* When Mary first sees Dickon spying on her, she chases him but he … One day she encounters Dickon, and he begins helping her in the secret garden. Dickon, brother of a housemaid, tells her of the garden behind the wall. When she's finally introduced to her uncle, Mary is apprehensive, knowing he was responsible for locking up the secret garden. Mary finds the door to the secret garden one day when the wind blew the plants away from the door and she could see it. When Martha first mentions Dickon to Mary, she tells Mary that "th' very birds likes him an' th' rabbits an' wild sheep an' ponies, an' th' foxes themselves" (7.22). Mary needs to know if Dickon can keep secrets before showing him the garden. Mary understands what Dickon means: He's going to keep her garden a secret, the same way he … Dickon may not be as central a figure in The Secret Garden as either Mary or Colin, but he's at the novel's emotional heart. Mary later uncovers the source of the strange sounds she has been hearing in the mansion: they are the cries of her supposedly sick and crippled 10-year-old cousin, her uncle’s son Colin, who has been confined to the house and tended to by servants. To prevent this she runs away from her schooling in London to join the war effort. Inside the garden she finds Dickon working, and he says that he woke up early and ran all the way here.... (full context) Together, Martha and Mary draft a letter to Dickon and enclose money so that he can purchase tools and seeds for Mary to start her own garden, which she decides to call the secret garden. The Secret Garden (1909) is one of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s most popular novels.The book tells the story of Mary Lennox, a spoiled, contrary, solitary child raised in India but sent to live in her uncle’s manor in Yorkshire after her parents' death. Her thoughts linger on her boys, Colin at school and Dickon called up to war himself and her secret garden. The two gradually become friends as Mary tells him about his mother's garden and how she and Dickon have been restoring it. Mrs Medlock takes Mary to see Mr Craven and Mary asks for a small part of the gardens to plant seeds and grow things. Once there, she begins to explore her new, seemingly-isolated surroundings, and its secrets. Her, Collin, and Dickon still take care of the garden and Mary and Dickon name their son Ben. An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works A young, recently-orphaned girl is sent to England after living in India all of her life. When she's finally introduced to her uncle, Mary is apprehensive, knowing he was responsible for locking up the secret garden. It seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. Read an in-depth analysis of Colin Craven. Directed by Agnieszka Holland. The garden had been closed for ten years before Mary found it. The Secret Garden was what Mary called it when she was thinking of it.