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Copywork
About This Passage
Burnett's comedy depends on secrecy: Colin and Mary must look unwell in front of the doctor to keep the surprise for Mr. Craven, yet their bodies are changing so fast that hiding the change becomes its own elaborate performance. The real engine of the recovery is not the chanting and not even the garden's beauty — it is Mrs. Sowerby's basket. The one-Magic theology from the last chapter is now answered, very practically, by one woman's kindness and twelve children's breakfast table stretched to fit two more.
From that time the exercises were part of the day’s duties as much as the Magic was. It became possible for both Colin and Mary to do more of them each time they tried, and such appetites were the res...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 24 as the chapter where the grown-ups in the house first start to notice that something has changed about Colin and Mary — and cannot quite figure out what. Begin with Dickon's work in his mother's cottage garden, move to Mrs. Sowerby's quiet decision to send milk and fresh buns up to Misselthwaite every morning so Colin won't look too hungry, then Dickon building the little stone oven, then Colin and Mary working out how to push food away at the house, then Dr. Craven's puzzled visit, and end with his tired 'Let them laugh.'
Discussion Questions
- Mrs. Sowerby has never met Colin but she understands — just from Dickon's stories — exactly what kind of food a growing, recovering boy needs. What in Mrs. Sowerby's way of sending the basket (plain food, no notes, no fuss) makes you think she is being careful not to embarrass Colin with a gift that looks too much like charity?
- Dr. Craven tells Colin, 'You will lose all you have gained — and you have gained amazingly.' Colin answers, 'I told you it was an unnatural appetite.' How do you know Colin is secretly enjoying the game of pretending — and how can you tell Burnett wants the reader to laugh along with him rather than feel uncomfortable about the lying?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A small, simple country house, often made of stone, where a working family lives; Dickon works his mother's cottage garden on the moor, growing potatoes and cabbages for his eleven brothers and sisters
Item 2
The feeling of being hungry and wanting to eat; Colin tells Dr. Craven his appetite is 'unnatural,' but what is really unnatural is that Colin has been eating two enormous breakfasts every morning and then has to pretend at dinner that he has no appetite at all
Item 3
Not the way things usually are in nature; strange, odd, or uncomfortable; Colin calls his appetite unnatural as a joke — he means the grown-ups will think it unnatural, because a boy who is supposed to be dying should not suddenly want three breakfasts
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Critical Thinking
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