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.
And this was not the half of the Magic. The fact that he had really
once stood on his feet had set Colin thinking tremendously and when
Mary told him of the spell she had worked he was excited and approved
of it greatly. He talked of it constantly.
Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world, he said wisely
one day, but people don t know what it is like or how to make it.
Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen
until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.
The next morning when they went to the secret garden he sent at once
for Ben Weatherstaff. Ben came as quickly as he could and found the
Rajah standing on his feet under a tree and looking very grand but also
very beautifully smiling.
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.
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