The Complete Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett. Frances Hodgson Burnett

gardeners to keep away so they wouldn’t find out.”

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

      “It’d be good for him, I’ll warrant,” he said. “Us’d not be thinkin’ he’d better never been born. Us’d be just two children watchin’ a garden grow, an’ he’d be another. Two lads an’ a little lass just lookin’ on at th’ springtime. I warrant it’d be better than doctor’s stuff.”

      “He’s been lying in his room so long and he’s always been so afraid of his back that it has made him queer,” said Mary. “He knows a good many things out of books but he doesn’t know anything else. He says he has been too ill to notice things and he hates going out of doors and hates gardens and gardeners. But he likes to hear about this garden because it is a secret. I daren’t tell him much but he said he wanted to see it.”

      “Us’ll have him out here sometime for sure,” said Dickon. “I could push his carriage well enough. Has tha’ noticed how th’ robin an’ his mate has been workin’ while we’ve been sittin’ here? Look at him perched on that branch wonderin’ where it’d be best to put that twig he’s got in his beak.”

      He made one of his low whistling calls and the robin turned his head and looked at him inquiringly, still holding his twig. Dickon spoke to him as Ben Weatherstaff did, but Dickon’s tone was one of friendly advice.

      “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.”

      “Oh, I do like to hear you talk to him!” Mary said, laughing delightedly. “Ben Weatherstaff scolds him and makes fun of him, and he hops about and looks as if he understood every word, and I know he likes it. Ben Weatherstaff says he is so conceited he would rather have stones thrown at him than not be noticed.”

      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.”

      And though the robin did not answer, because his beak was occupied, Mary knew that when he flew away with his twig to his own corner of the garden the darkness of his dew-bright eye meant that he would not tell their secret for the world.

      CHAPTER XVI

       “I WON’T!” SAID MARY

      They found a great deal to do that morning and Mary was late in returning to the house and was also in such a hurry to get back to her work that she quite forgot Colin until the last moment.

      “Tell Colin that I can’t come and see him yet,” she said to Martha. “I’m very busy in the garden.”

      Martha looked rather frightened.

      “Eh! Miss Mary,” she said, “it may put him all out of humor when I tell him that.”

      But Mary was not as afraid of him as other people were and she was not a self-sacrificing person.

      “I can’t stay,” she answered. “Dickon’s waiting for me;” and she ran away.

      The afternoon was even lovelier and busier than the morning had been. Already nearly all the weeds were cleared out of the garden and most of the roses and trees had been pruned or dug about. Dickon had brought a spade of his own and he had taught Mary to use all her tools, so that by this time it was plain that though the lovely wild place was not likely to become a “gardener’s garden” it would be a wilderness of growing things before the springtime was over.

      “There’ll be apple blossoms an’ cherry blossoms overhead,” Dickon said, working away with all his might. “An’ there’ll be peach an’ plum trees in bloom against th’ walls, an’ th’ grass’ll be a carpet o’ flowers.”

      The little fox and the rook were as happy and busy as they were, and the robin and his mate flew backward and forward like tiny streaks of lightning. Sometimes the rook flapped his black wings and soared away over the treetops in the park. Each time he came back and perched near Dickon and cawed several times as if he were relating his adventures, and Dickon talked to him just as he had talked to the robin. Once when Dickon was so busy that he did not answer him at first, Soot flew on to his shoulders and gently tweaked his ear with his large beak. When Mary wanted to rest a little Dickon sat down with her under a tree and once he took his pipe out of his pocket and played the soft strange little notes and two squirrels appeared on the wall and looked and listened.

      “Tha’s a good bit stronger than tha’ was,” Dickon said, looking at her as she was digging. “Tha’s beginning to look different, for sure.”

      Mary was glowing with exercise and good spirits.

      “I’m getting fatter and fatter every day,” she said quite exultantly. “Mrs. Medlock will have to get me some bigger dresses. Martha says my hair is growing thicker. It isn’t so flat and stringy.”

      The sun was beginning to set and sending deep gold-colored rays slanting under the trees when they parted.

      “It’ll be fine tomorrow,” said Dickon. “I’ll be at work by sunrise.”

      “So will I,” said Mary.

      She ran back to the house as quickly as her feet would carry her. She wanted to tell Colin about Dickon’s fox cub and the rook and about what the springtime had been doing. She felt sure he would like to hear. So it was not very pleasant when she opened the door of her room, to see Martha standing waiting for her with a doleful face.

      “What is the matter?” she asked. “What did Colin say when you told him I couldn’t come?”

      “Eh!” said Martha, “I wish tha’d gone. He was nigh goin’ into one o’ his tantrums. There’s been a nice to do all afternoon to keep him quiet. He would watch the clock all th’ time.”

      Mary’s lips pinched themselves together. She was no more used to considering other people than Colin was and she saw no reason why an ill-tempered boy should interfere with the thing she liked best. She knew nothing about the pitifulness of people who had been ill and nervous and who did not know that they could control their tempers and need not make other people ill and nervous, too. When she had had a headache in India she had done her best to see that everybody else also had a headache or something quite as bad. And she felt she was quite right; but of course now she felt that Colin was quite wrong.

      He was not on his sofa when she went into his room. He was lying flat on his back in bed and he did not turn his head toward her as she came in. This was a bad beginning and Mary marched up to him with her stiff manner.

      “Why didn’t you get up?” she said.

      “I did get up this morning when I thought you were coming,” he answered, without looking at her. “I made them put me back in bed this afternoon. My back ached and my head ached and I was tired. Why didn’t you come?” “I was working in the garden with Dickon,” said Mary.

      Colin frowned and condescended to look at her.

      “I won’t let that boy come here if you go and stay with him instead of coming to talk to me,” he said.

      Mary flew into a fine passion. She could fly into a passion without making a noise. She just grew sour and obstinate and did not care what happened.

      “If you send Dickon away, I’ll never come into this room again!” she retorted.

      “You’ll have to if I want you,” said Colin.

      “I won’t!” said Mary.

      “I’ll make you,” said Colin. “They shall drag you in.”

      “Shall they, Mr. Rajah!” said Mary fiercely. “They may drag me in but they can’t