Skipping Rope
The skipping rope is a humble but pivotal object in The Secret Garden, a gift that arrives at precisely the moment Mary Lennox most needs a bridge between her isolated, contrary self and the living world around her. Bought for tuppence by Susan Sowerby from a peddler crossing the moor, and delivered by Martha as a present from the crowded cottage, the rope is not merely a toy but an instrument of physical and emotional transformation. It is the first thing Mary has ever received that was chosen for her with genuine, unsentimental kindness, and it sets in motion a chain of events that will alter her entire existence.
The Gift and Its Origins
The skipping rope enters Mary's life through an act of maternal generosity born of poverty. Martha Sowerby, the young housemaid, brings it to Mary one morning, explaining that her mother bought it from a traveling peddler who stopped at their cottage door. Susan Sowerby, with twelve children and a husband earning only sixteen shillings a week, had no money to spare, but when her daughter Elizabeth Ellen spotted the rope with its red and blue handles, the mother fumbled in her pocket and took tuppence from Martha's wages to buy it. Martha presents it proudly, and Mary, who has never seen a skipping rope before, gazes at it with a mystified expression, asking, "What is it for?" Martha demonstrates by skipping to a hundred in the middle of the nursery, while the queer faces in the old portraits seem to stare in wonder at the common little cottager's impudence. Mary, beginning to feel excited herself, asks if she could ever skip like that, and Martha urges her to try, repeating her mother's conviction that nothing would do Mary more good than skipping rope—that it is the most sensible toy a child can have, stretching her legs and arms and giving her strength.
Physical Transformation and Newfound Strength
Mary's first attempts at skipping reveal how profoundly neglected her body has been. She is not very clever at it, and there is plainly not a great deal of strength in her arms and legs, but she likes it so much that she does not want to stop. Martha instructs her to put on her things and run outside to skip, and Mary obeys, taking the rope over her arm. Out in the gardens, she counts and skips, and skips and counts, until her cheeks turn red—a color she has never worn before. She skips round the fountain garden, up one walk and down another, and finally into the kitchen-garden, where Ben Weatherstaff sees her and exclaims that she has "skipped red into thy cheeks as sure as my name's Ben Weatherstaff." He tells her she shapes well enough at it for a young one that has lived with heathen, and points out that the robin is watching her with curiosity, having never seen a skipping rope before. Mary skips round all the gardens and the orchard, resting every few minutes, and at length she goes to her own special walk outside the long ivy-covered wall, determined to try to skip the whole length of it. It is a good long skip, and though she grows hot and breathless and must stop before halfway, she has counted up to thirty and stops with a little laugh of pleasure.
The Discovery of the Door
It is during this skipping session that the rope leads Mary directly to the secret garden's hidden entrance. As she skips toward the robin, who has followed her and now sways on a long branch of ivy, she feels something heavy in her pocket strike against her at each jump—the key she found earlier, buried in the freshly turned earth. She laughs and speaks to the robin, saying, "You showed me where the key was yesterday. You ought to show me the door today." Almost immediately, a gust of wind, stronger than the rest, swings aside some loose ivy trails, and Mary sees a round knob beneath them—the knob of a door. She puts her hands under the leaves, pulls and pushes them aside, and finds the lock. Her heart begins to thump and her hands shake with delight and excitement. She draws the key from her pocket, fits it into the keyhole, and turns it with both hands. Then, after looking behind her to see if anyone is coming, she holds back the swinging curtain of ivy and pushes open the door that has been closed for ten years. She slips through, shuts it behind her, and stands with her back against it, breathing fast with excitement, wonder, and delight, inside the secret garden.
A Symbol of Health and Joy
The skipping rope becomes a recurring emblem of Mary's transformation. After her first day of work in the garden, she returns to the house with such red cheeks and bright eyes that Martha is delighted, exclaiming that her mother will be pleased when she hears what the skipping rope has done for her. Mary's appetite grows, her stockings grow tighter as her legs fill out, and her once limp, stringy hair begins to thicken and show life. The rope is not merely a tool for exercise; it is the physical manifestation of the moor air, the sunshine, and the purposeful activity that are remaking her. When she later tells Colin about her skipping, and when she skips round the secret garden itself, the rope ties her new vitality to the garden's own resurrection. It is the simplest of objects—a strong, slender rope with striped red and blue handles—but it carries the weight of a child's first encounter with health, friendship, and the discovery of a world that wants her in it.
