o get hold of it and make it
do things for us--like electricity and horses and steam."

This sounded so imposing that Ben Weatherstaff became quite excited and
really could not keep still. "Aye, aye, sir," he said and he began to
stand up quite straight.

"When Mary found this garden it looked quite dead," the orator
proceeded. "Then something began pushing things up out of the soil and
making things out of nothing. One day things weren't there and another
they were. I had never watched things before and it made me feel very
curious. Scientific people are always curious and I am going to be
scientific. I keep saying to myself, 'What is it? What is it?' It's
something. It can't be nothing! I don't know its name so I call it
Magic. I have never seen the sun rise but Mary and Dickon have and
from what they tell me I am sure that is Magic too. Something pushes
it up and draws it. Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've
looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling
of being happy as if something were pushing and drawing in my chest and
making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making
things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and
trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people.
So it must be all around us. In this garden--in all the places. The
Magic in this garden has made me stand up and know I am going to live
to be a man. I am going to make the scientific experiment of trying to
get some and put it in myself and make it push and draw me and make me
strong. I don't know how to do it but I think that if you keep
thinking about it and calling it perhaps it will come. Perhaps that is
the first baby way to get it. When I was going to try to stand that
first time Mary kept saying to herself as fast as she could, 'You can
do it! You can do it!' and I did. I had to try myself at the same
time, of course, but her Magic helped me--and so did Dickon's. Every
morning and evening and as often in the daytime as I can remember I am
going to say, 'Magic is in me! Magic is making me well! I am going to
be as strong as Dickon, as strong as Dickon!' And you must all do it,
too. That is my experiment Will you help, Ben Weatherstaff?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" said Ben Weatherstaff. "Aye, aye!"

"If you keep doing it every day as regularly as soldiers go through
drill we shall see what will happen and find out if the experiment
succ