Margaret Sutton

“ They weren’t a bit like the expedition or the burned tailor shop or painting the house for Bunny Bright Eyes. There was no Way of Peril to walk, no make-believe creatures and no children half as nice as Mary and Tommy. Donald and Mr. Tyler were always doing wonderfully interesting things too and Mrs. Tyler was a dear. So was Great Aunt Charlotte bedtimes when she passed out pink peppermint candy pillows. Muffs’ little dream fairies slept on them. And it was nice to have a baby in the house to pet and play with. Even the cats were comforting when they sat in anyone’s lap and purred. ”

“ The clapping below the stage showed that everybody did want to see it so the Bramble Bush Man, still holding his wand, walked over to the edge of the platform where the large vase that Muffs thought she had broken stood on its stand.
“We have to say a few magic words first,” he explained, “and then wave the wand and presto! Up comes a rose bush. Why, hello, Mary! There you are. I thought you disappeared a while ago.”
Right out of the vase, if it wasn’t some strange dream, grew first the rose bush and then Mary herself smiling through the parted branches. ”

“ Tommy explained. “All of Daddy’s tools come to life and talk and walk an’ everything. The hammer is a snake, the monkey wrench a gilly galoo bird and Daddy’s old broom is a tailor with a funny face.”
“Are they alive now?” asked Muffs as she stood on tiptoe and peered into the shop window.
“No, because we’re not playing Balo. We’re being make-believe people out of books.”
“I’m being myself,” said Mary, “and I don’t want to play.”
“You are playing! You are playing!” Muffs and Tommy both shouted. “You’re being contrary and that makes you Contrary Mary.” ”

“ He must be a ghost! He must be a giant! He must be the Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow! He hasn’t any, any, any, any head!”
“He has so!” cried Mary. “He’s only covering it up with that coat on a hanger!”
“He’s a fake!” shouted Tommy and started running after him, waving the scary-looking broom-tailor. The other children followed. They were all laughing and shouting. None of them stopped to think how they would feel if they came with a coat to be cleaned or mended and found the tailor shop burned down. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ It is a great deal more wonderful than mine. I could never change glasses into eyes or a stick into a man. You are Magic Makers of the first order while I am only a trick magician.”
“You are not. You’re wondrous wise,” said Mary forgetting to be polite. ”

“ Wise men have more to do than chase around after children.”
“Just what do you know about wise men?” Mary asked. She had a way of making people feel uncomfortable and the headless man must have felt very uncomfortable then. He pulled his coat collar up around his neck and walked away.
“Headless man!” said Tommy under his breath. “Gee! He looks like a headless man with that collar turned up.”
“Anyway,” said Mary, “he lost his head. That’s what Great Aunt Charlotte tells me I do when I’m angry.”
Muffs’ face clouded. “I guess that’s what Mrs. Lippett will do when she hears about this. ”

“ Tommy nudged Muffs and whispered, “He’s wondrous wise all right if he can grow anything you tell him. Grow a Bramble Bush!” he shouted.
“Yes! Yes!” called several other children. “Grow a Bramble Bush.”
“That’s right,” the magician answered. “If I can’t grow a Bramble Bush and scratch my eyes out in it I’m not the real Bramble Bush Man.”
“Gee! He can’t really scratch his eyes out!” Tommy exclaimed.
“He can so,” said Mary who had come down from the stage and squeezed in the chair between Muffs and Tommy. “He can do anything!”
“Can he, Mother?” Muffs asked. ”

“ Mary said hopefully.
“I don’t want to see him,” sobbed Muffs. “He’s taken Bunny Bright Eyes.”
For days after that Muffs was very quiet, refusing to play and half the time refusing to talk. Then, one morning, she borrowed Mary’s pencil and paper and went out into the workshop alone.
“She’s walking the Way of Peril,” Mary whispered. “She’s like you used to be, Tommy. She’d rather be alone in the Land of Balo.”
“She’s got a secret then,” he declared. “People always want to be alone when they’ve got secrets. Let’s wait here and see if she won’t tell us when she comes out.” ”

“ Mary couldn’t say anything but Muffs found herself talking all at once as if she would never stop.
“It’s a magic wand!” she cried. “We’ve really turned into story book people. We’re not real and the rabbit wasn’t real and I don’t b’lieve even the house is real. But we can make things real again with the wand. Touch something else, Tommy, and see what happens.” ”

“ Tommy stuffed the glasses in his pocket and Muffs grabbed the tall straw hat while Mary grabbed both their hands and pulled them through the window. They didn’t turn their heads to see the three frightened children in the Bramble Bush Man’s big mirror. Sliding, falling, picking themselves up as they ran, they never looked behind them until they stumbled into a road. ”

“ Tommy announced. “We’re not real people at all. Ellen is the baby in the tree-top, I’m Tommy Tucker and you’re the contrary Mary who had the garden. And this,” he added, making a low bow and waving one hand toward Muffs, “is little Miss Muffet who sat on a tuffet only she’s frightened away by dragons instead of spiders.” ”

“ Thomas Junior wasn’t much given to sitting in laps but Tabby often sat with Muffs. Her fur was soft and white and made the little girl think of Bunny Bright Eyes, the only pet she had ever had.
“If only Mother would stay here,” she thought, “and I had Bunny Bright Eyes again, everything would be just perfect and I wouldn’t care if we never went back to the studio in New York.”
Then she saw Mary coming up the road, wheeling Ellen in her carriage. She had just put her to sleep and now she was ready to play. ”

“ Muffs had always thought of Mary as a big girl but now she looked very, very small. Could people shrink, Muffs wondered. Could they grow so small they couldn’t be seen and then grow big again? Alice in Wonderland did but, of course, that was only a story. Muffs couldn’t think of any other way that a girl could disappear. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Donald began. “You told Mrs. Lippett——”
“Never mind what I told her,” Mrs. Tyler stopped him. “The fact remains that the children have been very thoughtless53 and very unkind. They must be made to realize that such a thing must never happen again.”
“I’m sure we’d never chase the headless man again, would we?” Mary asked and Muffs and Tommy agreed that they never would.
“Anyway,” Tommy said grandly, “we left the broom and the flat-iron in the tailor shop and it’s a buried city as far as we’re concerned.” ”

“ A big truck was standing in the driveway and men were carrying things out of it and into the grange hall.
“It’s a moving van,” Muffs exclaimed. “Somebody must be moving in.”
“People don’t move into public halls,” Tommy objected.77 “Maybe they just bought some new furniture for the grange. But gee! What funny furniture!”
“A new piano,” guessed Muffs as the moving men shouldered a box-like object and carried it through the door.
“They have a piano,” said Tommy. “I know because they play it at socials for the grown-ups to dance.” ”

“ She felt happier still a few days later when the answer came back addressed to Muffs herself in care of Mrs. Tyler. It was a long letter and Tommy helped her read it.
Dear little Madeline Muffins Moffet: Whoever thought you could write such a letter? I think your headless man sounds nice. He must have looked funny but I’m glad you apologized for chasing him. It isn’t fun to make people cross, especially men. If I were you I would forget the Bramble Bush Man because he isn’t real and be nice to the real headless man. ”

“ Tommy held his hands straight out at his sides dangling yellow carrots. Mrs. Tyler was sitting at the kitchen table peeling potatoes when they entered the house. She looked up.
“Oh, you’ve gathered lettuce for dinner,” she exclaimed. “How nice of you to think of it.”
Muffs emptied the lettuce into a pan without a word.
“And carrots,” Mrs. Tyler went on, taking them from Tommy’s hands. “How young they are! Almost too young to cook, but I guess we can eat them.”
60 “Mom, where’s Bunny Bright Eyes?” Mary asked.
“A man came for him.” ”

“ Tyler came to answer it.
“Please, mister, will you keep my rabbit?” she said, handing him the hat, rabbit and all.
“Bless you!” he exclaimed. “Of course we’ll keep your rabbit but first you must come in and tell us what’s the trouble.”
Muffs came in. Mary and Tommy and their big brother, Donald, were seated around a table in the kitchen eating alphabet soup. Mrs. Tyler was serving them from a steaming yellow bowl and, when she had finished, she dished out another serving for Muffs. “Come here to the basin,” she said, “and wash away those tears. We can talk while your soup is cooling.” ”

“ Muffs sang back to him.
“I’m a great discoverer,” he said, sliding out of the tree and leaning against its trunk. “My name’s Tommy Tyler.”
“And I’m Miss Muffet. I’m staying with the dragons who live at the end of this road. Didn’t you see the big sign, BEWARE OF DRAGONS? That means Mr. and Mrs. Lippett.”
“I live at the other end,” said Tommy, “with Mom and Daddy and Great Aunt Charlotte and Donald and Mary and the baby.”
“My! What a lot of people!” Muffs exclaimed. “In my family there’s only Mother and me. Daddy went off and left5 us when I was just three years old. ”

“ Tommy cried excitedly. “On the walls of the Post Office. Everybody comes in there after mail.”
Muffs thought she ought to hide the rabbit and stroked its ears so that they would lay flat and not show over the brim of the tall hat. People didn’t carry rabbits in hats when they went to the Post Office. ”

“ Then she ran into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Tyler if she might have a basket. Together9 they filled it with bread and cookies as well as a big jar of strawberry jam.
“Here we are,” said Mary, opening the kitchen door and running along the narrow walk that the children had named the Way of Peril. She jumped over the One Way Steps and almost spilled the basket. “Here we are! All ready to start on the expedition.”
Tommy had whittled out a whistle from an elderberry branch while she was packing the lunch.
“I’ll be the leader!” he cried, blowing the whistle.
“No, I will,” cried contrary Mary. ”

“ She lay there listening to the clatter of dishes downstairs and thinking. At first she thought it was strange that she had been sent to bed ahead of Mary. Then she thought how tired she was and how warm the alphabet soup made her feel. Maybe the letters spelled w-a-r-m down in her stomach. They ought to spell s-l-e-e-p. The rabbit was probably asleep now in his A-coop. What a funny name! Muffs made up a little song about it and sung it to herself. The song went like this:
A-coop, B-coop, could there be a C-coop? ”

“ 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! ”

“ Then she looked down the little road that went through4 the woods to the house where the Tylers lived. Overhanging trees made it seem like a long tunnel. It reminded her of the subway and shopping trips at home with her mother. She walked slowly, thinking of her mother and their little apartment in New York. They called it “the studio” and it was a tiny place with paintings hanging all about and Muffs’ own little bed hidden behind a green and gold screen. ”

“ So they went home together—Mrs. Tyler, Donald, Mary, Tommy and Muffs who knew for sure now that she wouldn’t have to go back to Lippetts and face the dragons alone. When Mr. Tyler heard about it he only laughed and said, “Children will be children.” Baby Ellen waved her arms about and called “How-do” to Muffins. Even Great Aunt Charlotte gave her pink peppermints and the sun came out and shone all afternoon.
54 BUNNY TAG AND A PRIZE FOR THE WINNER
All this time Bunny Bright Eyes was sitting like a prisoner in the dark little A-coop. ”