Mary was eleven when she stamped her foot, looked at her guardian Archibald Craven and said, "I want him!"

"You want him for what?" Archibald asked dryly.

"I want him to be allowed to walk in through the front door. I want him to sit in my drawing room. I don't want him to be under-gardener. I don't want him to step one precious foot in a coal mine."

Archibald looked his niece over, noticing her flushed face and indignant expression. She often had these queer, old-womanish outbursts. What other eleven year old was so conscious of class, or even of the dangers of coal mines? It would be a travesty for the boy to work in a coal mine, with his talent with animals. But it was what his father had done, and his father before…

"Don't you dare look at me like that! I will have my way. He deserves some reward for all he did for Colin and me," Mary said.

"I don't think he expects one," Craven said.

"All the more reason to give him one. I'd hardly be arguing his case if he were the type to come request a hundred pounds," Mary said.

Archibald sighed, knowing he could argue with the girl no longer. "What is it you require of me, Mary?"

"I require that you sent him away to a school for gentlemen, although I by no means require you to send him to the best or most prestigious one. And then I want you to send him to read at a university. I think he should be a doctor, but really it's none of my business what he does," Mary said.

"Is this what he wants?"

"I—don't know. Why wouldn't he want it?"

"Mary, has it occurred to you that at present Dickon is a young boy who desperately loves his family? He may not want to go away from them, even for so lofty a goal as one day being able to sit in the drawing room with you. Perhaps the boy is quite happy being who he is, and with the choices at his disposal."

Mary's face scrunched up with tears, and Archibald felt a moment of panic. He hated to see her cry. No matter how petulant she could be, she never cried to get her way. "He doesn't want to go into the mine. His whole family knows it would just be a sin. He's got such talent with animals, and people…it was mostly he who brought Colin around. I just know his mother would want the very best for him."

"Shall I go and talk to Mrs. Sowsbury?" Craven asked.

"How will that help? If you won't help—" Mary stopped midsentence, realizing what he meant. "You mean you will make the offer?"

When Archibald nodded she ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. "I just know he'll do it. He'll have a lot of catching up to do but he's never been afraid of hard work. Please, do choose a school in the country, won't you? I don't know if Dickon would quite survive in a city."

In the garden, a day after her talk with her uncle, she saw Dickon. She was alarmed to see the chubby, ruddy cheeked lad was crying.

"Oh Dickon!" She exclaimed, instantly remorseful. She knew she had in some way caused his tears through her interference, and she threw her arms around the boy. He looked up sadly.

"Tha' wants to send me away, Miss Mary?" Dickon asked.

"Only to save you from a coal mine. I did what I had to do," Mary said.

"I'll be a sight duller than all the other lads. They'll all be rich toffs, too," Dickon said.

"That's not the right attitude. You're as smart as anyone. You just haven't had the schooling. And as to the rest, my uncle won't send you to a school where you'll be out of place…or that out of place. And you'll win friends wherever you go. I know it," Mary sighed. "You don't have to go, you know. No one's forcing you," she said stiffly.

"But Mary, how could I not agree? The chance to escape the coal mine…me da' comes home each night and stripes naked and gets right in a tub. It's black in a minute. 'e takes hours to get the dust from his ears, from his clothes…and the way 'e coughs. Tha' done a good thing when you went to your uncle, for me and the whole family."

"I'll write to you every week. I promise. I'll slip a note into each one of Martha's letters," she said. "And I shall tell you all about the garden, and how it thrives because it's finally found."

"Don't tha' think Craven will send you off to school, too?" Dickon asked.

Mary cringed, knowing being sent off to school was all she deserved after foisting that fate on Dickon. She smiled grimly. "Maybe when I'm as old as you are. But for now I will stay and wait for you to come home on holidays and see me. You will come and see me, won't you?"

Dickon grinned, his round blue eyes twinkling. "Aye, Mary. And perhaps the next time I see you, I'll walk through the front door."