Chapter 25 Chapter 25 Curtain

The Secret Garden opens, opens, revealing new wonders each morning.A robin's nest contains eggs, on which the robin's daughter-in-law sits, and keeps them warm with her feathered breast and careful wings.At first she was nervous, and the robin himself was indignantly alert.Not even Dickon went near the leafy corner in those days, but waited until he seemed to have conveyed the message to a pair of tiny souls that in this garden nothing was as They were different—there was nothing that did not understand how wonderful what was happening to them—that unfathomable, tender, terrible, heartbreaking beauty and solemnity that came from their eggs.If there is even one person in that garden who doesn't understand with the deepest heart that if one egg is taken away or hurt, the whole world will turn upside down, the sky will fall apart, and the end will come-if there is even one person who doesn't feel this and respond accordingly There is no happiness in doing things, not even in the golden spring air.But they all knew and felt a little, and the robin and his wife knew they knew.

At first the robin watched Mary and Colin keenly and nervously.For some mysterious reason, it knew it didn't have to watch Deacon.The first time his black, dewy eyes set eyes on Dickon, he knew that he was not a stranger but some kind of mockingbird without beak or feathers.He speaks Robin (a very distinct language not to be confused with other languages).Speaking robin to a robin is like speaking French to a Frenchman.Dickon always spoke robin to robins, so it didn't matter at all the inexplicable babble he used to talk to people.The robin thought it was because they were not clever enough to understand the speech of the Feathers.His movements were also robin-like.They never appear dangerous or threatening with sudden movements to scare others.Any mockingbird could understand Dickon, so his presence wasn't even a bother.

But it's starting to look like there's a need to be wary of the other two.First of all the boy animal didn't walk into the garden on its own legs.He was wheeled in on a wheeled object with wild animal fur thrown over him.The fact itself is suspicious.Then he started to get up and walk around in a strange, unusual way, and the others seemed to be helping him.The robin used to hide in the bushes and watch nervously, turning its head one way and then the other.It thought the slow motion might mean it was about to pounce, like a cat.When cats are about to pounce, they drop to the ground very slowly.The robin and his daughter-in-law talked about it for several days, but then he decided not to talk about it, because she was so frightened that he might hurt the egg.

It was a huge relief when the boy started walking on his own, moving faster.But for a long time--very long to the robin--he was a source of nervous apprehension.He behaves differently from other humans.He seemed to enjoy walking, but he had a habit of sitting down, lying down for a while, and getting up in a panic to start over. One day the robin remembered that he himself had been taught to fly by his parents, and he did exactly the same thing.It flew a few yards, then was forced to rest.So it remembered that the boy was learning to fly—more like learning to walk.He mentioned this to his daughter-in-law, and told her that after the eggs had been tended to plumage, the same was likely to be done, and she was much comforted, and even became eagerly interested, observing the boy from the edge of her nest, gaining Great fun - though she'd always thought eggs would be much crispier and a much quicker learner.But then she added with great tenderness that humans were always clumsier and slower than eggs, and most of them never seemed to have really learned to fly.You never meet them in the air, in the treetops.

After a while, the boy started walking around like everyone else, but at this point all three children started doing unusual things.They would stand under the trees and move their arms, legs, heads around, neither walking, nor running, nor sitting.They went through these movements at intervals every day, and the robin was never able to explain to his wife what they were doing, or wanting to do.It can only be sure that their eggs don't spin like this, but since the boy who speaks fluent robin is also doing it, the birds can be sure that this behavior is not dangerous.Of course, neither the robin nor his daughter-in-law had heard of the champion wrestler, Bob Luxury, and his training to make the muscles bulge like bags.Unlike humans, robins' muscles are always exercised to begin with, so they grow in a natural way.Your muscles won't atrophy if you have to fly around to find every meal you eat.

While the boy was walking and running and digging and weeding here and there like everyone else, the nest in the corner was covered and hatched with great peace and fullness.Fear of eggs is a thing of the past.Knowing that your eggs are as safe as being locked in a bank vault, and that you can watch so much fun going on, makes hatching an extremely fun place to be.On cloudy and rainy days, Dan's mother sometimes even felt a little bored because the children did not come to the garden. But even on a rainy day, Mary and Colin couldn't say it was boring.One morning, when the rain kept pouring down, Colin began to feel a little impatient, and he was forced to stay on the sofa because it was not safe to get up and walk around.

"Now I'm a real boy," Colin once said, "my legs, my arms, my whole body are full of magic, and I can't be still. They want to do things at any time. You know, when I wake up in the morning, It's still early, Mary, and the birds are calling outside, and everything seems to be shouting joyfully—even the trees and things we can't really hear—and I feel like I have to jump out of bed and scream myself. Just think what would happen if I did!" Mary giggled wantonly. "The nurse will come running, Mrs. Medlock will come running, and they'll think you're crazy, and they'll send for the doctor," she said.

Colin giggled himself.He could see what they'd all be like - terrified by his seizures, how calm he was standing upright. "I wish my daddy would come back," he said, "I want to tell him about myself. I keep thinking about it—but we can't go on like this for long. I can't stand lying still and pretending, and besides I look too It's different. I hope it doesn't rain today." At this moment, Miss Mary came to inspiration. "Colin," she began mysteriously, "do you know how many rooms there are in this house?" "Around a thousand, I guess," he answered.

"About a hundred have never been in," said Mary. "I went in and looked at a lot of them one rainy day. No one knew, though Mrs. Medlock nearly found me. I got lost on my way back, in Stop at the end of your corridor. That's the second time I've heard you cry." Colin sat up abruptly from the sofa. "A hundred rooms that no one has ever been in," he said. "Sounds like another secret garden. Suppose we go. You can push my wheelchair and nobody will know we've been there." "I thought so too," said Mary. "Nobody dared to follow us. There are galleries you can run around. We can do our drills. There's a little Indian room, and there's a closet full of elephants made of ivory. There are All kinds of rooms."

"Ring the bell," said Colin. The nurse came in, he ordered. "I want a wheelchair," he said. "Miss Mary and I are going to see the unused part of the house. John can push me as far as the gallery, because there are some stairs. Then he has to go and leave us alone, Until I call him again." That morning, the rain was no longer scary.Colin and Mary looked at each other happily as the porter, as ordered, pushed the wheelchair into the gallery, leaving the two together.Colin stepped out of the wheelchair once Mary had confirmed that John had indeed returned to his own quarters under the stairs.

"I'm going to run from one end of the gallery to the other," he said, "and then I'm going to do the high jump, and then we're going to do the Bob Luxury drill." They did all of these and more.They looked at the portraits and saw the dull little girl in green lamé and brocade with a parrot on her finger. "All of these," said Colin, "must be relatives of mine. They lived a long time ago. The one with the parrot, I believe, was one of my great-great-great-great-great-aunts. She looked a lot like you , Mary,—not as you are now, but when you first came here. You are much fatter now, and much better looking." "You too," said Mary, and they both laughed. They go to the Indian room and play with the ivory elephant for fun.They found the rosy boudoir, with the hole in the pillow that the mouse had made, but the mouse had grown up and gone, and the hole was empty.They see more rooms and make more discoveries than they did on Mary's first pilgrimage.They discover new hallways, nooks, staircases and old paintings they love, odd old objects of unknown purpose.Mysterious and interesting this morning, wandering around a big house, sharing the first floor with other people and feeling thousands of miles away from them, is a fascinating thing. "I'm glad we're here," said Colin. "I never knew I lived in such a quaint, old, big place. I like it. We'll be hanging around every rainy day from now on. We'll always be able to Find new weird corners, weird things." They found, among other things, a good appetite that morning, and when they got back to Colin's room it was impossible to send back the luncheon untouched. When the nurse took the tray downstairs, she put the tray on the kitchen sideboard over the counter so that Mrs. Loomis, the cook, could see the highly clean dishes. "Look at this!" said she. "This is a house of mysteries, and those two children are the greatest of its mysteries." "If they're like this every day," said Strong Porter John, "it's no wonder he weighs twice as much today as he did a month ago. I ended up quitting my job for fear of hurting my muscles." Mary noticed something new in Colin's room that afternoon.She had noticed it yesterday, but she thought the change might have been accidental.She didn't say anything today, but she sat and stared at the portrait on the mantelpiece.She could see because the curtains had been drawn over the side.That's the change she noticed. "I know what you want me to tell you," said Colin, after she had stared at it for a few minutes. "I always know when you want me to tell you something. You're wondering why the curtain was drawn. I want it to stay that way." "Why?" Mary asked. "Because watching her laugh doesn't make me angry anymore. Two nights ago, the moonlight was bright, and I woke up feeling the magic fill the room and make everything sparkle, and I couldn't lie still. I got up and went to Looking out the window. The room is very bright and there is a piece of moonlight on the curtain, which somehow made me go pull the string. She looks straight down at me like she's smiling because she's glad I'm standing there. Makes me love looking at her .I want to see her laughing like that all the time. I think she must have been some sort of magical being, maybe." "You look a lot like her now," said Mary, "and sometimes I think maybe you're her ghost in a boy." The idea seemed to strike Colin.He thought it over, and then answered slowly. "If I were her ghost—my father would spoil me." "Do you want him to pet you?" Mary asked. "I used to hate the idea because he didn't pet me. If he ever would, I might tell him about the magic. Maybe make him happy."