Colin's tantrum and Mary's intervention

Colin's tantrum and Mary's intervention marks the first time anyone has dared to directly oppose Colin Craven's hysterical outbursts, and it becomes the turning point that begins to dismantle the ten-year structure of fear, indulgence, and self-fulfilling illness that has defined his life. The event is triggered when Colin, after a day of waiting for Mary who stayed late working in the secret garden with Dickon Sowerby, works himself into a state of such extreme agitation that the entire household is thrown into alarm. The nurse, Mrs. Medlock, and Martha Sowerby all prove powerless to stop him, and in their desperation they turn to the one person they believe might match his intensity: Mary Lennox.

The Hysterical Fit and the Household's Panic

Mary is awakened in what she thinks is the middle of the night by dreadful sounds that make her jump out of bed instantly. Doors are opened and shut, hurrying feet sound in the corridors, and someone is crying and screaming at the same time in a horrible way. Mary immediately recognizes it as Colin having one of the tantrums the nurse called hysterics, and she finds the sound so awful that she puts her hands over her ears, feeling sick and shivering. She wonders if he would stop if she dared go to him, but remembers how he had driven her out of the room that morning and fears the sight of her might make him worse. Even pressing her hands more tightly over her ears cannot keep the awful sounds out. She hates them so much and is so terrified by them that suddenly they begin to make her angry, and she feels as if she should like to fly into a tantrum herself and frighten him as he is frightening her. She stamps her foot and cries out that somebody ought to stop him, that somebody ought to beat him. Just then she hears feet almost running down the corridor, her door opens, and the nurse comes in, no longer laughing but looking rather pale. The nurse tells her in a great hurry that Colin has worked himself into hysterics and will do himself harm, that no one can do anything with him, and that Mary must come and try because he likes her. Mary stamps her foot with excitement and says he turned her out of the room that morning, but the nurse, pleased to see Mary in the right humor, urges her to go and scold him, to give him something new to think of.

Mary's Confrontation and the Power of Contradiction

Mary flies along the corridor, her temper mounting higher with every step the nearer she gets to the screams. She feels quite wicked by the time she reaches the door, slaps it open with her hand, and runs across the room to the four-posted bed. She almost shouts at him to stop, declaring that she hates him, that everybody hates him, and that she wishes everybody would run out of the house and let him scream himself to death. She tells him he will scream himself to death in a minute and that she wishes he would. The shock of hearing these furious, unsympathetic words is the best possible thing for this hysterical boy whom no one has ever dared to restrain or contradict. He had been lying on his face beating his pillow with his hands, and he almost jumps around, turning so quickly at the sound of the furious little voice. His face looks dreadful, white and red and swollen, and he is gasping and choking, but savage little Mary does not care an atom. She threatens to scream louder than he can and to frighten him. He actually stops screaming because she has startled him so; the scream that had been coming almost chokes him. Tears stream down his face and he shakes all over, gasping and sobbing that he cannot stop. Mary shouts back that half what ails him is hysterics and temper, stamping each time she says the word. Colin chokes out that he felt the lump, that he knew he should, that he shall have a hunch on his back and then die, and he begins to writhe again and sob and wail, though he does not scream.

The Examination and the Revelation

Mary fiercely contradicts him, insisting that if he felt a lump it was only a hysterical lump, that hysterics makes lumps, and that there is nothing the matter with his horrid back but hysterics. She commands him to turn over and let her look at it, and then orders the nurse to come and show her his back that minute. The nurse, Mrs. Medlock, and Martha have been standing huddled together near the door, their mouths half open, all three having gasped with fright more than once. The nurse comes forward as if half afraid, but Colin, between sobs, gasps out that she should show her, that she will see then. When his back is bared, it is a poor thin back; every rib can be counted and every joint of the spine. Mary bends over and examines them with a solemn, savage little face, looking up and down his spine as intently as if she had been the great doctor from London. She announces that there is not a single lump there, not a lump as big as a pin, except backbone lumps which you can only feel because he is thin. She tells him she has backbone lumps herself that used to stick out as much as his do until she began to get fatter, and that if he ever says there is a lump again she shall laugh. No one but Colin himself knows what effect these crossly spoken childish words have on him. For years he has lain and thought of himself and his aches and weariness, and now an angry, unsympathetic little girl insists obstinately that he is not as ill as he thinks he is, and he actually feels as if she might be speaking the truth. The nurse admits she could have told him there was no lump there, and Colin, gulping, asks pathetically if she could. He turns on his face again, and though great tears stream down his face and wet the pillow, the tears mean that a curious great relief has come to him. Presently he turns and asks the nurse if she thinks he could live to grow up, and she repeats the London doctor's words: he probably will if he does what he is told and stays out in the fresh air.

Reconciliation and the Promise of the Garden

Colin's tantrum has passed, and he is weak and worn out with crying. He puts out his hand a little toward Mary, and she, her own temper having passed, is softened too and meets him halfway with her hand, so that it is a sort of making up. He tells her he will go out with her, that he shan't hate fresh air if they can find—and he stops himself just in time from saying "if we can find the secret garden"—and ends by saying he shall like to go out with her if Dickon will come and push his chair, that he does so want to see Dickon and the fox and the crow. The nurse remakes the bed, makes Colin a cup of beef tea, and gives a cup to Mary. When the nurse suggests that Mary must go back to sleep, Colin asks Mary to sing him the song she learned from her Ayah, and she agrees. The nurse leaves, and Colin, pulling Mary's hand, admits he almost told the secret but stopped himself in time. He asks if she has found out anything at all about the way into the secret garden, and Mary, her heart relenting, answers that she thinks she has, and that if he will go to sleep she will tell him tomorrow. His hand trembles as he says that if he could get into it he thinks he should live to grow up. He asks her to tell him softly what she imagines it looks like inside, and Mary, holding his hand, begins to speak very slowly and in a very low voice about the lovely tangle, the roses climbing and hanging, the daffodils and snowdrops working their way out of the dark, the clusters of purple and gold crocuses, the leaves beginning to break out and uncurl, the gray changing into a green gauze veil creeping over everything, and the robin building a nest. And Colin is asleep.