twinkled and secretly he was immensely pleased. He really did not mind
being snubbed since the snubbing meant that the lad was gaining
strength and spirit.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LET THEM LAUGH
The secret garden was not the only one Dickon worked in. Round the
cottage on the moor there was a piece of ground enclosed by a low wall
of rough stones. Early in the morning and late in the fading twilight
and on all the days Colin and Mary did not see him, Dickon worked there
planting or tending potatoes and cabbages, turnips and carrots and
herbs for his mother. In the company of his creatures he did wonders
there and was never tired of doing them, it seemed. While he dug or
weeded he whistled or sang bits of Yorkshire moor songs or talked to
Soot or Captain or the brothers and sisters he had taught to help him.
We d never get on as comfortable as we do, Mrs. Sowerby said, if it
wasn t for Dickon s garden. Anything ll grow for him. His taters and
cabbages is twice th size of anyone else s an they ve got a flavor
with em as nobody s has.
When she found a moment to spare she liked to go out and talk to him.
After supper there was still a long clear twilight to work in and that
was her quiet time. She could sit upon the low rough wall and look on
and hear stories of the day. She loved this time. There were not only
vegetables in this garden. Dickon had bought penny packages of flower
seeds now and then and sown bright sweet-scented things among
gooseberry bushes and even cabbages and he grew borders of mignonette
and pinks and pansies and things whose seeds he could save year after
year or whose roots would bloom each spring and spread in time into
fine clumps. The low wall was one of the prettiest things in Yorkshire
because he had tucked moorland foxglove and ferns and rock-cress and
hedgerow flowers into every crevice until only here and there glimpses
of the stones were to be seen.
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