The secret garden

38 THE SECRET GARDENbrothers and sisters who had never dreamed ofdoing anything but waiting on themselves and onthe younger ones who were either babies in armsor just learning to totter about and tumble overthings.If Mary Lennox had been a child wT ho was readyto be amused she would perhaps have laughed atMartha's readiness to talk, but Mary only listenedto her coldly and wondered at her freedom ofmanner. At first she was not at all interested, butgradually, as the girl rattled on in her good-tempered,homely way, Mary began to notice what shewas saying.'Eh! you should see 'em all," she said." There's twelve of us an' my father only getssixteen shilling a week. I can tell you my mother'sput to it to get porridge for 'em all.They tumbleabout on th' moor an' play there all day an'mother says th' air of th' moor fattens 'em. Shesays she believes they eat th' grass same as th'wild ponies do. Our Dickon, he's twelve yearsold and he's got a young pony he calls hisown.'Where did he get it? " asked Mary.'He found it on th' moor with its mother whenit was a little one an' he began to make friendswith it an' give it bits o' bread an' pluck younggrass for And it. it got to like him so it follows