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ELC Study Zone: Level 330 Reading Topics

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Mary and Dickon meet up in the garden and watch the robin build his nest.

You can now get the episodes of the Secret Garden in an iTunes podcast.

Read by Natasha.

NEST BUILDING

After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and
the sun which poured down was quite hot. Though there had been no
chance to see either the secret garden or Dickon, Mistress Mary had
enjoyed herself very much. The week had not seemed long. She had
spent hours of every day with Colin in his room, talking about Rajahs
or gardens or Dickon and the cottage on the moor. They had looked at
the splendid books and pictures and sometimes Mary had read things to
Colin, and sometimes he had read a little to her. When he was amused
and interested she thought he scarcely looked like an invalid at all,
except that his face was so colorless and he was always on the sofa.

In her talks with Colin, Mary had tried to be very cautious about the
secret garden. There were certain things she wanted to find out from
him, but she felt that she must find them out without asking him direct
questions. In the first place, as she began to like to be with him,
she wanted to discover whether he was the kind of boy you could tell a
secret to. He was not in the least like Dickon, but he was evidently
so pleased with the idea of a garden no one knew anything about that
she thought perhaps he could be trusted. But she had not known him
long enough to be sure. The second thing she wanted to find out was
this: If he could be trusted-if he really could-wouldn't it be
possible to take him to the garden without having any one find it out?
The grand doctor had said that he must have fresh air and Colin had
said that he would not mind fresh air in a secret garden. Perhaps if
he had a great deal of fresh air and knew Dickon and the robin and saw
things growing he might not think so much about dying. Mary had seen
herself in the glass sometimes lately when she had realized that she
looked quite a different creature from the child she had seen when she
arrived from India. This child looked nicer. Even Martha had seen a
change in her.

"It's like me," said Mary. "It's growing stronger and fatter. I'm
sure there's more of it."

"It looks it, for sure," said Martha, ruffling it up a little round her
face. "Tha'rt not half so ugly when it's that way an' there's a bit o'
red in tha' cheeks."

If gardens and fresh air had been good for her perhaps they would be
good for Colin. But then, if he hated people to look at him, perhaps
he would not like to see Dickon.

"Why does it make you angry when you are looked at?" she inquired one
day.

"She thought you had gone mad like a dog," said Mary, not at all
admiringly.

"I don't care what she thought," said Colin, frowning.

"I wonder why you didn't scream and bite me when I came into your
room?" said Mary. Then she began to smile slowly.

"I thought you were a ghost or a dream," he said. "You can't bite a
ghost or a dream, and if you scream they don't care."

"Would you hate it if-if a boy looked at you?" Mary asked uncertainly.

He lay back on his cushion and paused thoughtfully.

"There's one boy," he said quite slowly, as if he were thinking over
every word, "there's one boy I believe I shouldn't mind. It's that boy
who knows where the foxes live-Dickon."

"I'm sure you wouldn't mind him," said Mary.

"The birds don't and other animals," he said, still thinking it over,
"perhaps that's why I shouldn't. He's a sort of animal charmer and I am
a boy animal."

Then he laughed and she laughed too; in fact it ended in their both
laughing a great deal and finding the idea of a boy animal hiding in
his hole very funny indeed.

What Mary felt afterward was that she need not fear about Dickon.

On that first morning when the sky was blue again Mary wakened very
early. The sun was pouring in slanting rays through the blinds and
there was something so joyous in the sight of it that she jumped out of
bed and ran to the window. She drew up the blinds and opened the
window itself and a great waft of fresh, scented air blew in upon her.
The moor was blue and the whole world looked as if something Magic had
happened to it. There were tender little fluting sounds here and there
and everywhere, as if scores of birds were beginning to tune up for a
concert. Mary put her hand out of the window and held it in the sun.

"It's warm-warm!" she said. "It will make the green points push up
and up and up, and it will make the bulbs and roots work and struggle
with all their might under the earth."

She kneeled down and leaned out of the window as far as she could,
breathing big breaths and sniffing the air until she laughed because
she remembered what Dickon's mother had said about the end of his nose
quivering like a rabbit's. "It must be very early," she said. "The
little clouds are all pink and I've never seen the sky look like this.
No one is up. I don't even hear the stable boys."

A sudden thought made her scramble to her feet.

"I can't wait! I am going to see the garden!"

She had learned to dress herself by this time and she put on her
clothes in five minutes. She knew a small side door which she could
unbolt herself and she flew downstairs in her stocking feet and put on
her shoes in the hall. She unchained and unbolted and unlocked and
when the door was open she sprang across the step with one bound, and
there she was standing on the grass, which seemed to have turned green,
and with the sun pouring down on her and warm sweet wafts about her and
the fluting and twittering and singing coming from every bush and tree.
She clasped her hands for pure joy and looked up in the sky and it was
so blue and pink and pearly and white and flooded with springtime light
that she felt as if she must flute and sing aloud herself and knew that
thrushes and robins and skylarks could not possibly help it. She ran
around the shrubs and paths towards the secret garden.

"It is all different already," she said. "The grass is greener and
things are sticking up everywhere and things are uncurling and green
buds of leaves are showing. This afternoon I am sure Dickon will come."

The long warm rain had done strange things to the herbaceous beds which
bordered the walk by the lower wall. There were things sprouting and
pushing out from the roots of clumps of plants and there were actually
here and there glimpses of royal purple and yellow unfurling among the
stems of crocuses. Six months before Mistress Mary would not have seen
how the world was waking up, but now she missed nothing.

When she had reached the place where the door hid itself under the ivy,
she was startled by a curious loud sound. It was the caw-caw of a
crow and it came from the top of the wall, and when she looked up,
there sat a big glossy-plumaged blue-black bird, looking down at her
very wisely indeed. She had never seen a crow so close before and he
made her a little nervous, but the next moment he spread his wings and
flapped away across the garden. She hoped he was not going to stay
inside and she pushed the door open wondering if he would. When she
got fairly into the garden she saw that he probably did intend to stay
because he had alighted on a dwarf apple-tree and under the apple-tree
was lying a little reddish animal with a Bushy tail, and both of them
were watching the stooping body and rust-red head of Dickon, who was
kneeling on the grass working hard.

Mary flew across the grass to him.

"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she cried out. "How could you get here so early!
How could you! The sun has only just got up!"

He got up himself, laughing and glowing, and tousled; his eyes like a
bit of the sky.

Mary put her hands on her chest, panting, as if she had been running
herself.

"Oh, Dickon! Dickon!" she said. "I'm so happy I can scarcely breathe!"

Seeing him talking to a stranger, the little bushy-tailed animal rose
from its place under the tree and came to him, and the rook, cawing
once, flew down from its branch and settled quietly on his shoulder.

Neither of the creatures looked as if he were the least afraid of Mary.
When Dickon began to walk about, Soot stayed on his shoulder and
Captain trotted quietly close to his side.

"See here!" said Dickon. "See how these has pushed up, an' these an'
these! An' Eh! Look at these here!"

He threw himself upon his knees and Mary went down beside him. They
had come upon a whole clump of crocuses burst into purple and orange
and gold. Mary bent her face down and kissed and kissed them.

"You never kiss a person in that way," she said when she lifted her
head. "Flowers are so different."

He looked puzzled but smiled.

"Eh!" he said, "I've kissed mother many a time that way when I come in
from th' moor after a day's roamin' an' she stood there at th' door in
th' sun, lookin' so glad an' comfortable." They ran from one part of
the garden to another and found so many wonders that they were obliged
to remind themselves that they must whisper or speak low. He showed
her swelling leafbuds on rose branches which had seemed dead. He
showed her ten thousand new green points pushing through the mould.
They put their eager young noses close to the earth and sniffed its
warmed springtime breathing; they dug and pulled and laughed low with
rapture until Mistress Mary's hair was as tumbled as Dickon's and her
cheeks were almost as poppy red as his.

"If we talk about him I can't help looking at him," Mary said as softly
as possible. "We must talk of something else. There is something I
want to tell you."

"He'll like it better if us talks o' somethin' else," said Dickon.
"What is it tha's got to tell me?"

"Well-do you know about Colin?" she whispered.

He turned his head to look at her.

"What does tha' know about him?" he asked.

"I've seen him. I have been to talk to him every day this week. He
wants me to come. He says I'm making him forget about being ill and
dying," answered Mary.

Dickon looked actually relieved as soon as the surprise died away from
his round face.

"I am glad o' that," he exclaimed. "I'm right down glad. It makes me
easier. I knowed I must say nothin' about him an' I don't like havin'
to hide things."

"Don't you like hiding the garden?" said Mary.

Mary always wanted to hear about mother.

"What did she say?" she asked, not at all afraid to hear.

Dickon grinned sweet-temperedly.

"It was just like her, what she said," he answered. "She give my head
a bit of a rub an' laughed an' she says, 'Eh, lad, tha' can have all
th' secrets tha' likes. I've knowed thee twelve year'.'"

"How did you know about Colin?" asked Mary.

"Everybody as knowed about Mester Craven knowed there was a little lad
as was like to be a cripple, an' they knowed Mester Craven didn't like
him to be talked about. Folks is sorry for Mester Craven because Mrs.
Craven was such a pretty young lady an' they was so fond of each other.
Mrs. Medlock stops in our cottage whenever she goes to Thwaite an' she
doesn't mind talkin' to mother before us children, because she knows us
has been brought up to be trusty. How did tha' find out about him?
Martha was in fine trouble th' last time she came home. She said tha'd
heard him frettin' an' tha' was askin' questions an' she didn't know
what to say."

"Do you think he wants to die?" whispered Mary.

"Colin's so afraid of it himself that he won't sit up," said Mary. "He
says he's always thinking that if he should feel a lump coming he
should go crazy and scream himself to death."

"Eh! he oughtn't to lie there thinkin' things like that," said Dickon.
"No lad could get well as thought them sort o' things."

"When first we got in here," he said, "it seemed like everything was
gray. Look round now and tell me if tha' doesn't see a difference."

Mary looked and caught her breath a little.

"Why!" she cried, "the gray wall is changing. It is as if a green mist
were creeping over it. It's almost like a green gauze veil."

"Aye," said Dickon. "An' it'll be greener and greener till th' gray's
all gone. Can tha' guess what I was thinkin'?"

"I know it was something nice," said Mary eagerly. "I believe it was
something about Colin."

Dickon was thinking very hard as he scratched Captain's back.

"Wheres'ever tha' puts it," he said, "it'll be all right. Tha' knew
how to build tha' nest before tha' came out o' th' egg. Get on with
thee, lad. Tha'st got no time to lose."

Dickon laughed too and went on talking.

"Tha' knows us won't trouble thee," he said to the robin. "Us is near
bein' wild things ourselves. Us is nest-buildin' too, bless thee.
Look out tha' doesn't tell on us."

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The Secret Garden Chapter 15 - Storynory

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Mary and Dickon meet up in the garden and watch the robin build his nest. You can now get the episodes of the Secret Garden in an iTunes podcast. Read by Natasha. NEST BUILDING After another week of rain the high arch of blue sky appeared again and the sun which poured down was quite hot.

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Computer Work Station

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Main Idea and Supporting Details Games - 5th Grade Language Arts & Social Studies

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Mary's new friend Colin has the airs and graces of an Indian Prince, a Young Rajah, but he surprises everyone by liking Mary.

A YOUNG RAJAH

"What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down.
"Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say."

"I have. I have found out what the crying was," said Mary.

Martha let her knitting drop on her knee and gazed at her with startled
eyes.

"Tha' hasn't!" she exclaimed. "Never!"

"I heard it in the night," Mary went on. "And I got up and went to see
where it came from. It was Colin. I found him."

Martha's face became red with fright.

"You won't lose your place," said Mary. "He was glad I came. We
talked and talked and he said he was glad I came."

Martha fairly gasped with amazement.

"He let me look at him. I looked at him all the time and he looked at
me. We stared!" said Mary.

"I don't know what to do!" cried agitated Martha. "If Mrs. Medlock
finds out, she'll think I broke orders and told thee and I shall be
packed back to mother."

"He is not going to tell Mrs. Medlock anything about it yet. It's to
be a sort of secret just at first," said Mary firmly. "And he says
everybody is obliged to do as he pleases."

"Aye, that's true enough-th' bad lad!" sighed Martha, wiping her
forehead with her apron.

"He says Mrs. Medlock must. And he wants me to come and talk to him
every day. And you are to tell me when he wants me."

"Me!" said Martha; "I shall lose my place-I shall for sure!"

"You can't if you are doing what he wants you to do and everybody is
ordered to obey him," Mary argued.

"Does tha' mean to say," cried Martha with wide open eyes, "that he was
nice to thee!"

"I think he almost liked me," Mary answered.

"Then tha' must have bewitched him!" decided Martha, drawing a long
breath.

"Do you mean Magic?" inquired Mary. "I've heard about Magic in India,
but I can't make it. I just went into his room and I was so surprised
to see him I stood and stared. And then he turned round and stared at
me. And he thought I was a ghost or a dream and I thought perhaps he
was. And it was so queer being there alone together in the middle of
the night and not knowing about each other. And we began to ask each
other questions. And when I asked him if I must go away he said I must
not."

"Th' world's comin' to a end!" gasped Martha.

"What is the matter with him?" asked Mary.

"Is Colin a hunchback?" Mary asked. "He didn't look like one."

"He isn't yet," said Martha. "But he began all wrong. Mother said
that there was enough trouble and raging in th' house to set any child
wrong. They was afraid his back was weak an' they've always been
takin' care of it-keepin' him lyin' down and not lettin' him walk.
Once they made him wear a brace but he fretted so he was downright ill.
Then a big doctor came to see him an' made them take it off. He talked
to th' other doctor quite rough-in a polite way. He said there'd been
too much medicine and too much lettin' him have his own way."

"I think he's a very spoiled boy," said Mary.

"He's th' worst young nowt as ever was!" said Martha. "I won't say as
he hasn't been ill a good bit. He's had coughs an' colds that's nearly
killed him two or three times. Once he had rheumatic fever an' once he
had typhoid. Eh! Mrs. Medlock did get a fright then. He'd been out of
his head an' she was talkin' to th' nurse, thinkin' he didn't know
nothin', an' she said, 'He'll die this time sure enough, an' best thing
for him an' for everybody.' An' she looked at him an' there he was with
his big eyes open, starin' at her as sensible as she was herself. She
didn't know wha'd happen but he just stared at her an' says, 'You give
me some water an' stop talkin'.'"

"Do you think he will die?" asked Mary.

Mary sat and looked at the fire. "I wonder," she said slowly, "if it
would not do him good to go out into a garden and watch things growing.
It did me good."

"One of th' worst fits he ever had," said Martha, "was one time they
took him out where the roses is by the fountain. He'd been readin' in
a paper about people gettin' somethin' he called 'rose cold' an' he
began to sneeze an' said he'd got it an' then a new gardener as didn't
know th' rules passed by an' looked at him curious. He threw himself
into a passion an' he said he'd looked at him because he was going to
be a hunchback. He cried himself into a fever an' was ill all night."

"If he ever gets angry at me, I'll never go and see him again," said
Mary.

"He'll have thee if he wants thee," said Martha. "Tha' may as well
know that at th' start."

Very soon afterward a bell rang and she rolled up her knitting.

"I dare say th' nurse wants me to stay with him a bit," she said. "I
hope he's in a good temper."

She was out of the room about ten minutes and then she came back with a
puzzled expression.

Mary was quite willing to go quickly. She did not want to see Colin as
much as she wanted to see Dickon; but she wanted to see him very much.

There was a bright fire on the hearth when she entered his room, and in
the daylight she saw it was a very beautiful room indeed. There were
rich colors in the rugs and hangings and pictures and books on the
walls which made it look glowing and comfortable even in spite of the
gray sky and falling rain. Colin looked rather like a picture himself.
He was wrapped in a velvet dressing-gown and sat against a big brocaded
cushion. He had a red spot on each cheek.

"Come in," he said. "I've been thinking about you all morning."

"I've been thinking about you, too," answered Mary. "You don't know
how frightened Martha is. She says Mrs. Medlock will think she told me
about you and then she will be sent away."

He frowned.

"Go and tell her to come here," he said. "She is in the next room."

Mary went and brought her back. Poor Martha was shaking in her shoes.
Colin was still frowning.

"Have you to do what I please or have you not?" he demanded.

"I have to do what you please, sir," Martha faltered, turning quite red.

"Has Medlock to do what I please?"

"Everybody has, sir," said Martha.

"Well, then, if I order you to bring Miss Mary to me, how can Medlock
send you away if she finds it out?"

"Please don't let her, sir," pleaded Martha.

"I'll send her away if she dares to say a word about such a thing,"
said Master Craven grandly. "She wouldn't like that, I can tell you."

"Thank you, sir," bobbing a curtsy, "I want to do my duty, sir."

"What I want is your duty" said Colin more grandly still. "I'll take
care of you. Now go away."

When the door closed behind Martha, Colin found Mistress Mary gazing at
him as if he had set her wondering.

"Why do you look at me like that?" he asked her. "What are you
thinking about?"

"I am thinking about two things."

"What are they? Sit down and tell me."

"I shall make you tell me about Rajahs presently," he said, "but first
tell me what the second thing was."

"I was thinking," said Mary, "how different you are from Dickon."

"Who is Dickon?" he said. "What a queer name!"

There were some big books on a table at his side and he dragged one
suddenly toward him. "There is a picture of a snake-charmer in this,"
he exclaimed. "Come and look at it."

The book was a beautiful one with superb colored illustrations and he
turned to one of them.

"Can he do that?" he asked eagerly.

Colin lay back on his cushion and his eyes grew larger and larger and
the spots on his cheeks burned.

"Tell me some more about him," he said.

"Does he like the moor?" said Colin. "How can he when it's such a
great, bare, dreary place?"

"How do you know all that?" said Colin, turning on his elbow to look at
her.

"You never see anything if you are ill," said Colin restlessly. He
looked like a person listening to a new sound in the distance and
wondering what it was.

"You can't if you stay in a room," said Mary.

"I couldn't go on the moor," he said in a resentful tone.

Mary was silent for a minute and then she said something bold.

"You might-sometime."

He moved as if he were startled.

"Oh, I've heard it ever since I remember," he answered crossly. "They
are always whispering about it and thinking I don't notice. They wish
I would, too."

Mistress Mary felt quite contrary. She pinched her lips together.

"If they wished I would," she said, "I wouldn't. Who wishes you would?"

"I don't believe he does," said Mary quite obstinately.

That made Colin turn and look at her again.

"Don't you?" he said.

"No.".

"What did he say?"

"I'll tell you who would put you in the humor, perhaps," said Mary
reflecting. She felt as if she would like this thing to be settled one
way or the other. "I believe Dickon would. He's always talking about
live things. He never talks about dead things or things that are ill.
He's always looking up in the sky to watch birds flying-or looking
down at the earth to see something growing. He has such round blue
eyes and they are so wide open with looking about. And he laughs such
a big laugh with his wide mouth-and his cheeks are as red-as red as
cherries." She pulled her stool nearer to the sofa and her expression
quite changed at the remembrance of the wide curving mouth and wide
open eyes.

"See here," she said. "Don't let us talk about dying; I don't like it.
Let us talk about living. Let us talk and talk about Dickon. And then
we will look at your pictures."

It was the best thing she could have said. To talk about Dickon meant
to talk about the moor and about the cottage and the fourteen people
who lived in it on sixteen shillings a week-and the children who got
fat on the moor grass like the wild ponies. And about Dickon's
mother-and the skipping-rope-and the moor with the sun on it-and
about pale green points sticking up out of the black sod. And it was
all so alive that Mary talked more than she had ever talked before-and
Colin both talked and listened as he had never done either before. And
they both began to laugh over nothings as children will when they are
happy together. And they laughed so that in the end they were making
as much noise as if they had been two ordinary healthy natural
ten-year-old creatures-instead of a hard, little, unloving girl and a
sickly boy who believed that he was going to die.

Dr. Craven started in actual alarm and Mrs. Medlock almost fell back
because he had accidentally bumped against her.

"Good Lord!" exclaimed poor Mrs. Medlock with her eyes almost starting
out of her head. "Good Lord!"

"What is this?" said Dr. Craven, coming forward. "What does it mean?"

"This is my cousin, Mary Lennox," he said. "I asked her to come and
talk to me. I like her. She must come and talk to me whenever I send
for her."

Dr. Craven turned reproachfully to Mrs. Medlock. "Oh, sir" she panted.
"I don't know how it's happened. There's not a servant on the place
tha'd dare to talk-they all have their orders."

"Nobody told her anything," said Colin. "She heard me crying and found
me herself. I am glad she came. Don't be silly, Medlock."

Mary saw that Dr. Craven did not look pleased, but it was quite plain
that he dare not oppose his patient. He sat down by Colin and felt his
pulse.

"I am afraid there has been too much excitement. Excitement is not
good for you, my boy," he said.

Mrs. Medlock and Dr. Craven looked at each other in a troubled way, but
there was evidently nothing to be done.

"He does look rather better, sir," ventured Mrs. Medlock.
"But"-thinking the matter over-"he looked better this morning before
she came into the room."

Colin looked fretful and kept his strange black-lashed eyes fixed on
Dr. Craven's face.

"I want to forget it," he said at last. "She makes me forget it. That
is why I want her."

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The Secret Garden Chapter 14 - Storynory

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Mary's new friend Colin has the airs and graces of an Indian Prince, a Young Rajah, but he surprises everyone by liking Mary. A YOUNG RAJAH "What's the matter with thee?" she asked as soon as they sat down. "Tha' looks as if tha'd somethin' to say." "I have.

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Computer Work Station

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john shadow boxed ali-like around the room.

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the fire hissed like a cat ready to attack.

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the river moaned as it ran across the rocks.

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"a whale will jump up into the air and explode like a volcano."

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the sails flapped in the wind making a sound like the cracking of a whip.

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Find the matches of the similes, metaphors, personification, slang/dialect and allusions.

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Listening Work Station

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Several times already, Mary has heard crying in the corridor. Who could it be who is crying? In this chapter she discovers another child who is, in some ways, rather like herself.

"I AM COLIN"

Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and
she showed it to Martha.

"Eh!" said Martha with great pride. "I never knew our Dickon was as
clever as that. That there's a picture of a missel thrush on her nest,
as large as life an' twice as natural."

She hoped he would come back the very next day and she fell asleep
looking forward to the morning.

"The rain is as contrary as I ever was," she said. "It came because it
knew I did not want it."

She threw herself back on her pillow and buried her face. She did not
cry, but she lay and hated the sound of the heavily beating rain, she
hated the wind and its "wuthering." She could not go to sleep again.
The mournful sound kept her awake because she felt mournful herself.
If she had felt happy it would probably have lulled her to sleep. How
it "wuthered" and how the big raindrops poured down and beat against
the pane!

"It sounds just like a person lost on the moor and wandering on and on
crying," she said.

She had been lying awake turning from side to side for about an hour,
when suddenly something made her sit up in bed and turn her head toward
the door listening. She listened and she listened.

"It isn't the wind now," she said in a loud whisper. "That isn't the
wind. It is different. It is that crying I heard before."

"I am going to find out what it is," she said. "Everybody is in bed
and I don't care about Mrs. Medlock-I don't care!"

There was a candle by her bedside and she took it up and went softly
out of the room. The corridor looked very long and dark, but she was
too excited to mind that. She thought she remembered the corners she
must turn to find the short corridor with the door covered with
tapestry-the one Mrs. Medlock had come through the day she lost
herself. The sound had come up that passage. So she went on with her
dim light, almost feeling her way, her heart beating so loud that she
fancied she could hear it. The far-off faint crying went on and led
her. Sometimes it stopped for a moment or so and then began again.
Was this the right corner to turn? She stopped and thought. Yes it
was. Down this passage and then to the left, and then up two broad
steps, and then to the right again. Yes, there was the tapestry door.

So she walked to the door and pushed it open, and there she was
standing in the room!

Mary wondered if she was in a real place or if she had fallen asleep
again and was dreaming without knowing it.

"Who are you?" he said at last in a half-frightened whisper. "Are you
a ghost?"

"No, I am not," Mary answered, her own whisper sounding half
frightened. "Are you one?"

He stared and stared and stared. Mary could not help noticing what
strange eyes he had. They were agate gray and they looked too big for
his face because they had black lashes all round them.

"No," he replied after waiting a moment or so. "I am Colin."

"Who is Colin?" she faltered.

"I am Colin Craven. Who are you?"

"I am Mary Lennox. Mr. Craven is my uncle."

"He is my father," said the boy.

"Your father!" gasped Mary. "No one ever told me he had a boy! Why
didn't they?"

"Come here," he said, still keeping his strange eyes fixed on her with
an anxious expression.

She came close to the bed and he put out his hand and touched her.

"You are real, aren't you?" he said. "I have such real dreams very
often. You might be one of them."

Mary had slipped on a woolen wrapper before she left her room and she
put a piece of it between his fingers.

"Rub that and see how thick and warm it is," she said. "I will pinch
you a little if you like, to show you how real I am. For a minute I
thought you might be a dream too."

"Where did you come from?" he asked.

"From my own room. The wind wuthered so I couldn't go to sleep and I
heard some one crying and wanted to find out who it was. What were you
crying for?"

"Because I couldn't go to sleep either and my head ached. Tell me your
name again."

"Mary Lennox. Did no one ever tell you I had come to live here?"

He was still fingering the fold of her wrapper, but he began to look a
little more as if he believed in her reality.

"No," he answered. "They daren't."

"Why?" asked Mary.

"Because I should have been afraid you would see me. I won't let
people see me and talk me over."

"Why?" Mary asked again, feeling more mystified every moment.

"Oh, what a queer house this is!" Mary said. "What a queer house!
Everything is a kind of secret. Rooms are locked up and gardens are
locked up-and you! Have you been locked up?"

"No. I stay in this room because I don't want to be moved out of it.
It tires me too much."

"Does your father come and see you?" Mary ventured.

"Sometimes. Generally when I am asleep. He doesn't want to see me."

"Why?" Mary could not help asking again.

A sort of angry shadow passed over the boy's face.

"My mother died when I was born and it makes him wretched to look at
me. He thinks I don't know, but I've heard people talking. He almost
hates me."

"He hates the garden, because she died," said Mary half speaking to
herself.

"What garden?" the boy asked.

"Oh! just-just a garden she used to like," Mary stammered. "Have you
been here always?" "Nearly always. Sometimes I have been taken to
places at the seaside, but I won't stay because people stare at me. I
used to wear an iron thing to keep my back straight, but a grand doctor
came from London to see me and said it was stupid. He told them to
take it off and keep me out in the fresh air. I hate fresh air and I
don't want to go out."

"I didn't when first I came here," said Mary. "Why do you keep looking
at me like that?"

"Because of the dreams that are so real," he answered rather fretfully.
"Sometimes when I open my eyes I don't believe I'm awake."

"I don't want it to be a dream," the boy said restlessly.

Mary thought of something all at once.

"If you don't like people to see you," she began, "do you want me to go
away?"

He still held the fold of her wrapper and he gave it a little pull.

"No," he said. "I should be sure you were a dream if you went. If you
are real, sit down on that big footstool and talk. I want to hear
about you."

Mary put down her candle on the table near the bed and sat down on the
cushioned stool. She did not want to go away at all. She wanted to
stay in the mysterious hidden-away room and talk to the mysterious boy.

"What do you want me to tell you?" she said.

He wanted to know how long she had been at Misselthwaite; he wanted to
know which corridor her room was on; he wanted to know what she had
been doing; if she disliked the moor as he disliked it; where she had
lived before she came to Yorkshire. She answered all these questions
and many more and he lay back on his pillow and listened. He made her
tell him a great deal about India and about her voyage across the
ocean. She found out that because he had been an invalid he had not
learned things as other children had. One of his nurses had taught him
to read when he was quite little and he was always reading and looking
at pictures in splendid books.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"I am ten," answered Mary, forgetting herself for the moment, "and so
are you."

"How do you know that?" he demanded in a surprised voice.

"Because when you were born the garden door was locked and the key was
buried. And it has been locked for ten years."

Colin half sat up, turning toward her, leaning on his elbows.

"What garden door was locked? Who did it? Where was the key buried?" he
exclaimed as if he were suddenly very much interested.

"It-it was the garden Mr. Craven hates," said Mary nervously. "He
locked the door. No one-no one knew where he buried the key." "What
sort of a garden is it?" Colin persisted eagerly.

"No one has been allowed to go into it for ten years," was Mary's
careful answer.

"They won't talk about it," said Mary. "I think they have been told
not to answer questions."

"I would make them," said Colin.

"Could you?" Mary faltered, beginning to feel frightened. If he could
make people answer questions, who knew what might happen!

"Everyone is obliged to please me. I told you that," he said. "If I
were to live, this place would sometime belong to me. They all know
that. I would make them tell me."

"Do you think you won't live?" she asked, partly because she was
curious and partly in hope of making him forget the garden.

"Do you want to live?" inquired Mary.

"No," he answered, in a cross, tired fashion. "But I don't want to
die. When I feel ill I lie here and think about it until I cry and
cry."

"I have heard you crying three times," Mary said, "but I did not know
who it was. Were you crying about that?" She did so want him to forget
the garden.

"I dare say," he answered. "Let us talk about something else. Talk
about that garden. Don't you want to see it?"

"Yes," answered Mary, in quite a low voice.

He had become quite excited and his strange eyes began to shine like
stars and looked more immense than ever.

"They have to please me," he said. "I will make them take me there and
I will let you go, too."

Mary's hands clutched each other. Everything would be
spoiled-everything! Dickon would never come back. She would never
again feel like a missel thrush with a safe-hidden nest.

"Oh, don't-don't-don't-don't do that!" she cried out.

He stared as if he thought she had gone crazy!

"Why?" he exclaimed. "You said you wanted to see it."

"I do," she answered almost with a sob in her throat, "but if you make
them open the door and take you in like that it will never be a secret
again."

He leaned still farther forward.

"A secret," he said. "What do you mean? Tell me."

Mary's words almost tumbled over one another.

"You see-you see," she panted, "if no one knows but ourselves-if
there was a door, hidden somewhere under the ivy-if there was-and we
could find it; and if we could slip through it together and shut it
behind us, and no one knew any one was inside and we called it our
garden and pretended that-that we were missel thrushes and it was our
nest, and if we played there almost every day and dug and planted seeds
and made it all come alive-"

"Is it dead?" he interrupted her.

"It soon will be if no one cares for it," she went on. "The bulbs will
live but the roses-"

He stopped her again as excited as she was herself.

"What are bulbs?" he put in quickly.

"They are daffodils and lilies and snowdrops. They are working in the
earth now-pushing up pale green points because the spring is coming."

"Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like? You don't see it in
rooms if you are ill."

He dropped back on his pillow and lay there with an odd expression on
his face.

"I never had a secret," he said, "except that one about not living to
grow up. They don't know I know that, so it is a sort of secret. But
I like this kind better."

"I should-like-that," he said very slowly, his eyes looking dreamy.
"I should like that. I should not mind fresh air in a secret garden."

"I'll tell you what I think it would be like, if we could go into it,"
she said. "It has been shut up so long things have grown into a tangle
perhaps."

He lay quite still and listened while she went on talking about the
roses which might have clambered from tree to tree and hung down-about
the many birds which might have built their nests there because it was
so safe. And then she told him about the robin and Ben Weatherstaff,
and there was so much to tell about the robin and it was so easy and
safe to talk about it that she ceased to be afraid. The robin pleased
him so much that he smiled until he looked almost beautiful, and at
first Mary had thought that he was even plainer than herself, with his
big eyes and heavy locks of hair.

"I did not know birds could be like that," he said. "But if you stay
in a room you never see things. What a lot of things you know. I feel
as if you had been inside that garden."

She did not know what to say, so she did not say anything. He
evidently did not expect an answer and the next moment he gave her a
surprise.

"I am going to let you look at something," he said. "Do you see that
rose-colored silk curtain hanging on the wall over the mantel-piece?"

Mary had not noticed it before, but she looked up and saw it. It was a
curtain of soft silk hanging over what seemed to be some picture.

"Yes," she answered.

"There is a cord hanging from it," said Colin. "Go and pull it."

"She is my mother," said Colin complainingly. "I don't see why she
died. Sometimes I hate her for doing it."

"How queer!" said Mary.

Mary did as she was told and returned to her footstool.

"She is much prettier than you," she said, "but her eyes are just like
yours-at least they are the same shape and color. Why is the curtain
drawn over her?"

He moved uncomfortably.

"What would Mrs. Medlock do if she found out that I had been here?" she
inquired.

"She would do as I told her to do," he answered. "And I should tell
her that I wanted you to come here and talk to me every day. I am glad
you came."

"So am I," said Mary. "I will come as often as I can, but"-she
hesitated-"I shall have to look every day for the garden door."

"Yes, you must," said Colin, "and you can tell me about it afterward."

He lay thinking a few minutes, as he had done before, and then he spoke
again.

"I think you shall be a secret, too," he said. "I will not tell them
until they find out. I can always send the nurse out of the room and
say that I want to be by myself. Do you know Martha?"

"Yes, I know her very well," said Mary. "She waits on me."

He nodded his head toward the outer corridor.

Then Mary understood Martha's troubled look when she had asked
questions about the crying.

"Martha knew about you all the time?" she said.

"Yes; she often attends to me. The nurse likes to get away from me and
then Martha comes."

"I have been here a long time," said Mary. "Shall I go away now? Your
eyes look sleepy."

"I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me," he said rather shyly.

"Shut your eyes," said Mary, drawing her footstool closer, "and I will
do what my Ayah used to do in India. I will pat your hand and stroke
it and sing something quite low."

"I should like that perhaps," he said drowsily.

Somehow she was sorry for him and did not want him to lie awake, so she
leaned against the bed and began to stroke and pat his hand and sing a
very low little chanting song in Hindustani.

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The Secret Garden Chapter 13 - Storynory

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Several times already, Mary has heard crying in the corridor. Who could it be who is crying? In this chapter she discovers another child who is, in some ways, rather like herself. "I AM COLIN" Mary took the picture back to the house when she went to her supper and she showed it to Martha.

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Computer Work Station

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Select a free typing game to play online: | FreeTypingGame.Net

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FreeTypingGame.net offers 40 different lessons to use for our free typing games. Typing games are a fun way to learn to type. Online typing games allow you to type anytime you are on the internet. Our most popular lesson, the home row (homerow) keys, definitely offers a challenge for those beginning to type.

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Listening Work Station

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Oliver Twist famously asked "Please sir, can I have some more?" and received a stern reply. In the Secret Garden, Martha asks for a "bit of earth." Will Mr. Craven be angry?

"MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?"

"Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?"

"I've seen Dickon!" said Mary. "I've seen Dickon!"

"I knew he'd come," said Martha exultantly. "How does tha' like him?"

"I think-I think he's beautiful!" said Mary in a determined voice.

Martha looked rather taken aback but she looked pleased, too.

"Well," she said, "he's th' best lad as ever was born, but us never
thought he was handsome. His nose turns up too much."

"I like it to turn up," said Mary.

"An' his eyes is so round," said Martha, a trifle doubtful. "Though
they're a nice color." "I like them round," said Mary. "And they are
exactly the color of the sky over the moor."

Martha beamed with satisfaction.

"Mother says he made 'em that color with always lookin' up at th' birds
an' th' clouds. But he has got a big mouth, hasn't he, now?"

"I love his big mouth," said Mary obstinately. "I wish mine were just
like it."

Martha chuckled delightedly.

"It'd look rare an' funny in thy bit of a face," she said. "But I
knowed it would be that way when tha' saw him. How did tha' like th'
seeds an' th' garden tools?"

"How did you know he brought them?" asked Mary.

"Eh! I never thought of him not bringin' 'em. He'd be sure to bring 'em
if they was in Yorkshire. He's such a trusty lad."

"Who did tha' ask about it?" she inquired.

"I haven't asked anybody yet," said Mary, hesitating. "Well, I
wouldn't ask th' head gardener. He's too grand, Mr. Roach is."

"I've never seen him," said Mary. "I've only seen undergardeners and
Ben Weatherstaff."

"If I was you, I'd ask Ben Weatherstaff," advised Martha. "He's not
half as bad as he looks, for all he's so crabbed. Mr. Craven lets him
do what he likes because he was here when Mrs. Craven was alive, an' he
used to make her laugh. She liked him. Perhaps he'd find you a corner
somewhere out o' the way."

"If it was out of the way and no one wanted it, no one could mind my
having it, could they?" Mary said anxiously.

"There wouldn't be no reason," answered Martha. "You wouldn't do no
harm."

Mary ate her dinner as quickly as she could and when she rose from the
table she was going to run to her room to put on her hat again, but
Martha stopped her.

"I've got somethin' to tell you," she said. "I thought I'd let you eat
your dinner first. Mr. Craven came back this mornin' and I think he
wants to see you."

Mary turned quite pale.

"Oh!" cried Mary, "is he going away tomorrow? I am so glad!"

"He's goin' for a long time. He mayn't come back till autumn or
winter. He's goin' to travel in foreign places. He's always doin' it."

"Oh! I'm so glad-so glad!" said Mary thankfully.

If he did not come back until winter, or even autumn, there would be
time to watch the secret garden come alive. Even if he found out then
and took it away from her she would have had that much at least.

"When do you think he will want to see-"

She did not finish the sentence, because the door opened, and Mrs.
Medlock walked in. She had on her best black dress and cap, and her
collar was fastened with a large brooch with a picture of a man's face
on it. It was a colored photograph of Mr. Medlock who had died years
ago, and she always wore it when she was dressed up. She looked
nervous and excited.

"Your hair's rough," she said quickly. "Go and brush it. Martha, help
her to slip on her best dress. Mr. Craven sent me to bring her to him
in his study."

"This is Miss Mary, sir," she said.

"You can go and leave her here. I will ring for you when I want you to
take her away," said Mr. Craven.

When she went out and closed the door, Mary could only stand waiting, a
plain little thing, twisting her thin hands together. She could see
that the man in the chair was not so much a hunchback as a man with
high, rather crooked shoulders, and he had black hair streaked with
white. He turned his head over his high shoulders and spoke to her.

"Come here!" he said.

Mary went to him.

He was not ugly. His face would have been handsome if it had not been
so miserable. He looked as if the sight of her worried and fretted him
and as if he did not know what in the world to do with her.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Mary.

"Do they take good care of you?"

"Yes."

He rubbed his forehead fretfully as he looked her over.

"You are very thin," he said.

"I am getting fatter," Mary answered in what she knew was her stiffest
way.

What an unhappy face he had! His black eyes seemed as if they scarcely
saw her, as if they were seeing something else, and he could hardly
keep his thoughts upon her.

"I forgot you," he said. "How could I remember you? I intended to send
you a governess or a nurse, or some one of that sort, but I forgot."

"Please," began Mary. "Please-" and then the lump in her throat
choked her.

"What do you want to say?" he inquired.

"I am-I am too big for a nurse," said Mary. "And please-please don't
make me have a governess yet."

He rubbed his forehead again and stared at her.

"That was what the Sowerby woman said," he muttered absentmindedly.

Then Mary gathered a scrap of courage.

"Is she-is she Martha's mother?" she stammered.

"Yes, I think so," he replied.

"She knows about children," said Mary. "She has twelve. She knows."

He seemed to rouse himself.

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to play out of doors," Mary answered, hoping that her voice did
not tremble. "I never liked it in India. It makes me hungry here, and
I am getting fatter."

He was watching her.

"Mrs. Sowerby said it would do you good. Perhaps it will," he said.
"She thought you had better get stronger before you had a governess."

"It makes me feel strong when I play and the wind comes over the moor,"
argued Mary.

"Where do you play?" he asked next.

"Everywhere," gasped Mary. "Martha's mother sent me a skipping-rope. I
skip and run-and I look about to see if things are beginning to stick
up out of the earth. I don't do any harm."

"Don't look so frightened," he said in a worried voice. "You could not
do any harm, a child like you! You may do what you like."

Mary put her hand up to her throat because she was afraid he might see
the excited lump which she felt jump into it. She came a step nearer
to him.

"May I?" she said tremulously.

Her anxious little face seemed to worry him more than ever.

"She knows all about children," Mary said again in spite of herself.

"Might I," quavered Mary, "might I have a bit of earth?"

In her eagerness she did not realize how queer the words would sound
and that they were not the ones she had meant to say. Mr. Craven
looked quite startled.

"Earth!" he repeated. "What do you mean?"

"To plant seeds in-to make things grow-to see them come alive," Mary
faltered.

He gazed at her a moment and then passed his hand quickly over his eyes.

"Do you-care about gardens so much," he said slowly.

"I didn't know about them in India," said Mary. "I was always ill and
tired and it was too hot. I sometimes made little beds in the sand and
stuck flowers in them. But here it is different."

Mr. Craven got up and began to walk slowly across the room.

"A bit of earth," he said to himself, and Mary thought that somehow she
must have reminded him of something. When he stopped and spoke to her
his dark eyes looked almost soft and kind.

"May I take it from anywhere-if it's not wanted?"

"Anywhere," he answered. "There! You must go now, I am tired." He
touched the bell to call Mrs. Medlock. "Good-by. I shall be away all
summer."

Mrs. Medlock came so quickly that Mary thought she must have been
waiting in the corridor.

"Mrs. Medlock," Mr. Craven said to her, "now I have seen the child I
understand what Mrs. Sowerby meant. She must be less delicate before
she begins lessons. Give her simple, healthy food. Let her run wild
in the garden. Don't look after her too much. She needs liberty and
fresh air and romping about. Mrs. Sowerby is to come and see her now
and then and she may sometimes go to the cottage."

"Thank you, sir," she said. "Susan Sowerby and me went to school
together and she's as sensible and good-hearted a woman as you'd find
in a day's walk. I never had any children myself and she's had twelve,
and there never was healthier or better ones. Miss Mary can get no
harm from them. I'd always take Susan Sowerby's advice about children
myself. She's what you might call healthy-minded-if you understand
me."

"I understand," Mr. Craven answered. "Take Miss Mary away now and send
Pitcher to me."

When Mrs. Medlock left her at the end of her own corridor Mary flew
back to her room. She found Martha waiting there. Martha had, in
fact, hurried back after she had removed the dinner service.

"Eh!" said Martha delightedly, "that was nice of him wasn't it?"

"Martha," said Mary solemnly, "he is really a nice man, only his face
is so miserable and his forehead is all drawn together."

She ran as quickly as she could to the garden. She had been away so
much longer than she had thought she should and she knew Dickon would
have to set out early on his five-mile walk. When she slipped through
the door under the ivy, she saw he was not working where she had left
him. The gardening tools were laid together under a tree. She ran to
them, looking all round the place, but there was no Dickon to be seen.
He had gone away and the secret garden was empty-except for the robin
who had just flown across the wall and sat on a standard rose-bush
watching her. "He's gone," she said woefully. "Oh! was he-was
he-was he only a wood fairy?"

"I will cum bak."

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The Secret Garden Chapter 12 - Storynory

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Oliver Twist famously asked "Please sir, can I have some more?" and received a stern reply. In the Secret Garden, Martha asks for a "bit of earth." Will Mr. Craven be angry? "MIGHT I HAVE A BIT OF EARTH?" "Tha's a bit late," she said. "Where has tha' been?"