Secret garden - key to the garden

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Two days later, Mary opened her eyes, sat up straight, and called Martha.

　　"Look at Mul! Look at Mul!"

　　The storm stopped, and the overnight wind swept away the gray mist and clouds. The wind also stopped, and a clear dark blue sky arched high above the field. Mary had never dreamed of such a blue sky. In India, the sky is burning like flames

　　Heat; And this cool deep blue, shining like a bottomless lake. Here, there, in the high arched blue, floating small clouds, like snow-white wool. The unreachable world on the shepherd was now a gentle blue, no longer a gloomy purple-black, or a bleak and terrible gray.

　　"Aha," Martha said with a grin, "the rainstorm has to stop for a while. That's it at this time of year. The rain stopped for a night, pretending to have never come and would never come again. This is because spring is already on the way. It's still a long way off, but it's coming. ”

　　"I thought maybe it was always raining and it was dark in England."

　　"Oh! Nope!" Martha said, sitting up in the middle of a pile of black lead brushes, "Root strikes this sound." ”

　　"What do you say?" Mary asked curiously. In India, the natives spoke different dialects, which few people understood, so it was neither surprising that Martha could not understand her words.

　　Martha laughed, just like the first morning.

　　"So," she said, "I have just spoken in the broad Yorkshire dialect, and Mrs. Morlock says I must not speak." 'Root strike is this sound' means 'not like this at all,'" she said slowly, carefully, "but it's been a long time since I said that." When it's sunny in Yorkshire, it's the clearest place in the world. I told you that some time later you will like Mull. When you see golden plantagenets, heather flowers — all purple bells, hundreds of butterflies flapping their wings, bees buzzing, larks soaring into the sky, singing. You'll want to go out as soon as the sun comes out and stay on the shepherd all day like Deacon. ”

　　"Can I go up there?" Mary asked cautiously. She looked through the window at the blue in the distance. It is so new, so big, so wonderful, so heavenly colors.

　　"I don't know," replied Martha, "you haven't used your legs since you were born, and I watched you walk no more than five miles." My cabin is five miles from here. ”

　　"I want to see your cabin."

　　Martha stared at her curiously for a moment, then picked up her polished brush and started grinding the mantelpiece again. She was thinking that the little face of the tablet just now did not look as sour as she had seen the first morning. This face looked a little bit like little Susan. Ann desperately wanted something at the time.

　　"I went to ask my mother," she said, "she's the kind of person who can always find a way out of things." It's time for me to go out today, I'm going home. yes! glad. Mrs. Modlauk misses her mother. Maybe she could talk to her mother. ”

　　"I like your mom." Mary said.

　　"I should have thought you would." Martha agreed, while rubbing.

　　"I've never seen her." Mary said.

　　"Yes, you don't." Martha replied.

　　She sat up again and rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, seemingly confused for a moment, but in the end she was sure.

　　"Well, she's so sensible, diligent, kind, and clean that no one who has seen her or seen her can't help but like her. When it was my turn to go out, I was walking home to see her, and I couldn't help but jump up with joy when I passed Mu'er. ”

　　"I like Deacon," Mary added, "but I've never seen him. ”

　　"Oh," said Martha firmly, "I told you that every bird liked him, and rabbits, wild sheep, and foxes. I was thinking," Martha stared at her thoughtfully, "what would Deacon think of you?"

　　"He's not going to like me," Mary said in her stale and indifferent little look, "and no one will." ”

　　Martha looked thoughtful again.

　　"Do you like yourself?" She asked, as if she really wanted to know.

　　Mary hesitated for a moment, thinking repeatedly.

　　"No—really," she replied, "but I've never thought of that before." ”

　　Martha grinned slightly, as if recalling something homely.

　　"Once my mother said this to me," she said, "she was on the edge of the washbasin, and I was in a bad mood and saying bad things about other people, and she came back to me and said, 'Na little shrew, na!' You just stand there and say you don't like this, you don't like that. Do you like yourself?' It made me laugh and immediately woke me up. ”

She took care of Mary and left after breakfast, in high spirits. She's going to cross five miles of Murr, back to the hut, she's going to wash her mom, she's going to bake the next week's food, she's going to enjoy herself completely.

　　Mary felt even more lonely when she knew she wasn't in the house. She went out as soon as she could get out into the garden, and the first thing she did was run ten laps around the garden with the fountain. She carefully counted the number of laps, and when she finished, she felt better. The sun has changed the whole place. The deep blue sky above the shepherd also arched over The Mister West Manor, and she kept looking up into the depths, imagining what it would be like to lie on those little snow-white clouds. She walked into the first vegetable garden and saw Ji Yuanben and two other gardeners at work. It seems that the weather changes are good for him. He offered to speak to her: "Spring is coming," he said, "you can't smell it?"

　　Mary sniffed, thinking she could smell it.

　　"I smell something, good smelling, fresh, wet." She said.

　　"That's good fertile soil," he replied, digging as he dug, "and it's in a good mood right now, ready to grow something." When the time comes to sow, it is willing in its heart. In the winter it has nothing to do, it is very stuffy. In the garden over there, things under the ground will grow secretly. The sun warmed them up. After a while, you can see some green spikes coming out. ”

　　"What will it be?" Mary asked.

　　"Crocus, snowflakes, (yellow) dry daffodils." Have you ever seen these flowers?"

　　"Nothing. Everything in India is hot and wet, and everywhere after the rain it's green," Mary said, "I thought everything grew out overnight." ”

　　"These flowers don't grow overnight," Ji Yuanben said, "you must wait." They'll poke a little higher here, and a spike will pop up there. You can watch them grow. ”

　　"I will." Mary replied.

　　Soon she heard a weak flapping of wings, and she knew at once that the robin was coming. It was very neat and lively, jumping around next to her feet, tilting its head to the side, looking at her slyly, and she couldn't help but ask Ji Yuanben a question.

　　"Do you think it remembers me?" She said.

　　"Remember you!" Ji Yuanben said indignantly, "It knows every cabbage pile in the garden, not to mention people." It had never seen a little girl here. You don't have to hide anything from it. ”

　　"In the garden where he lives, are things under the ground growing in secret?" Mary asked.

　　"What garden?" Old Ji muttered and became obedient again.

　　"The one with the old rose tree." She couldn't resist asking, because she wanted to know so much. "Are those flowers dead, or will some summers come back to life?" Are there any roses?"

　　"Ask it," Ji Yuanben said, shrugging at the robin, "it is the only 'man' who knows." No one has gone in the last decade. ”

　　Ten years is a long time, Mary thought. She was born ten years ago.

　　She walked away, thinking slowly. She began to like the garden, just as she gradually fell in love with the mockingbird, Deacon, and Martha's mother. She also began to like Martha. It seems that there are better people for her to like — if you're not used to liking people. She felt that the robin was a man. She walked outside the long wall covered with ivy, and over the top of the wall she could see the treetops; When she made her second trip back and forth, an extremely interesting and exciting thing happened, all thanks to Ji Yuanben's robin.

　　She heard a short whistle, a chirp, and looked toward the blank flower bed on the left, which was jumping around, pretending to peck in the soil, persuading her to believe that it was not following her. But she knew it had been following her, and the accident had filled her with joy, and she almost trembled a little.

　　"You really remember me!" She shouted, "You really! You are the most beautiful in the world!"

　　She made short noises, spoke, and teased it, and it jumped, played with its tail, and whimpered. It seems to be talking. Its red vest satin-like, its bulging little breasts, so delicate, so solemn, so beautiful, it seemed to really show how important a mockingbird could be, how much like a person. As it allowed Miss Mary to draw closer and closer to her, Miss Mary forgot her awkward moment and bent down, talking, and the thoughts made a mockingbird-like sound.

　　oh! Think about how it could get her so close! It knew that no reason in the world would make her reach out to it or frighten it. It knows because it's a real person — only kinder than the rest of the world. She was so happy that she could hardly breathe.

　　The flower bed is not completely blank. There were no flowers on it, because the perennial plants had all been cut for the winter, but there were still tall bushes in the flower beds, and as the robin jumped below, she saw it jump over a small pile of freshly turned dirt. It stopped looking for bugs. The soil was turned over because a dog wanted to dig out a mole and scratch a deep pit.

　　Mary went to see it, not quite knowing why there was a pit there. She saw something almost buried in the freshly turned dirt. As if it were a ring of rusty copper and iron, the robin flew up to a nearby tree, and she reached out and picked up the ring. But there wasn't just a ring, it was an old key that seemed to have been buried for a long time.

　　Miss Mary stood up and stared almost with fear at the key hanging from her finger.

　　"Maybe it's been buried for ten years," she whispered, "and maybe it's the key to that garden!"