TSG17

TSG17

We will be looking at Mary's character in comparison with Dickon and Colin.

Open Ended

What has happened in the previous chapters?

Mary's strong character traits

Determined, Curious, Kind, Helpful and full of Perseverance

Chapter

Seventeen A Tantrum

She had got up very early in the morning and had worked hard in the garden and she was tired and sleepy, so as soon as Martha had brought her supper and she had eaten it, she was glad to go to bed. As she laid her head on the pillow she murmured to herself:

“I’ll go out before breakfast and work with Dickon and then afterward—I believe—I’ll go to see him.”

She thought it was the middle of the night when she was awakened by such dreadful sounds that she jumped out of bed in an instant. What was it —what was it? The next minute she felt quite sure she knew. Doors were opened and shut and there were hurrying feet in the corridors and some one was crying and screaming at the same time, screaming and crying in a horrible way.

“It’s Colin,” she said. “He’s having one of those tantrums the nurse called hysterics. How awful it sounds.”

As she listened to the sobbing screams she did not wonder that people were so frightened that they gave him his own way in everything rather than hear them. She put her hands over her ears and felt sick and shivering.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do,” she kept saying. “I can’t bear it.”

Once she wondered if he would stop if she dared go to him and then she remembered how he had driven her out of the room and thought that perhaps the sight of her might make him worse. Even when she pressed her hands more tightly over her ears she could not keep the awful sounds out. She hated them so and was so terrified by them that suddenly they began to make her angry and she felt as if she should like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten him as he was frightening her. She was not used to any one’s tempers but her own. She took her hands from her ears and sprang up and stamped her foot.

“He ought to be stopped! Somebody ought to make him stop!

Somebody ought to beat him!” she cried out.

Mary was tired of Colin's ways. He turned her out of his room today. She flew along the corridor and the nearer she got to the screams the higher her temper mounted. She felt quite wicked by the time she reached the door. She slapped it open with her hand and ran across the room to the four-posted bed. “You stop!” she almost shouted. “You stop! I hate you! Everybody hates you! I wish everybody would run out of the house and let you scream yourself. He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands and he actually almost jumped around, he turned so quickly at the sound of the furious little voice. His face looked dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he was gasping and choking; but savage little Mary did not care an atom. “If you scream another scream,” she said, “I’ll scream too—and I can scream louder than you can and I’ll frighten you, I’ll frighten you!”

He actually had stopped screaming because she had startled him so. The scream which had been coming almost choked him.

The nurse, Mrs. Medlock and Martha had been standing huddled together near the door staring at her, their mouths half open. All three had gasped with fright more than once. The nurse came forward as if she were half afraid. Colin was heaving with great breathless sobs.

“Perhaps he—he won’t let me,” she hesitated in a low voice.

Colin heard her, however, and he gasped out between two sobs:

“Sh-show her! She—she’ll see then!”

It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could be counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not count them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn savage little face. 

Open Ended

Why do you think Colin behaves this way?

She looked so sour and old-fashioned that the nurse turned her head aside to hide the twitching of her mouth. There was just a minute’s silence, for even Colin tried to hold his breath while Mary looked up and down his spine, and down and up, as intently as if she had been the great doctor from London.

“There’s not a single lump there!” she said at last. “There’s not a lump as big as a pin—except backbone lumps, and you can only feel them because you’re thin. I’ve got backbone lumps myself, and they used to stick out as much as yours do, until I began to get fatter, and I am not fat enough yet to hide them. There’s not a lump as big as a pin! If you ever say there is again, I shall laugh!”

“I didn’t know,” ventured the nurse, “that he thought he had a lump on his spine. His back is weak because he won’t try to sit up. I could have told him there was no lump there.”

“Do you think—I could—live to grow up?” he said.

The nurse was neither clever nor soft-hearted but she could repeat some of the London doctor’s words.

“You probably will if you will do what you are told to do and not give way to your temper, and stay out a great deal in the fresh air.”

“I’ll—I’ll go out with you, Mary,” he said. “I shan’t hate fresh air if we can find—” He remembered just in time to stop himself from saying “if we can find the secret garden” and he ended, “I shall like to go out with you if Dickon will come and push my chair. I do so want to see Dickon and the fox and the crow.”

“Would you like me to sing you that song I learned from my Nanny?” Mary whispered to Colin.

“Oh, yes!” he answered. “It’s such a soft song. I shall go to sleep in a minute.”

“I will put him to sleep,” Mary said to the yawning nurse. “You can go if you like.” Well,” said the nurse, with an attempt at reluctance. “If he doesn’t go to sleep in half an hour you must call me.” “Very well,” answered Mary.

The nurse was out of the room in a minute and as soon as she was gone Colin pulled Mary’s hand again. “Oh, Mary!” he said. “Oh, Mary! If I could get into it I think I should live to grow up! Do you suppose that instead of singing the Nanny song— you could just tell me softly as you did that first day what you imagine it looks like inside? I am sure it will make me go to sleep.”

Poll

Who do you think is your favourite character?

• Dickon

• Mary

• Colin

He closed his eyes and lay quite still and she held his hand and began to speak very slowly and in a very low voice.

“I think it has been left alone so long—that it has grown all into a lovely tangle. I think the roses have climbed and climbed and climbed until they hang from the branches and walls and creep over the ground—almost like a strange gray mist. Some of them have died but many—are alive and when the summer comes there will be curtains and fountains of roses. I think the ground is full of daffodils and snowdrops and lilies and iris working their way out of the dark. Now the spring has begun—perhaps—perhaps—

” “Perhaps they are coming up through the grass—perhaps there are clusters of purple crocuses and gold ones—even now. Perhaps the leaves are beginning to break out and uncurl—and perhaps—the gray is changing and a green gauze veil is creeping—and creeping over—everything. And the birds are coming to look at it—because it is—so safe and still. And perhaps—perhaps—perhaps—” very softly and slowly indeed, “

Colin was asleep.

Open Ended

How is Dickon different from Colin?

Open Ended

How are Colin and Mary alike?