s 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 any one 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.

"All a chap's got to do to make 'em thrive, mother," he would say, "is
to be friends with 'em for sure. They're just like th' 'creatures.' If
they're thirsty give 'em a drink and if they're hungry give 'em a bit o'
food. They want to live same as we do. If they died I should feel as if
I'd been a bad lad and somehow treated them heartless."

It was in these twilight hours that Mrs. Sowerby heard of all that
happened at Misselthwaite Manor. At first she was only told that
"Mester Colin" had taken a fancy to going out into the grounds with
Miss Mary and that it was doing him good. But it was not long before it
was agreed between the two children that Dickon's mother might "come
into the secret." Somehow it was not doubted that she was "safe for
sure."

So one beautiful still evening Dickon told the whole story, with all the
thrilling details of the buried key and the robin and the gray haze
which had seemed like deadness and the secret Mistress Mary had planned
never to reveal. The coming of Dickon and how it had been told to him,
the doubt o