The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
An utterly charming book...
And one character who has totally captivated me is Dickon.
In the protagonist Mary's words:
'His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. She noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them.'
He was at one with the natural world...totally and completely...
According to Dickon: (paraphrasing from his thick Yorkshire-accented speech)
'There's naught as nice as the smell of good clean earth, except the smell of fresh growing things when the rain falls on them.'
And this one's something to go by:
'There doesn't seem to be no need for anyone to be contrary when there's flowers and such like, and such lots of friendly wild things running about making homes for themselves or building nests and singing and whistling, is there?'
And yet, how often we allow things to make us contrary.....
A book everyone can find something in.....most of all......just reading about Dickon lifts the heart....