Mary stood with her back against the door, looking around with excitement, wonder, and delight.
She was standing inside the secret garden!
It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place.
The high walls were covered with the bare stems of roses that had grown together thickly.
The ground was covered with brown grass that had clumps of rosebushes growing out of it.
Some of the roses had run up the trees and swung down now from the branches in long tendrils.
Mary recognized these plants because she'd seen roses growing in India.
But she didn't know if they were dead or alive.
"I hope the garden isn't dead," she said in a whisper.
"I am the first person to enter this place in ten years."
As Mary walked along, quietly examining the roses, the robin hopped about or flew after her from one bush to another.
Mary stopped where there had once been a flower bed.
She spotted some pale green points sticking out of the black earth and knelt down to look at them.
"They are tiny growing things," she whispered.
"Perhaps there are more coming up in other places."
Mary looked in the old border beds and among the grass.
She grew more excited as she found more pale green points.
"It isn't quite a dead garden!" she cried out.
"Even if the roses are dead, there are other things alive."
Mary didn't know anything about gardening.
But the grass seemed too thick in some places where the green points were trying to push their way through.
She searched until she found a sharp stick.
Then she dug out the grass and old weeds until she had cleared some space around the plants.
"Now they look as if they could breathe!"
Mary went from place to place and dug and weeded.
The exercise made her so warm that she threw off her hat and coat.
She worked happily in the garden until it was time to go inside for lunch.
Martha was delighted when she saw Mary's bright eyes and rosy cheeks.
She was even happier when Mary ate two helpings of meat and rice pudding.
"Mother will be pleased when I tell her what skipping rope has done for you!"
Mary did not reply.
She was thinking about the strange white roots she had come across while digging.
Perhaps Martha would know what they were.
"I saw something that looked like an onion in the garden today."
She was careful not to say the secret garden.
"Those are bulbs. Lots of spring flowers grow from them: snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, lilies.
Dickon's got a whole lot of them planted in our bit of a garden."
Mary had finished eating, so she went to sit in front of the fire.
"I wish I had a little shovel."
Martha laughed. "Are you going to start digging?"
Mary knew she had to be careful.
If Mr. Craven found out that someone had opened the door, he would be very angry.
He might even get a new key and lock up the garden forever.
She really could not bear that.
"This is such a big, lonely place," she said slowly.
"There is no one to talk to except you and Ben, and you both have work to do.
If I had a shovel, I might ask him for some seeds and make a little garden."
Martha's face lit up. "That's just what Mother suggested.
At Thwaite village, there's a shop where they sell little garden sets.
And they sell packages of flower seeds.
We could write a letter to Dickon and ask him to buy them for you.
He walks to Thwaite almost every day, and he knows all about growing things."
"Oh, you are so nice," Mary exclaimed.
Martha ran to fetch a pen and paper.
But when Mrs. Medlock spotted Martha, she gave the maid one job and then another to do.
So it was quite a while before Martha returned to Mary.
When they finished writing the letter to Dickon, Mary had a question.
"Does the kitchen maid have a toothache again today?"
Martha looked startled. "What makes you ask that?"
"Because while I was waiting for you to come back, I opened the door and walked down the corridor.
And I heard that crying again."
"Oh, you mustn't walk around listening like that," Martha said nervously.
"Mr. Craven would be angry."
"I wasn't trying to listen," Mary insisted.
"I was just waiting for you. That's three times I've heard crying."
"There's Mrs. Medlock's bell!" said Martha, and she practically ran from the room.
"This is the strangest house," said Mary.
But before she could think much more about it, she fell asleep.
Fresh air and digging had made her drowsy.