Camp Hain

003 Unlocking The Secret Garden - Chapters 6-10 Summary

• Tia Hain • Season 1 • Episode 3

Share episode

The Secret Garden Chapters 6-10 Summary

In this episode, Tia Hain of Camp Hain provides a detailed summary of chapters 6 through 10 of 'The Secret Garden'. Mary, who has lived a lonely life without friends, starts changing after moving to Misselthwaite Manor. The story covers her explorations within the manor, her curiosity about the gardens, and her interactions with characters like Martha, Ben Weatherstaff, and especially Dickon, as well as the discovery of the key to the secret garden. Tia also touches upon resources like 'Lost Tools of Writing' for homeschoolers and gives a nod to 'Internet Grandpa' for full readings of the book. This podcast is ideal for those following the Classical Conversations curriculum and looking for writing ideas.

Internet Grandpa - The Secret Garden
Chapter 6 - https://youtu.be/06ayf9DEEYk?si=2qr4LRF6-_UCsckD
Chapter 7 - https://youtu.be/llxw6-DwoDE?si=umDiah2GakpfNIhk
Chapter 8 - https://youtu.be/C03Tnvkjhw4?si=OW52vFyyHNs0duS_
Chapter 9 - https://youtu.be/m3ExSkpwIYQ?si=J4g_BoiKsBIG2VsV
Chapter 10 - https://youtu.be/AisyW_jIIrs?si=omhCXWFlR0TEGmGa

00:00 Introduction: The Importance of Friendship
00:44 Welcome to Camp Hain
01:28 Summary of The Secret Garden: Chapters 6-10
03:04 Chapter 6: There Was Someone Crying - There Was!
05:41 Chapter 7: The Key of the Garden
09:01 Chapter 8: The Robin Who Showed the Way
12:05 Chapter 9: The Strangest House Anyone Ever Lived In
15:17 Chapter 10: Dickon
17:40 Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

003 Unlocking The Secret Garden: Chapters 6-10 Summary

[00:00:00] 

[00:00:00] Introduction: The Importance of Friendship

[00:00:00] Friends, what would it be like if you didn't have any friends? It'd be pretty sad, huh? But what if you had never had any friends in your life? It was just your normal. Maybe not as sad, but what if you actually started making friends after living like that for almost 10 years? How wonderful would that be?

[00:00:22] That is what happens to Mary in The Secret Garden. After living her whole life never knowing what a friend is. All that begins to change when she moves to Misselthwaite Manor. She has to do some work on herself, but it seems worth it to Mary. Let's find out what happens as we summarize chapters 6 through 10 of The Secret Garden.

[00:00:44] Welcome to Camp Hain

[00:00:44] But first, welcome to Camp Hain, the adventures of a Catholic family that homeschools, public schools, online schools, and has one super obsessed with baseball kid. Currently, I, Tia Hain, am a Classical Conversations Challenge A Director. So a [00:01:00] lot of this podcast is related to that for now. I also post videos about math, mostly algebra since I tutor and our life.

[00:01:07] The videos are for when you're on YouTube. We love our adventures, so come along for the ride and click the subscribe button if you are a homeschooler or are thinking about homeschooling, or even if this content just interests you. And if you are on YouTube, give this video a like to help with the algorithm.

[00:01:23] There have said all the obligatory things. Now let's move on to the content.

[00:01:28] Summary of The Secret Garden: Chapters 6-10

[00:01:28] So in today's episode, I'm going to be summarizing The Secret Garden chapters six through ten. And if you haven't listened to the previous episode in which I summarized chapters one through five, just to let you know, the next few episodes are going to be about finishing summarizing the whole book.

[00:01:44] I'm not going to be reading the book. Internet Grandpa has read the book. You can find him on YouTube, so you can listen to him actually read it. I will link to his videos in the description. And then I'm also going to be going over [00:02:00] issues and ANI chart ideas, which is from the Lost Tools of Writing program.

[00:02:06] I'm going to be doing that when I finish summarizing the whole book. This is based off of people that are in Classical Conversations and doing Challenge A. They are reading The Secret Garden and then they have to do Issues and ANI Chart. I explained that in my previous two chapters, and I will go more in depth in that if you are interested in a writing curriculum for your students.

[00:02:28] Lost Tools of Writing is a great one. I highly recommend it. I will be going over Lost Tools of Writing more in depth in the very last episode I do. of summarizing The Secret Garden and then I'll probably make a separate episode just all about it anyway just to let you guys know about it but for those that are reading The Secret Garden and need a little help with issue ideas and ANI chart ideas which ANI stands for affirmative negative and interesting it's to help you get ideas for writing then make sure you catch the last episode of this which will be summarizing chapters [00:03:00] 26 and 27 and going over that

[00:03:02] Okay, so now into the book. 

[00:03:04] Chapter 6: The Mysterious Cry

[00:03:04] Chapter six. There was someone crying. There was. It's the next day after chapter five and it's too stormy to go out. So Mary's inside her room talking with Martha. She asked her what her siblings do when the weather is like this. Now we have been introduced to the idea of Dickon.

[00:03:28] We haven't actually met him yet, but Martha has talked about him. So Dickon's, her 12 year old brother. Martha says that Dickon just goes out anyway. He doesn't care what the weather's like. Martha tells about when he found a half drowned fox cub and brought it home. We later learn that the cub's name is Captain, because we will actually meet Captain later on.

[00:03:50] And then she talks about another time when he found a half drowned crow and brought it home and his name is soot. We will also meet soot [00:04:00] later. Mary likes hearing about Mother and Dickon so when Martha's talking to her she talks about her siblings her mother and especially Dickon So Mary really likes hearing about mother and Dickon remember Mary really hasn't had a mother her whole life Mary finds out that there is a library in the house And so she makes up her mind to go find it this got Mary thinking about the hundred rooms That are in this house and she wants to go exploring so she wandered but didn't try any of the doors at first Until she was on the second floor and then she gets the idea to go ahead and start trying the doors and at first They're all locked But then some of them open and the ones that open she goes in and she finds a lot of old furniture and tapestries hanging on the wall.

[00:04:48] And then she found one room that had these small ivory sculptures in it, and so she decides to play with those for a while, and then she makes sure she puts them back exactly how she found them. And then she also sees a small [00:05:00] family of mice living in a sofa cushion in this room, because nobody goes in there.

[00:05:04] Then she gets tired, and then she wanders back to her room, or her rooms, I guess technically she has two rooms. But then she hears the cry again. And then, as she's walking back She's hearing the cry and she leans on a tapestry in the hall and a door opens behind it. So like she's leaning on the wall.

[00:05:26] There's a tapestry there and then all of a sudden a door opens and she looks through the door and she sees Mrs. Medlock coming down the corridor on the other side and then Mrs. Medlock says that there was nothing and she forces Mary to go back to her room. And then that's the end of chapter 6. 

[00:05:41] Chapter 7: The Key to the Garden

[00:05:41] Okay, chapter 7, the key of the garden.

[00:05:45] So I bet you can't guess what happens in this chapter. Yeah, she finds the key. Okay, so it's two days later, the storm finally ends, and there's blue sky, and Mary has never seen a sky like this. So she said in India, it's always hot [00:06:00] and blazing instead of cool and blue. Mary is talking with Martha again, because remember Martha is basically, she's not her servant, but she's always there in her room.

[00:06:08] So she's cleaning out her fireplace, and she's bringing her food, so she does those kinds of things for her as a servant in the house, and she is always there with Mary. Mary asks her what she's saying, because Martha speaks Yorkshire most of the time and she can't understand her. And so one of the things she says is, Nowt o' th' sort, and then it's spelled N O W T O apostrophe T H apostrophe S O A R T.

[00:06:38] So she's what does that mean? And then Martha says, Oh, it actually means nothing of the sort. But they can say it faster. So instead of saying nothing of the sort, they say Nowt o' th' sort. And people are supposed to know that's what that means. And Martha says, it takes too long to say it the other way.

[00:06:56] And then Martha describes Yorkshire and how [00:07:00] it's blooming right now, how all the flowers are blooming and stuff is coming up out of the ground. And then Mary starts to wonder if she could actually go visit Martha's house or the cottage is what they call it. Martha tells her it's about five miles away, but she'll talk to her mother about Mary coming out to visit.

[00:07:20] She says today is her day out. So she gets one day off a month from working at the manor. And technically she doesn't even get a full day because she's still in Mary's room right now, cleaning out her fireplace and getting everything ready. And then she's going to walk home and have the rest of the day to spend at home with her family.

[00:07:39] And then she comes back in the morning and then starts her month all over again. And then Mary talks about wanting to meet Mother and Dickon. And then Martha leaves, so she's done for the day. So Mary doesn't have anything to do, so she goes outside and she runs into Ben Weatherstaff again. He's telling her how things grow when the Robin [00:08:00] comes.

[00:08:00] He's talking to her about how things are growing. And then the Robin comes by to visit. And it gets Mary wondering about things growing in the garden, the secret one that everybody's been talking about. Or not everybody's been talking about. They're trying to not talk about it. The book tells us that Mary's beginning to like the garden, like she likes the robin and Dickon and Martha's mother.

[00:08:23] And Mary isn't used to liking things or people. The robin is scratching at the ground where a dog has been digging things up. So at this point. Ben Weatherstaff has already moved on and it's just Mary there and she's hanging out with a robin and the robin starts scratching at the ground where a dog has dug up some, just some stuff.

[00:08:46] You know how dogs dig things up. And so Mary looks down and she sees something in the turned up soil because the robin scratching there catches her attention. And funnily enough, it's an old key.

[00:08:59] Okay, so [00:09:00] now we're on to chapter eight. 

[00:09:01] Chapter 8: The Robin Who Showed the Way

[00:09:01] This one's titled The Robin Who Showed the Way. So now Mary's got the key, but if only she could find the door that the key goes to. She really liked the idea of being alone in the garden and no one knowing where she was. So Mary puts the key in her pocket and goes into the house.

[00:09:19] She says she will always carry, or she thinks, she will always carry it with her until she finds the door. Now, when Mary gets up the next morning, Martha is there with stories of her day at home. See, she told you, she doesn't even get a full day off. She's already there when Mary wakes up the next morning.

[00:09:35] At this point, Mary's been there for a while, probably, I would say a week or so. And, she's been talking with Martha and so she tells her a lot of stories about India. When Martha goes home, she tells her family all these stories about Mary, as well as the stories about her there.

[00:09:51] And then she brought a present for Mary from home, and it's a skipping rope. So Martha's mother learned all about Mary, [00:10:00] and so she decided to go buy a skipping rope. I believe somebody was just coming around selling different things, and they had a skipping rope. And, technically, when Martha goes home, she gives her wages to her mom to help support her family.

[00:10:15] So that's what she's working for. And mother used Martha's wages. to buy the skipping rope. So that's technically it. Okay. So now back to the skipping rope. Mary has never seen a skipping rope before. So a jump rope as we would call it here in America. I don't know if it's called the skipping rope, like over in England or something, because that's where this story takes place.

[00:10:37] If it's still called that, but we usually just call it a jump rope now. And so Martha demonstrates how to use the rope. And then Mary tries it, and of course, she's not very good at it, because it takes practice to get using that. Martha told Mary that her mother said she needed to be outdoors as much as possible.

[00:10:57] Mary realized that it was Martha's [00:11:00] wages that bought the rope, so she thanked her. Now Mary isn't used to that, so this just pops into her head, Mary's softening up as she's here, And talking with Martha and Ben Weatherstaff a little bit and hanging out outside and with the robin. And then Mary went outside and she skipped rope everywhere.

[00:11:19] She loved the skipping rope. She was trying to practice it. And then she runs into the robin while she's outside doing that. So she says to the robin, Since you showed me where the key is, you should show me where the door is. And right at that moment, the robin flies up on top of the wall. And is basically hanging out on top of that wall that goes around where she knows the garden is.

[00:11:45] And just then a gust of wind comes by and blows the ivy covering an area of the wall under where the robin is. And there's the door. Mary tries the key and it works. So she [00:12:00] slips inside and shuts the door. And now she's in The Secret Garden. 

[00:12:05] Chapter 9: Exploring The Secret Garden

[00:12:05] And now we're on to chapter nine, the strangest house anyone ever lived in.

[00:12:11] And now Mary's in the garden. She sees trees everywhere and roses climbing all over them. There's no leaves or flowers on them yet because remember this is extremely early spring is when this is taking place. Everything is really still. She wanders around the garden hoping things aren't dead, but she doesn't know.

[00:12:32] She doesn't know how gardens work. Then she skips around on her skipping rope, stopping to look at trees. the things that are in the garden that she can see. So she stops and looks at everything. Then as she's looking, she sees some green things starting to poke up through the earth, probably crocuses or snowdrops or daffodils.

[00:12:50] That's the What the gardeners have been telling her will start coming up first. And then, after seeing some areas with weeds and grass, thick but [00:13:00] green things poking through, she decides to find a sharp piece of wood to dig out the weeds and grass so the flowers can grow. She did this until she had to go to her midday dinner, is what they call it, lunch for the rest of us.

[00:13:13] She'd been there for two to three hours doing this. Martha is pleased by how much Mary eats since she's worked up an appetite. So she worked up this appetite working in the garden, and when she comes back, she devours her food. And she's just, she hasn't been doing this before, but every day she comes in, she wants to eat more and more and more.

[00:13:34] Mary asks Martha about a white onion looking thing she accidentally dug up. She doesn't tell her it was in The Secret Garden, of course. But she asked her about it. And then Martha tells her that's what's called a bulb and how they come back year after year after year, and they spread throughout an area.

[00:13:54] So Mary gets the idea that she wants a little spade to start digging in her garden. [00:14:00] Mrs. Medlock gives Mary a shilling every week, but she has nothing to spend it on. So Mr. Craven has told Mrs. Medlock to make sure she gets a shilling every week to spend, but she's got nothing to spend on. She doesn't go anywhere.

[00:14:11] So Martha gets the idea to write a letter to Dickon. Send him some money and a list to get stuff for Mary to dig and plant. Now Martha at this point is thinking that she's just got an area of the grounds a little piece of earth that she could use But she doesn't know that she's in The Secret Garden. So Mary gets excited about meeting and seeing Dickon because she's heard all this story So when he's gonna come and bring all the stuff then obviously he's gonna be there So that means Mary gets to finally meet him Then Martha remembers she asked her mother about Mary going to the cottage.

[00:14:45] Mother said that she would go ahead and talk with Mrs. Medlock about Mary going out to visit. Now while waiting for Martha to come back with some tea, Mary goes out into the corridor and she hears the crying again. But there's no wind this [00:15:00] time. She asks Martha about it when she gets back. So when Martha comes back with her tea, Mary asks Martha about it.

[00:15:08] But she can't answer and runs off to an imaginary bell, supposedly rung by Mrs. Medlock. And that's the end of the chapter.

[00:15:17] Chapter 10: Meeting Dickon

[00:15:17] Now we're at chapter 10, the last chapter for this episode, and it's called Dickon. Mary starts calling it The Secret Garden when she thinks about it, hence the title, and then Mary starts to enjoy being outdoors. At one point she's sneaking up on Ben Weatherstaff, and Mary sneaks up on him because she's afraid he will go away if he sees her coming.

[00:15:42] But Ben is actually starting to enjoy her company a bit more now. People, including Mary, comment that she is getting fatter, which is a good thing, because before she was sickly and yellow and thin. And then while she's with Ben, the robin shows up. So Mary asks Ben about what he would plant [00:16:00] if he had a garden.

[00:16:01] So they get to talking about roses, and Mary asks a lot of questions. Ben gets cross all of a sudden, tells her to go play, so she skips rope away. " You're asking too many questions. I gotta go do my work." So she gets to the gate that leads to the wood and there is a boy sitting there under a tree.

[00:16:21] And he's playing a wooden pipe and the animals are all gathering around him. He tells Mary to be still, and she is. Then he slowly gets up and the animals go on their way. And of course that boy introduces himself as Dickon and he brought the gardening tools and the seeds that Mary had asked for before because she had sent a letter through Martha to, actually, Martha and Mary wrote the letter and had it sent to Dickon with one of the people that were heading into town.

[00:16:52] So Mary wants to look at the seeds, she's all excited, and then the robin comes by and calls to them. So Dickon goes to the [00:17:00] bush where the robin is, slowly, and calls back. Dickon tells Mary that the robin considers her a friend, or he wouldn't be there. They go back to the seeds, and Dickon asks where her garden is.

[00:17:12] She asks him if he can keep a secret. And so she tells him about her secret garden, and then she takes him there. And, by the way, Dickon also speaks Yorkshire, and Mary really likes it. She's really getting to like people talking Yorkshire. And this will come up later. And now we're at the end of chapter 10, and you'll have to wait till the next episode to find out about what happens when they go into the garden.

[00:17:40] Conclusion and Next Episode Preview

[00:17:40] So if you like this episode, give it a thumbs up, let that algorithm work, and then I can make more. And subscribe if you want to listen to more. Next episode will be chapters 11 through 15. So until next time!