.

Welcome to snoozecast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep. Find us on snoozecast.com

and now also on the snoozecast YouTube channel where you can find playlists of different

series including this one. If you'd like to get an email once a week with upcoming sleep stories

and other news, subscribe to the snoozeletter at snoozecast.com.

This episode is brought to you by Apotted Rose. Tonight we'll read the next part to the

Secret Garden, a novel by Francis Hodgson Burnett, published in 1911. In the last episode,

the children are confronted by the cantankerous gardener Ben Weatherstaff who is angry to find them

in the garden he has kept shut up for so long. He had never seen Colin in person but had only heard

fanciful tales about the boy. They have a reckoning and Ben is commanded to keep their secret as well.

Let's get cozy, close your eyes, relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths.

Mary thought that perhaps the sun held back from setting a few minutes just on purpose.

Ben Weatherstaff brought the rose in its pot from the greenhouse. He hobbled over the grass

as fast as he could. He had begun to be excited too. He knelt down by the hole and broke the pot

from the mold. Here lad, he said, handing the plant to Colin,

said it in the earth thyself same as the king does when he goes to a new place.

The thin white hands shook a little and Colin's flush grew deeper as he set the rose in the mold

and held it while old Ben made firm the earth. It was filled in and pressed down and made steady.

Mary was leaning forward on her hands and knees, so it had flown down and marched forward

to see what was being done. Nut and shell chattered about from the cherry tree.

It's planted, said Colin at last, and the sun is only slipping over the edge.

...