"In the Garden"
- The narrator jumps in to tell us that thoughts have a huge amount of power—let a bad thought get stuck in your head, and it's as dangerous as poison.
- Both Mary and Colin began to improve when their selfish, dark thoughts were replaced with positive thinking.
- Meanwhile, as these two have been improving their minds in the Secret Garden, Mr. Craven has been wandering around Europe.
- He has seen many beautiful places, but none of these regions have made any difference to his deep sadness.
- Yet suddenly—at just the same time that Colin is shouting, "I am going to live forever and ever and ever!" (27.10) back in the Secret Garden—Mr. Craven begins to feel some burden lifting from him.
- One night, as he is dreaming, he hears the voice of his wife calling him from the garden.
- That day, he gets a letter from Mrs. Sowerby saying that his wife would want to come home.
- So Mr. Craven travels back to Misselthwaite Manor right away.
- All of this time, Mr. Craven has been thinking (based on what Dr. Craven and Mrs. Medlock have been telling him) that Colin is basically a vicious brat, "so like and yet so horribly unlike" (27.29) his dead wife.
- When he arrives at the Manor, he sends for Mrs. Medlock and asks how Colin is.
- Mrs. Medlock's report is so confused that Mr. Craven thinks Colin has become worse.
- But as soon as Mr. Craven hears that Colin is in the garden, he walks out there immediately.
- He hears the sound of running feet and laughing children, and he thinks that he is in a dream as a tall boy runs through the door of the "locked" garden.
- Of course, it's Colin—he's just beaten Mary in a race.
- Colin leads Mr. Craven into the Secret Garden and tells his father everything that's been happening.
- And as Mr. Craven and Colin walk back to the house, Colin finally gives up his wheelchair to show that he can walk as well as any kid in Yorkshire.