ASMR BOOK READING||THE SECRET GARDEN FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT||CHAPTER FIVE||THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR
ASMR BOOK READING||THE SECRET GARDEN FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT||CHAPTER FIVE||THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR
THE SECRET GARDEN BY
FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT
CHAPTER 5
THE CRY IN THE CORRIDOR
At first each day which passed by for Mary Lennox was exactly like the others. Every morning she awoke in her tapestried room and found Martha kneeling upon the hearth building her fire; every morning she ate her breakfast in the nursery which had nothing amusing in it; and after each breakfast she gazed out of the window across to the huge moor which seemed to spread out on all sides and climb up to the sky, and after she had stared for a while she realized that if she did not go out she would have to stay in and do nothing and so she went out.
She did not know that this was the best thing she could have done, and she did not know that, when she began to walk quickly or even run along the paths and down the avenue, she was stirring her slow blood and making herself stronger by fighting with the wind which swept down from the moor.
She ran only to make herself warm, and she hated the wind which rushed at her face and roared and held her back as if it were some giant she could not see but the big breaths of rough fresh air blown over the heather filled her lungs with something which was good for her whole thin body and whipped some red color into her cheeks and brightened her dull eyes when she did not know anything about it.
But after a few days spent almost entirely out of doors she wakened one morning knowing what it was to be hungry, and when she sat down to her breakfast she did not glance disdainfully at her porridge and push it away, but took up her spoon and began to eat it and went on eating it until her bowl was empty. Tha' got on well enough with that this morning', didn't tha'? " said Martha. " It tastes nice to-day," said Mary, feeling a little surprised herself. " It's the' air of the' moor that's giving' thee stomach for tha' victuals," answered Martha. " It's lucky for thee that tha's got victuals as well as appetite. There's been twelve in our cottage as had the' stomach and' nothing' to put in it. You go on playing' you out of' doors every day and' you'll get some flesh on your bones and' you won't be so yeller." " I don't play," said Mary. " I have nothing to play with." " Nothin' to play with!" exclaimed Martha.
Our children plays with sticks and stones. They just runs about and' shouts and' looks at things." Mary did not shout, but she looked at things. There was nothing else to do. She walked round and round the gardens and wandered about the paths in the park. Sometimes she looked for Ben Weatherstaff, but though several times she saw him at work he was too busy to look at her or was too surly. Once when she was walking toward him he picked up his spade and turned away as if he did it on purpose.
One place she went to oftener than to any other.
It was the long walk outside the gardens with
the walls round them. There were bare flower-
beds on either side of it and against the walls ivy
grew thickly. There was one part of the wall
where the creeping dark green leaves were more
bushy than elsewhere. It seemed as if for a long
time that part had been neglected. The rest of
it had been clipped and made to look neat, but at
this lower end of the walk it had not been trimmed
at all.
A few days after she had talked to Ben Weath-
erstaff Mary stopped to notice this and wondered
why it was so. She had just paused and was look-
ing up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind
when she saw a gleam of scarlet and heard a
brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of the wall?
perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilt-
ing forward to look at her with his small head
on one side.
" Oh !
she cried out, " is it you is it you? '
And it did not seem at all queer to her that she
spoke to him as if she was sure that he would un-
derstand and answer her.
He did answer. He twittered and chirped and
hopped along the wall as if he were telling her
all sorts of things. It seemed to Mistress Mary
as if she understood him, too, though he was not
speaking in words. It was as if he said:
" Good morning! Isn't the wind nice? Isn't the sun nice ? Isn't everything nice ? Let us both
chirp and hop and twitter. Come on! Come
on!"
Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and
took little flights along the wall she ran after him.
Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary she actually
looked almost pretty for a moment.
" I like you ! I like you !
she cried out, pattering down the walk; and she chirped and tried to whistle, which last she did not know how to
do in the least. But the robin seemed to be quite
satisfied and chirped and whistled back at her. At
last he spread his wings and made a darting flight
to the top of a tree, where he perched and sang
loudly. That reminded Mary of the first time she had
seen him. He had been swinging on a tree-top.
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