in the grange hall rows and rows of chairs were lined up, like soldiers, before the stage. green and yellow streamers hung from the ceiling and flowers were everywhere. mary said she helped decorate.
“what did you do with all the colored lanterns?” tommy asked.
“oh, did you see them? they’re going to be hung out in the grove after the show. there’s cake and ice cream and we’re going to bring the chairs out and sit and talk with the bramble bush man.”
muffs felt too excited even to guess what he looked like. “the bramble bush man! the bramble bush man!” her thoughts kept saying. “he’s real! he’s true! i’m going to see him!”
“you’re going to be so surprised,” mary went on. “i was. i couldn’t believe it at first and then i began to get used to it and he isn’t at all the way we thought he was and he’s studied so hard and tried out every one of his tricks before that big mirror so that he’s sure how it will look to us down here in the theatre. honest, now, doesn’t the grange hall look something like a theatre?”
tommy said it did although he hadn’t the ghost of an idea91 what mary was talking about. she seemed to have found out a lot all that time she wouldn’t play.
“it seems as though muffs would have guessed it. she must have remembered a little of what he looked like,” and mary kept talking things like that until they had walked the whole length of the hall and were standing beside the first row of chairs. a printed sign said reserved but mary turned it over and sat down, pushing muffs and tommy into the two empty seats beside her.
“mom’s out there in back with ellen so she can go home early if she cries. daddy and donald and great aunt charlotte are helping and we’re supposed to help too,” mary whispered.
“but how can we help?”
“by sitting right up near the front so that i can go up quickly when he calls on me.”
“when who calls on you?” asked tommy, much mystified.
“why, the bramble bush man, of course. i’m to take part in his show.”
tommy gave a whistle of surprise but muffs did not even hear what mary was saying. she was busy looking at the stage. there everything was, just the way she had seen it in the bramble bush man’s queer little house that day they came in through the window. there was the long table with many strange things piled upon it. there was the plate and the ball and hoops and rings and giant playing cards in a pile. even the vase was there and it looked as if it had never been broken. but the flags and ribbons were not to be seen. neither was the cage with the rabbit in it.
“i wonder where bunny bright eyes is,” muffs said aloud. “i wouldn’t like it if he wasn’t in the show.”
92 “mary’s in it,” said tommy reassuringly.
“is she? then why isn’t she on the stage?”
“i’m supposed to go up when he calls me. it’s near the end of the show. i disappear.”
“you—what?”
“i disappear,” mary repeated calmly. “the bramble bush man makes me disappear.”
“i don’t believe that,” declared tommy. “even a wondrous wise man couldn’t make a girl disappear.”
will you
tell us how the house disappeared?
“he could too. he made his house disappear, didn’t he?”
“will you come back?” muffs questioned anxiously.
“of course i’ll come back and when it’s over i’ll tell you how i did it.”
“will you tell us how the house disappeared?” asked tommy.
93 “i can’t,” said mary, “because i don’t know.”
more and more people came in. all the chairs were filled and the doorway, too, was filled with people who had come to see the bramble bush man’s big show. tommy had the magic glasses to his eyes and was looking over the crowd.
“i wonder where mother is,” muffs said.
“maybe she’s back there with mom minding ellen,” tommy suggested. “maybe she’s afraid to come too close to a wondrous wise man.”
“i guess she’d be afraid to disappear like i’m going to do,” said mary importantly.
muffs was thinking very hard. the bramble bush man must be a rather terrible person if he could make things disappear whenever he felt like it. even his house! she looked again at the stage, at the long table and the big bowls and rings and playing cards upon it. she looked at the vase that was whole again and shivered.
“i b’lieve he’s a giant after all,” she said.
mary laughed and laughed. “ha! ha! why, he isn’t even a big man. look! there he is now!”
she pointed but muffs and tommy could see no one who looked in the least like a wondrous wise man. mr. tyler had walked up toward the stage and he and the headless man stood there talking. then he pressed a button that made lights all around the stage. a blue light shone from the ceiling, making everything shadowy and mysterious the way it had been in the bramble bush man’s own house.
“but where is he?” muffs and tommy both asked. “we don’t see him.”
“there he is! there! right where i’m pointing.”
94 mr. tyler had gone back to his seat and left the headless man standing alone. soon he went up the little stairs that ended on the stage. now he was standing before them and smiling.
“he’s got a lot of nerve,” tommy said.
then everything was quiet for the headless man had begun to speak. “boys and girls, big and little,” he said. “i have come to introduce the bramble bush man, a wondrous wise magician. he owes his name to three children who are sitting here in the front row. also, i think, his wisdom.”
“what does he mean?” whispered tommy.
“he means us,” mary whispered back. “sh! he’s still talking.”
“watch carefully now. hokus! mokus! pokus! and presto! you have the bramble bush man.”
there was a flash of light and a booming sound. the headless man had disappeared and there, in his place, stood the bramble bush man himself. he wore a golden robe with black stars on it and a tall black silk hat. he had a black moustache and black glasses but he was about the size of the headless man.
“i bet he’s the headless man with a black and gold robe and a make-believe moustache,” tommy whispered.
he looked around, expecting mary to say, “he is not,” but she and muffs were both busy watching the magician. he had pulled a hair from his moustache. it couldn’t have been more than an inch long when he pulled it out but now he was stretching, stretching it until it became the length of his arm.
“there,” he said. “that is how we stretch a hair. now that it is long enough, i shall proceed to thread it through my hands.”
95 this he did, to the amazement and mystification of all who were watching.
“now,” he continued, “i shall sew it through my head.”
he put the needle, hair and all, into his mouth.
“he’s swallowed it,” cried tommy.
this time mary did contradict him. “no, he hasn’t! he’s sewing it through his head. watch now! he’s taking his hat off!”
first he felt for the hair and everyone expected him to pull it out of his head but he searched awhile and couldn’t find it.
“perhaps it’s in my hat,” he said at last and reached in one hand to see. he drew the hand out and with it, a white rabbit. “one hare is as good as another,” he chuckled and then made a low bow.
“that’s right,” said mary in a hushed voice. “they do call a rabbit a hare.” but muffs said, not in a hushed voice at all but in a very loud one, “it’s bunny bright eyes!”
the bunny twitched his nose just the way he used to do and seemed to say, “yes, little mistress, it’s bunny bright eyes and how glad i am to see you again!”
“will this little girl step up to the stage just a moment?” the magician was asking.
“who? me?” cried muffs. she looked at mary. surely he must mean mary.
“yes, you. madeline moffet. you’re the girl i want to hold this rabbit while i make him a cage.”
muffs walked uncertainly up the steps and onto the stage. she felt afraid at first but all that feeling left her when she had bunny bright eyes in her arms again.
96
one hare is as good as another,” the magician said.
97 “place this hat on the table,” said the magician. “bunny bright eyes has a little present for you.”
“what is it?” asked muffs moving closer to the bramble bush man and wondering if maybe he wasn’t the headless man’s twin brother. he wanted her handkerchief and she gladly gave it to him.
“i hope you don’t mind what happens to it,” he said as he began rolling it into a ball. soon the handkerchief was gone and in its place was a round white egg!
“my handkerchief!” cried muffs.
“perhaps it’s in your pocket,” said the bramble bush man.
“but what became of the egg?” muffs asked.
he suggested that she look in the hat where bunny bright eyes was. sure enough. there was the egg!
“ha! ha!” laughed the magician. “now will you believe in the easter rabbit? it’s a magic egg too. i’ll break it and show you.”
he gave it three taps on the edge of the long table. it broke and a cage unfolded before the audience. it was the same cage that had disappeared back in the bramble bush man’s house.
“as a rule,” he said, “magicians don’t explain their tricks but a certain little girl,” and he looked at muffs, “would just love to know something about this cage. look, everybody!”
he touched the cage with the magic wand and it disappeared in his hand. then he held up a tiny piece of metal and unfolded the cage again.
“easy! a folding cage inside a hollow wooden egg. you’ve seen a magnet attract a pin or a needle. well, the magnet98 on the end of my magic wand attracts the spring that collapses the cage.”
he set the cage down on the table. “there’s a house for you, bunny bright eyes,” he said and the rabbit hopped into it.
suddenly tommy stood up in his chair. “oh, mr. bramble bush man,” he called. “we have a better house than that. just wait!”
so everybody waited and the bramble bush man entertained them with more tricks until tommy came back with the red and green house that the children had painted. he walked boldly up on the stage and placed it on the long table. “there!” said he, “it’s a prize for bunny bright eyes.”
the audience thought this was part of the show. they watched the house, expecting it to disappear but this house was solid. the rabbit could live in it without any danger of having it vanish over his head some cold night in winter. tommy explained this in a loud voice and the bramble bush man thanked him.
“boy! what a show!” said a voice below the stage.
muffs and tommy both took their seats soon after that for the great act of vanishing a girl was about to begin. muffs almost held her breath and tommy looked a little whiter than usual. it might be fun to watch some stranger disappear. but mary! they remembered how they had never been able to find the bramble bush man’s house again.
“are you sure you’ll come back, mary?” they both asked, holding her hands until the last minute.
“oh, yes,” she promised them. “i told you i’d come back only you couldn’t guess in a million years how i’m going to do it.”
