin'!" cried Dickon. "I couldn't make
out how it had been done."

"She was so fond of it--she was!" said Ben Weatherstaff slowly. "An'
she was such a pretty young thing. She says to me once, 'Ben,' says
she laughin', 'if ever I'm ill or if I go away you must take care of my
roses.' When she did go away th' orders was no one was ever to come
nigh. But I come," with grumpy obstinacy. "Over th' wall I
come--until th' rheumatics stopped me--an' I did a bit o' work once a
year. She'd gave her order first."

"It wouldn't have been as wick as it is if tha' hadn't done it," said
Dickon. "I did wonder."

"I'm glad you did it, Weatherstaff," said Colin. "You'll know how to
keep the secret."

"Aye, I'll know, sir," answered Ben. "An' it'll be easier for a man
wi' rheumatics to come in at th' door."

On the grass near the tree Mary had dropped her trowel. Colin
stretched out his hand and took it up. An odd expression came into his
face and he began to scratch at the earth. His thin hand was weak
enough but presently as they watched him--Mary with quite breathless
interest--he drove the end of the trowel into the soil and turned some
over.

"You can do it! You can do it!" said Mary to herself. "I tell you, you
can!"

Dickon's 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.

"Tha' said as tha'd have me walkin' about here same as other folk--an'
tha' said tha'd have me diggin'. I thowt tha' was just leein' to please
me. This is only th' first day an' I've walked--an' here I am diggin'."

Ben Weatherstaff's mouth fell open again when he heard him, but he
ended by chuckling.

"Eh!" he said, "that sounds as if tha'd got wits enow. Tha'rt a
Yorkshire lad for sure. An' tha'rt diggin', too. How'd tha' like to
plant a bit o' somethin'? I can get thee a rose in a pot."

"Go and get it!" said Colin, digging excitedly. "Quick! Quick!"

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.

"I want to do it before the sun goes quite--quite down," 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.

"Here, lad," he said, handing the plant to Colin. "Set it in the earth
thysel' same as th' king does when he goes to a new place."

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's 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.

"It's planted!" said Colin at last. "And the sun is only slipping over
the edge. Help me up, Dickon. I want to be standing when it goes.
That's part of the Magic."

And Dickon helped him, and the Magic--or whatever it was--so 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
feet--laughing.

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The Secret Garden Chapter 22 - Storynory

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Ben Weatherstaff reveals that he too has been keeping a secret. Read by Natasha. WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary. "Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door under the ivy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A lyrical and powerful chapter in which Colin has a surprise for Ben Weatherstaff.

Read by Natasha.

BEN WEATHERSTAFF

One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only
now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever
and ever. One knows it sometimes when one gets up at the tender solemn
dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one's head far back
and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly changing and
flushing and marvelous unknown things happening until the East almost
makes one cry out and one's heart stands still at the strange
unchanging majesty of the rising of the sun--which has been happening
every morning for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. One
knows it then for a moment or so. And one knows it sometimes when one
stands by oneself in a wood at sunset and the mysterious deep gold
stillness slanting through and under the branches seems to be saying
slowly again and again something one cannot quite hear, however much
one tries. Then sometimes the immense quiet of the dark blue at night
with millions of stars waiting and watching makes one sure; and
sometimes a sound of far-off music makes it true; and sometimes a look
in some one's eyes.

And it was like that with Colin when he first saw and heard and felt
the Springtime inside the four high walls of a hidden garden. That
afternoon the whole world seemed to devote itself to being perfect and
radiantly beautiful and kind to one boy. Perhaps out of pure heavenly
goodness the spring came and crowned everything it possibly could into
that one place. More than once Dickon paused in what he was doing and
stood still with a sort of growing wonder in his eyes, shaking his head
softly.

"Eh! it is graidely," he said. "I'm twelve goin' on thirteen an'
there's a lot o' afternoons in thirteen years, but seems to me like I
never seed one as graidely as this 'ere."

"Aye, it is a graidely one," said Mary, and she sighed for mere joy.
"I'll warrant it's the graidelest one as ever was in this world."

"Does tha' think," said Colin with dreamy carefulness, "as happen it
was made loike this 'ere all o' purpose for me?"

"My word!" cried Mary admiringly, "that there is a bit o' good
Yorkshire. Tha'rt shapin' first-rate--that tha' art."

Mary and Dickon worked a little here and there and Colin watched them.
They brought him things to look at--buds which were opening, buds which
were tight closed, bits of twig whose leaves were just showing green,
the feather of a woodpecker which had dropped on the grass, the empty
shell of some bird early hatched. Dickon pushed the chair slowly round
and round the garden, stopping every other moment to let him look at
wonders springing out of the earth or trailing down from trees. It was
like being taken in state round the country of a magic king and queen
and shown all the mysterious riches it contained.

"I wonder if we shall see the robin?" said Colin.

"Tha'll see him often enow after a bit," answered Dickon. "When th'
eggs hatches out th' little chap he'll be kep' so busy it'll make his
head swim. Tha'll see him flyin' backward an' for'ard carryin' worms
nigh as big as himsel' an' that much noise goin' on in th' nest when he
gets there as fair flusters him so as he scarce knows which big mouth
to drop th' first piece in. An' gapin' beaks an' squawks on every
side. Mother says as when she sees th' work a robin has to keep them
gapin' beaks filled, she feels like she was a lady with nothin' to do.
She says she's seen th' little chaps when it seemed like th' sweat must
be droppin' off 'em, though folk can't see it."

"That's a very old tree over there, isn't it?" he said. Dickon looked
across the grass at the tree and Mary looked and there was a brief
moment of stillness.

"Yes," answered Dickon, after it, and his low voice had a very gentle
sound.

Mary gazed at the tree and thought.

"The branches are quite gray and there's not a single leaf anywhere,"
Colin went on. "It's quite dead, isn't it?"

"Aye," admitted Dickon. "But them roses as has climbed all over it
will near hide every bit o' th' dead wood when they're full o' leaves
an' flowers. It won't look dead then. It'll be th' prettiest of all."

Mary still gazed at the tree and thought.

"It looks as if a big branch had been broken off," said Colin. "I
wonder how it was done."

"It's been done many a year," answered Dickon. "Eh!" with a sudden
relieved start and laying his hand on Colin. "Look at that robin!
There he is! He's been foragin' for his mate."

And so they were safe.

"It was Magic which sent the robin," said Mary secretly to Dickon
afterward. "I know it was Magic." For both she and Dickon had been
afraid Colin might ask something about the tree whose branch had broken
off ten years ago and they had talked it over together and Dickon had
stood and rubbed his head in a troubled way.

"We mun look as if it wasn't no different from th' other trees," he had
said. "We couldn't never tell him how it broke, poor lad. If he says
anything about it we mun--we mun try to look cheerful."

"Aye, that we mun," had answered Mary.

But she had not felt as if she looked cheerful when she gazed at the
tree. She wondered and wondered in those few moments if there was any
reality in that other thing Dickon had said. He had gone on rubbing
his rust-red hair in a puzzled way, but a nice comforted look had begun
to grow in his blue eyes.

Mary had thought he meant something about Magic. She was a great
believer in Magic. Secretly she quite believed that Dickon worked
Magic, of course good Magic, on everything near him and that was why
people liked him so much and wild creatures knew he was their friend.
She wondered, indeed, if it were not possible that his gift had brought
the robin just at the right moment when Colin asked that dangerous
question. She felt that his Magic was working all the afternoon and
making Colin look like an entirely different boy. It did not seem
possible that he could be the crazy creature who had screamed and
beaten and bitten his pillow. Even his ivory whiteness seemed to
change. The faint glow of color which had shown on his face and neck
and hands when he first got inside the garden really never quite died
away. He looked as if he were made of flesh instead of ivory or wax.

They saw the robin carry food to his mate two or three times, and it
was so suggestive of afternoon tea that Colin felt they must have some.

"Go and make one of the men servants bring some in a basket to the
rhododendron walk," he said. "And then you and Dickon can bring it
here."

It was an agreeable idea, easily carried out, and when the white cloth
was spread upon the grass, with hot tea and buttered toast and
crumpets, a delightfully hungry meal was eaten, and several birds on
domestic errands paused to inquire what was going on and were led into
investigating crumbs with great activity. Nut and Shell whisked up
trees with pieces of cake and Soot took the entire half of a buttered
crumpet into a corner and pecked at and examined and turned it over and
made hoarse remarks about it until he decided to swallow it all
joyfully in one gulp.

"I don't want this afternoon to go," he said; "but I shall come back
tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the day after."

"That tha' will," said Dickon. "Us'll have thee walkin' about here an'
diggin' same as other folk afore long."

Colin flushed tremendously.

"Walk!" he said. "Dig! Shall I?"

Dickon's glance at him was delicately cautious. Neither he nor Mary
had ever asked if anything was the matter with his legs.

"For sure tha' will," he said stoutly. "Tha--tha's got legs o' thine
own, same as other folks!"

Mary was rather frightened until she heard Colin's answer.

"Nothing really ails them," he said, "but they are so thin and weak.
They shake so that I'm afraid to try to stand on them."

Both Mary and Dickon drew a relieved breath.

"When tha' stops bein' afraid tha'lt stand on 'em," Dickon said with
renewed cheer. "An' tha'lt stop bein' afraid in a bit."

"I shall?" said Colin, and he lay still as if he were wondering about
things.

They were really very quiet for a little while. The sun was dropping
lower. It was that hour when everything stills itself, and they really
had had a busy and exciting afternoon. Colin looked as if he were
resting luxuriously. Even the creatures had ceased moving about and
had drawn together and were resting near them. Soot had perched on a
low branch and drawn up one leg and dropped the gray film drowsily over
his eyes. Mary privately thought he looked as if he might snore in a
minute.

In the midst of this stillness it was rather startling when Colin half
lifted his head and exclaimed in a loud suddenly alarmed whisper:

"Who is that man?" Dickon and Mary scrambled to their feet.

"Man!" they both cried in low quick voices.

Colin pointed to the high wall. "Look!" he whispered excitedly. "Just
look!"

Mary and Dickon wheeled about and looked. There was Ben Weatherstaff's
indignant face glaring at them over the wall from the top of a ladder!
He actually shook his fist at Mary.

"If I wasn't a bachelder, an' tha' was a wench o' mine," he cried, "I'd
give thee a hidin'!"

"I never thowt much o' thee!" he harangued. "I couldna' abide thee th'
first time I set eyes on thee. A scrawny buttermilk-faced young besom,
allus askin' questions an' pokin' tha' nose where it wasna, wanted. I
never knowed how tha' got so thick wi' me. If it hadna' been for th'
robin-- Drat him--"

"Ben Weatherstaff," called out Mary, finding her breath. She stood
below him and called up to him with a sort of gasp. "Ben Weatherstaff,
it was the robin who showed me the way!"

Then it did seem as if Ben really would scramble down on her side of
the wall, he was so outraged.

"Tha' young bad 'un!" he called down at her. "Layin' tha' badness on a
robin--not but what he's impidint enow for anythin'. Him showin' thee
th' way! Him! Eh! tha' young nowt"--she could see his next words burst
out because he was overpowered by curiosity--"however i' this world did
tha' get in?"

"It was the robin who showed me the way," she protested obstinately.
"He didn't know he was doing it but he did. And I can't tell you from
here while you're shaking your fist at me."

He stopped shaking his fist very suddenly at that very moment and his
jaw actually dropped as he stared over her head at something he saw
coming over the grass toward him.

"Wheel me over there!" he commanded. "Wheel me quite close and stop
right in front of him!"

And this, if you please, this is what Ben Weatherstaff beheld and which
made his jaw drop. A wheeled chair with luxurious cushions and robes
which came toward him looking rather like some sort of State Coach
because a young Rajah leaned back in it with royal command in his great
black-rimmed eyes and a thin white hand extended haughtily toward him.
And it stopped right under Ben Weatherstaff's nose. It was really no
wonder his mouth dropped open.

"Do you know who I am?" demanded the Rajah.

Ben Weatherstaff put his gnarled hand up and passed it over his eyes
and over his forehead and then he did answer in a queer shaky voice.

"Who tha' art?" he said. "Aye, that I do--wi' tha' mother's eyes
starin' at me out o' tha' face. Lord knows how tha' come here. But
tha'rt th' poor cripple."

Colin forgot that he had ever had a back. His face flushed scarlet and
he sat bolt upright.

"I'm not a cripple!" he cried out furiously. "I'm not!"

"He's not!" cried Mary, almost shouting up the wall in her fierce
indignation. "He's not got a lump as big as a pin! I looked and there
was none there--not one!"

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got a crooked back?" he said hoarsely.

"No!" shouted Colin.

"Tha'--tha' hasn't got crooked legs?" quavered Ben more hoarsely yet.
It was too much. The strength which Colin usually threw into his
tantrums rushed through him now in a new way. Never yet had he been
accused of crooked legs--even in whispers--and the perfectly simple
belief in their existence which was revealed by Ben Weatherstaff's
voice was more than Rajah flesh and blood could endure. His anger and
insulted pride made him forget everything but this one moment and
filled him with a power he had never known before, an almost unnatural
strength.

"Come here!" he shouted to Dickon, and he actually began to tear the
coverings off his lower limbs and disentangle himself. "Come here!
Come here! This minute!"

Dickon was by his side in a second. Mary caught her breath in a short
gasp and felt herself turn pale.

"He can do it! He can do it! He can do it! He can!" she gabbled over to
herself under her breath as fast as ever she could.

"He's as straight as I am!" cried Dickon. "He's as straight as any lad
i' Yorkshire!"

What Ben Weatherstaff did Mary thought queer beyond measure. He choked
and gulped and suddenly tears ran down his weather-wrinkled cheeks as
he struck his old hands together.

"Eh!" he burst forth, "th' lies folk tells! Tha'rt as thin as a lath
an' as white as a wraith, but there's not a knob on thee. Tha'lt make
a mon yet. God bless thee!"

Dickon held Colin's arm strongly but the boy had not begun to falter.
He stood straighter and straighter and looked Ben Weatherstaff in the
face.

"I'm your master," he said, "when my father is away. And you are to
obey me. This is my garden. Don't dare to say a word about it! You
get down from that ladder and go out to the Long Walk and Miss Mary
will meet you and bring you here. I want to talk to you. We did not
want you, but now you will have to be in the secret. Be quick!"

Ben Weatherstaff's crabbed old face was still wet with that one queer
rush of tears. It seemed as if he could not take his eyes from thin
straight Colin standing on his feet with his head thrown back.

"Eh! lad," he almost whispered. "Eh! my lad!" And then remembering
himself he suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes,
sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder.

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The Secret Garden Chapter 21 - Storynory

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A lyrical and powerful chapter in which Colin has a surprise for Ben Weatherstaff. Read by Natasha. BEN WEATHERSTAFF One of the strange things about living in the world is that it is only now and then one is quite sure one is going to live forever and ever and ever.