as time passed the children became more and more determined that they must see the bramble bush man. tommy often spoke of it and blamed himself for forgetting the guide.
“we could have a play bramble bush man anyway,” he said, “if i hadn’t been so scared. we could play he was wondrous wise and make him answer important questions.”
“he couldn’t answer anything we didn’t know ourselves,” said mary.
“he couldn’t tell me where the ends of the earth are,” muffs put in. “besides, the man that came for the glasses was real because your mother saw him.”
“he’ll come again,” said mary hopefully and whenever anyone came to the door they ran to see who it was. once, when they were playing in the front yard, muffs saw a man coming up the road and felt sure it was the bramble bush man. she ran towards him, eager to make friends, and bumped into—not the bramble bush man at all, but the cranky headless man.
“’scuse me!” she murmured and ran back to tell mary and tommy. “he’s coming to put us in jail! quick! hide somewhere!”
they were darting this way and that looking for a safe place when the headless man turned right into the yard.
64 “where’s your mother?” he called out. “i want to see her.”
muffs, who was really braver than she supposed she was, crawled out from a good hiding place she had just discovered underneath the porch.
“i told you,” she said simply. “my mother is in new york.”
“his mother then,” he demanded, pointing to tommy.
“she’s letting me board here,” muffs explained. “she went shopping.”
the headless man was losing his temper again. he turned to mary who had just emerged, dirty and looking rather ashamed, from underneath the a-coop.
“where’s your mother? i’ve got to see somebody.”
“my mother’s the same as tommy’s mother,” mary said. “but if you must see somebody i think daddy’s home. he’s working out in that house at the end of the walk. it’s his carpenter shop.”
“i’ll see him later. what were you doing in there?” he asked, scowling at the a-coop.
“hiding,” mary confessed. “that’s where we used to keep bunny bright eyes. he was a rabbit. the man that owned him came and got him while we were busy making him a house.”
“look!” cried muffs, holding up the picture she had drawn. “this is the house and if you know the trick you can make bunny bright eyes hop right into it.”
“who drew that picture?” demanded the headless man.
“i did. i did it so i wouldn’t miss him so—i mean the rabbit.”
65 “who taught you how to draw like that?”
“my mother. she’s an artist,” muffs added proudly. “she sent me here while she goes to school.”
“your mother goes to school?”
“yes. art school so she can sell her pictures and we can move some place else ’cause it’s such a little place and the landlady doesn’t like children.”
“i see. i see. and so you were making the rabbit a house——”
“donald, that’s my big brother, made it,” mary spoke up. “he made it out in the workshop. we call it the land of balo. the paint pails came to life and gave us their blood to paint it with. we made a stick come to life too and went on an expedition. then we found the glasses——”
“oh,” said the man, “so you are the children who put up that sign?”
“i wrote it,” tommy explained with pride. “did you read it?”
“i tried to, but it didn’t make sense. where did you find the glasses?”
“’way up in the woods. we were following a trail to the ends of the earth. we found the glasses in a bramble bush so we called them eyes and said they belonged to a wondrous wise man. that was because we found them in a bramble bush. you know the rhyme?”
“what rhyme?”
“why, the one about the man from our town,” tommy answered. “say it for him, muffs, won’t you?”
so muffs made a curtsey and recited the nursery rhyme. she was surprised that the headless man had never heard it.
66 “everyone knows it,” she said. “it’s just one of those rhymes that you hear everywhere.”
“perhaps,” said the headless man thoughtfully, “i don’t go to the right places to hear such rhymes.”
“he is nice,” thought muffs. “he’s just as nice as he can be when he isn’t angry.” aloud she said, “you can come here and i’ll say them for you. i think i like you.”
“but i’m not a very wise man, am i?” he asked.
muffs shook her head. “i’m ’fraid not. there aren’t many wise people, you know. i don’t believe i ever saw one.”
“most little girls think their fathers are wondrous wise,” said the headless man.
“hers wasn’t,” tommy put in. “he ran off to the ends of the earth just because she broke some of his things. that wasn’t wise.”
“but the things might have meant a great deal to him,” the man said with a queer look at muffs. “what is your name, little girl?”
“miss muffet.”
“but i mean your real name, the name your mother gave you.”
“my father gave me my name,” said muffs. “madeline, after my mother. i guess he used to love her.”
but the headless man had turned and seemed not to be listening. without speaking to the children again he started toward the workshop.
“he’s going to tell on us,” cried muffs. “i didn’t think he would!”
67so they let mary do the writing but muffs and tommy told
her what to say.
68 “oh, dear!” sighed mary. “i hope he doesn’t tell too much. i broke off a flower in his yard and even daddy would scold me for that.”
“we ought to write an apology,” said tommy who was fond of writing things.
“i’ll write it this time,” mary said. “i’m older and can spell better than you can. he said he couldn’t make sense out of the public notice.”
so they let mary do the writing but muffs and tommy told her what to say.
“it looks all right,” said muffs after she had read it and passed it on to tommy. “shall we mail it to him?”
“we don’t know his name and we haven’t any stamps. i’ll tell you what,” mary said. “we’ll walk right into the workshop and give it to him. then if he and daddy are talking about us we can hear what they say.”
we’ll walk right into the workshop
and give it to him.
mary
muffs and tommy didn’t think they ought to sneak into the shop like that. but mary coaxed and at last they gave in.69 holding each other’s shoulders and stepping very carefully on the edge of the outside plank, they played they were a three-headed monster creeping stealthily to his lair.
great aunt charlotte opened the kitchen door just in time to see them, although to her they looked like ordinary children.
“mary!” she called. “can you hold a tray straight without spilling your father’s tea?”
mary, who was the monster’s head, turned around so quickly that the middle section of the monster fell off the way of peril and landed in a forest of needles. anyway, muffs said it felt like needles and the monster’s tail curled ’round her and lifted her back on the walk again.
tea and cakes served in the workshop! it was something that had never happened as far back as the children could remember. mary was now a prim maid-in-waiting carrying the king’s tray. she lifted the latch of the workshop door and tommy dropped the apology in among the tea things.
“bless my buttons!” exclaimed mr. tyler, looking up in surprise. “how long have you children been there?”
“we’ve only been children for the last minute,” tommy said solemnly. “before that we were a three-headed monster only our middle fell out and now mary’s a maid-in-waiting.”
“so i see. great aunt charlotte must have suspected that i had an important guest this afternoon,” mr. tyler said as mary handed him the tray. he passed the cakes, took one himself and then held up the paper. “what’s this? the bill?” then he saw it was addressed to the headless man. “we all have heads here,” he chuckled. “must be some mistake.”
“i am the headless man,” the guest announced and reached for the slip of paper.
70 while he read it the children stood watching. they said things to each other in whispers and nudges. he hadn’t told! he hadn’t come to tell on them at all. why, he was actually smiling over their apology.
dear headless man,
we dident mean to teese you but
you looked so funny without eny
head. we thot you new how to
play. this is sposed to
be an apology
yours respecktfully
the magic makers
“this is quite a document,” he said when he had finished reading it. “magic makers, are you? hmmm! what do you know about magic?”
“we know a whole lot,” muffs answered quickly. “tommy made up a secret charm and whatever we play comes true.”
“well, now that is a lot. his father was telling me....” then a mysterious look passed between them that left the children wondering just what mr. tyler was telling. whatever it was, the headless man seemed pleased. he tucked the apology in his vest pocket as though it were a treasure and then put some sugar in his tea and passed the cakes around to the children.
“this is a new r?le for me,” he said.
“this is cakes,” said tommy between mouthfuls.
the headless man laughed. “oh, i see. this is cakes, not rolls at all. ’twould take a magician to turn cakes into rolls, wouldn’t it?”
71 “i can turn ’em into sponges,” tommy announced. he reached in his pocket for the bramble bush man’s glasses while the headless man and mr. tyler both looked on in amazement. muffs and mary looked too and saw the tiny cakes turn into sponges with holes large enough to put a finger in.
“wonderful glasses!” exclaimed mr. tyler.
“they ought to be when they belong to such a wonderful man,” muffs said as she handed them back to tommy. “he even made his house disappear.”
“that’s strange,” said the headless man. “i never saw a house disappear.”
“well, we did,” the children assured him. and nothing would do but they tell him all about it. with three of them to tell it, what one forgot the others supplied and nothing was left out. they expected him to say “nonsense” to this and “fiddlesticks” to that. but he didn’t. he listened to every word just as if he believed in magic too.
there were tears in muffs’ eyes when she told him about the vase and how she had broken it. such a pretty vase and she had barely touched it.
“i guess it’s just the way i am,” she sighed. “i’m always and always breaking things. even when i was a little baby——”
the headless man interrupted her with a cough and, all at once, muffs wondered if they weren’t telling too much.
“i don’t know you very well,” she said. “mother says i mustn’t talk to people unless i know their names.”
“the headless man fits me very well,” the stranger said sorrowfully, “but perhaps even a headless man could do something.”
72 “you could if you knew the bramble bush man. he lives in a house with looking-glass walls——”
“he does indeed!”
“you’ll help us find him!” the children cried. “you really know him?”
“i believe i do.”
“and is he a wondrous wise man?” muffs asked breathlessly.
the headless man nodded. “he’s growing wiser every day.”
