the sun’s rays streaming through wide windows the next morning woke muffs from her long sleep. she sat up in a bed that she had never seen before and looked about. someone had taken off her shoes but she was still wearing her dress and it was dreadfully wrinkled. she felt quite untidy in such a clean little bed. the bed was just her size too and had a gay spread with butterflies on it. there were butterfly curtains at the windows too and beyond she could see a door opening into another room, like a palace, with a ceiling all of glass. along the window sills in both rooms were flowers and growing plants. a long glass tank had plants in it too and tiny fish that swam about and made silver streaks through the water.
“i must be in fairyland,” thought muffs, not quite sure that she was fully awake.
she climbed out of bed and there were her shoes, side by side, on the floor under the bed. she didn’t put them on at once because the soft rug felt good to her bare feet. it was such a lovely room all green and gold like the studio at home only much, much richer. it was a little bare though. muffs was used to seeing a great many things crowded into two small rooms and so most places in the country seemed bare. she began exploring first the room and then the hall. she tried to open the81 door of the room across the hall but it was locked. then she looked out of the hall window and saw a lawn with hedges and farther down the road was the school where tommy went.
a tousled head
appeared at the foot of the stairs.
“why-ee!” she gasped. “this must be the headless man’s house. he found me in the moving van and put me to bed. i wonder where tommy is. tom-meee!” she called, beginning to feel rather frightened.
“here i am,” cried an impish voice and a tousled head appeared at the foot of the stairs. “gee! i thought you’d never wake up. look whose house we’re in. the bramble bush man’s!”
82 and to prove it he held up the guide, his gash of a mouth smiling as happily as before. tommy had placed the glasses on his nose and he looked the same as ever except for his withered leaves and one broken arm.
“but this is the headless man’s house,” muffs answered, more puzzled than ever.
“sure! the bramble bush man lives with him. this is the bramble bush man.”
muffs looked long and hard at the stick creature and then opened her mouth as wide as she could and let out one scream after another.
“i don’t want it to be the bramble bush man! i don’t want it to be the bramble bush man!” she screamed. “i want the bramble bush man to be real and tell me where my daddy went.”
tommy stood helpless, holding his beloved stick. it suited him all right. it was real enough for him.
then the headless man appeared and muffs stopped a scream right in the middle of it. the headless man would be as angry as he was that day the children chased him.
but stranger things were happening by the minute. the headless man wasn’t angry at all.
“there! there!” he said. “stop this screaming and we’ll find the bramble bush man at once.”
“he isn’t—he isn’t a stick?” gasped muffs, still sobbing a little.
“tommy’s bramble bush man may be a stick, but yours isn’t. he’ll find your daddy for you if he has to go to the ends of the earth. now dry your tears and have breakfast with the lonesome old headless man.”
83 “are you really so lonesome?” asked muffs when they were seated around the breakfast table. they had gone down two long flights of stairs and into a spacious dining room.
“yes,” said the headless man. “very lonesome indeed. a big house like this ought to have children in it.”
“it’s funny,” muffs replied. “but mother and i live in two tiny rooms and the landlady doesn’t like children.”
“i thought i didn’t—once.”
after that came tommy’s favorite
dish—pancakes.
“i’m glad you’ve changed your mind,” muffs said, smiling at him over her grapefruit. he had put a cherry in the center just the way she liked it and after that came tommy’s favorite dish—pancakes. muffs ate five and tommy had seven and an extra helping of jam. that was for the guide who sat in the chair beside him.
“wise people like jam,” he said in explanation.
while they ate the headless man told how he had discovered them asleep when he went back to the van to find something the moving men had forgotten to deliver.
84 “otherwise,” he said, “you might be on your way to chicago with a load of furniture that left at four o’clock this morning. it was taking an awful chance to climb into an empty moving van. why did you do it?”
“we wanted to surprise you,” tommy explained. “we thought you had forgotten about the bramble bush man.”
“indeed i haven’t and if it’s in my power you shall see him this very day.”
of course the children wanted to know when and where but the headless man would say no more and hurried them away from the table.
“come! come!” he urged. “you mustn’t stay here any longer or you’ll miss the party.”
“party!” exclaimed tommy. “it must be a surprise party. we never heard about it.”
“it will be a surprise party,” he said.
muffs looked puzzled. “is it somebody’s birthday?” she asked.
“i’ll have to go along and see,” declared the headless man.
“were you invited?”
he scratched his head as if he were thinking. “now let me see,” he said slowly. “i wasn’t exactly invited but if it’s a surprise party, don’t you think i might go as a surprise?”
the children thought at first that he was joking but when he said goodbye, his last words were, “i’ll see you both at the party.”
when they reached tommy’s house someone was waiting on the porch. it was someone with golden hair and golden brown eyes and cheeks as rosy as muffs’ own. it might have been muffs herself except that this lovely person was a lady85 instead of a little girl. she held out both arms and muffs rushed into them.
“mother!” she cried, half laughing and half crying. “i didn’t think you’d come for another week.”
“i had to come when my little girl was lost. mrs. tyler sent a telegram. muffs, dear! where were you?”
“oh, mother! the loveliest place, all light and flowers and pretty colors. you would have painted it. it was so beautiful!”
“but how did you happen to go there? and why didn’t you come home before?”
“she slept too long,” tommy explained. “we went to sleep in a moving van,” and he told mrs. moffet all that had happened and how kind the headless man had been. he even told about the guide and how he had saved him. tommy had the guide under his arm and that proved everything.
“we’d have been to chicago by now,” he finished, “if he hadn’t found us and taken us to his house. he just let us sleep ’til we woke up. then we had pancakes! mmmm! and can the headless man cook!”
muffs’ mother laughed but there was a worried look in her face as well. it might have happened so differently. she clasped her little girl very close and held her for a long time.
“i must dress,” muffs said finally. “we’re going to a party.”
“we can’t, darling. the train——”
“but we must,” muffs interrupted. “it’s a surprise party but the headless man told and he says it’s still going to be a surprise. he’s expecting us to be there and i wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
86 “if that’s the case,” said her mother, “we’ll take a later train. put on your blue dress——”
“it’s got ink on it.”
“i spilled it there,” tommy owned up. “i must have spilled it when we wrote the public notice,” and he told about that too.
my! what a lot of things there were to tell. muffs and tommy chattered all the time they were getting ready. mrs. moffet put on a fresh dress too and stood waiting by the window. she could see across the pasture to where crowds were already beginning to gather around the grange hall.
“we’re ready now,” mrs. tyler said, coming into the room with the baby toddling at her side.
“but where’s mary?” tommy asked.
“she went on ahead with your father and donald and great aunt charlotte.”
“is great aunt charlotte going too? gee! what a funny kind of party.”
“it’s in the grange hall.”
“and we’re just going to sit? aw, mom! that won’t be any fun.”
“won’t it?” she said with a knowing smile. “hadn’t you better come along and see.”
they took the short-cut. muffs always wanted to take the short-cut now so she wouldn’t have to pass the dragons’ house but she soon discovered that mr. and mrs. lippett and everyone else in the valley were coming to the party. not only that, there were big, expensive-looking cars from the other side of lookoff mountain and a whole bus load of school children. the road was full of parked cars and the grove at the end of the87 short-cut was crowded with children. there was a great circle of them playing “drop the handkerchief.” muffs slipped into the circle quietly but as soon as they saw her the whole crowd of children called out, “surprise!”
“but it isn’t my birthday,” muffs objected.
“it’s a farewell party because you’re going, muffs,” mary whispered.
“speech! speech!” they all shouted.
“i—i can’t speak. i wouldn’t know what to say.”
“you can sing, honey,” her mother said softly.
so muffs stood on tiptoe and her voice trilled an old love song her mother had taught her. when she had finished she saw that the headless man had been standing under a nearby tree listening to her. she waved to him but he had his handkerchief out blowing his nose and didn’t notice. then muffs turned to her mother, or to the place where she thought her mother would be standing. there was no one there.
“where’s mother?” she asked tommy.
he pointed to a chair. “she went over there and sat down,” he said. “her face got awful white. i guess she’s sick.”
muffs ran to her and put her arms around her neck. “what’s the matter, mother?” she asked. “did it make you dizzy to play the games?”
“no, dear,” mrs. moffet replied, rising to her feet in a hurry. “but we must go, dear. we must go quickly! we must take the next train.”
“and miss the party!”
“would you mind very much if we missed the party?”
muffs stared at her mother without answering. she88 couldn’t think of anything to say. her mother knew she’d mind and she had said they could take a later train. then mrs. tyler saw that something was wrong and came hurrying along the grass with baby ellen snatching at timothy heads as they passed and calling, “pitty pussy. want pitty pussy.”
muffs spoke in a voice that was full of bewilderment. “mother says i must go home. she says i must go home and miss the party.”
“really, mrs. moffet,” mrs. tyler said, “hadn’t you better think it over a little longer? you’re welcome to stay with us and besides—it isn’t fair to muffs.”
there was a long silence.
“no,” she said finally, lifting her head and looking into her little girl’s anxious face. “i guess it isn’t. run along, dear, and have a good time. don’t mind me. i’ve just got a headache.”
“we’ll ask the bramble bush man what’s good for headaches,” said muffins brightly. “i forgot to tell you, mother, but the headless man knows him and he really is wondrous wise and we’re going to meet him today. look! everybody is going into the grange hall. mr. tyler is calling them.”
and so he was! he had a horn to his lips and his voice came out with a hollow sound:
“this way to the big show. meet the bramble bush man, the world’s greatest magician. watch his wonderful tricks! come on, folks! don’t miss it. it’s the show of a life time!”
“he’s giving a show!” cried muffs and her eyes were like stars. “mother! do you hear it? the bramble bush man is giving a show?”
89 “whoops!” shouted tommy. “talk about a surprise party—and i thought we were just going to sit.”
“we are,” exclaimed mary, joining them and taking muffs’ hand. “we’re going to sit and watch the wisest man in the world and if you don’t believe it, just ask him what a tuffet is. i asked him to make sure and he said it was a round cushion.”
“you talked to him, mary?”
she laughed. “yes, and so did you. but just wait ’til you see him on the stage. that’s the surprise!”
