The Secret Garden — Chapter 11

About This Passage

Burnett compresses what could have been pages of description into a single working rhythm — Dickon cutting, Mary learning to read the wood, the spade and hoe and fork being put to use, the two of them settling into shared labor around a standard rose. Copy the passage and notice how the prose itself accelerates with their competence, until the exclamation of surprise interrupts.

Narration Prompt

In a short paragraph, retell the narrative arc of Chapter 11 — from Dickon's first cautious steps inside the garden, through the work and conversation, the nursery-rhyme confession, Mary's Yorkshire question, and Dickon's pinned picture message — and identify which moment you think is the chapter's true climax.

Discussion Questions

1. Dickon tells Mary, 'seems like some one besides th' robin must have been in it since it was shut up ten year' ago.' Given what Ben Weatherstaff said in Chapter 10 about pruning the roses once or twice a year, how does Burnett use Dickon's observation to reopen a question the reader was meant to have answered, and why does she refuse to confirm it here?
2. When Mary asks Dickon in Yorkshire, 'Does tha' like me?' and he answers heartily, 'I likes thee wonderful,' Burnett has Mary count this as 'two for me.' Evaluate the moral significance of Mary's reliance on a concrete count — five people, then two for her. What does the habit of counting reveal about what a child who has been unloved takes as evidence?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide