[Illustration]
All this time Bunny Bright Eyes was sitting like a prisoner in the dark
little A-coop. Muffs was the first one to remember him. She and Mary
and Tommy ran across the yard and out into Mrs. Tyler’s garden. They
brought lettuce and carrots and spinach leaves to hold in their hands
while the rabbit nosed through the bars and ate.
It was fun to watch him eat. But it was more fun when they let him out
of the coop and he followed them over the grass. At first they watched
him very carefully for fear that he would run away or one of the cats
would get him although Mary and Tommy felt perfectly sure that neither
Tabby nor Thomas Junior would harm an innocent little white bunny.
Before long they learned that Bunny Bright Eyes would come into the
Guide’s tall hat just the way a canary bird comes into a cage. Some one
had trained him and the children felt sure it was the Bramble Bush Man.
They played right close to the house and kept watch for him.
After a week had passed without anyone coming for Bunny Bright Eyes,
Muffs began to think maybe he was hers to keep. She and Mary and Tommy
were playing Bunny Tag around the A-coop. Bunny Tag was a new game they
had made up themselves. You couldn’t be tagged if you were hopping like
a bunny. Baby Ellen, who could creep far better than she could walk,
enjoyed the game and Bunny Bright Eyes played and never was tagged at
all.
[Illustration]
“I think we ought to give him a prize,” announced Tommy.
“We haven’t any,” Mary objected, but Tommy wouldn’t say anything. He
just looked mysterious and later they heard him talking with Donald
about taking a trip to Balo.
“What does he mean?” Muffs asked.
So Mary told her about the secret charm Tommy had made up a long time
ago.
“He plays Balo is another world and the walk that we call the Way of
Peril is a path of light.”
“And it’s really only the carpenter shop?” asked Muffs.
“Yes, but you mustn’t breathe a word because you’re supposed to believe
it else it won’t come true.”
“I’ll believe it,” said Muffs.
“Then shut your eyes and keep on believing.”
Muffs shut her eyes and believed as hard as she could. Soon she began
to see things that looked like shooting stars behind her eyelids.
“Could we ride there on a shooting star?” she asked.
“We’ll try it,” said Mary and, taking her hand, led her carefully along
the walk.
“This is our own private magic,” she said. “Now you’re a Magic Maker
too.”
Before they were halfway across the Way of Peril they heard the
tap-tapping of a hammer pounding something.
“That’s the Hammer Headed Snake welcoming us to the Land of Balo. May
we come in?” Mary called.
“Maybe it wasn’t a welcome,” Muffs said doubtfully.
“May we come in?” Mary called more loudly through the door and Tommy
swung it open.
“Spies!” he shouted. “Spying on Bunny’s prize.”
“We didn’t mean to spy,” said Mary penitently. “We came quite properly
on a shooting star.”
“It sounds like a declaration of war to me,” observed Donald with a
fierce scowl. He was nailing something while Tommy stood with a bunch
of nails in his hand, giving them to Donald one by one. There on the
bench beside them was the dearest little house Muffs had ever seen. It
was even nicer than the doll houses in New York stores at Christmas
time.
“The people of Balo made it,” Tommy said proudly.
“With us to help, of course,” Donald added. “It’s a prize for Bunny
Bright Eyes. Think he’ll like it better than the A-coop?”
“He’ll _love_ it,” cried Muffs. “Look, Mary! Don’t you love it too?”
“We wouldn’t have come if we’d known it was such a nice surprise,” she
said. “I guess we spoiled it.”
“Not by a long shot,” laughed Donald, forgetting his declaration of
war. “Now you can help too. Tommy hurried things up a lot by sawing off
pieces of wood and holding the hammer and nails. I made a bird house
this Spring and this is made the same way only bigger. Of course,” he
went on with some pride, “I had to fix the roof so that half of it goes
back on hinges.”
“Oh,” said Muffs, admiring it, “that’s so we can put Bunny Bright Eyes
in.”
“And this chicken wire,” Donald continued, showing her how carefully he
had nailed it, “is so he can see out.”
Muffs thought of the funny little rhyme she had made up and told it to
him.
“There could be a C-coop after all,” she said. “This house must be a
C-coop ’cause Bunny can see out.”
“And because you sneaked in to _see_ it,” added Donald with a laugh. He
had finished nailing on the roof and now he was carefully cutting out
a round window in the peak. When that was done he announced that the
house was all finished but the paint. “Here’s green for the roof and
red for the house,” he continued, taking down two paint pails from a
shelf above the work-bench.
Tommy noticed the dim outline of the chalk faces he had once painted on
them when they stood guard over the gates of the City of Balo. He knelt
before them.
“Oh, knights in tin armor,” he pleaded. “Your humble servants desire
some of your blood.”
Mary found three brushes in a rack on the wall and the Sawhorse lent
his brushy tail so that there were enough to go around. Soon everybody
was spattering paint on Bunny’s house. Muffs painted the right side.
Mary painted the left side while Tommy did the back and Donald the roof.
“Guess Bunny Bright Eyes will think this is a palace after that dirty
A-coop,” he said.
“How long will it take to dry?” Muffs asked.
“Not more’n a day. Better give Bunny a farewell feast. He’ll be moving
into his new house tomorrow.”
So Muffs and Mary and Tommy started toward the garden while Donald,
careful to do as his father had told him, stayed to clean up the
brushes. The garden was at the right of the house and a little nearer
than the barn and the A-coop where the children supposed Bunny was
waiting for his very special feast. They picked only the young
vegetables because they tasted sweeter and then ran down hill to
surprise him.
“Bunny!” Muffs called softly. “Bunny Bright Eyes!”
The little rabbit did not hop up to the bars of his coop as she had
expected.
“He must be asleep,” Mary said, and called a little louder.
“He isn’t there!” exclaimed Tommy going nearer to the A-coop and
looking in. “Muffs, you promised to put him back the last time we
played Bunny Tag.”
“I did put him back. I know I did.”
“Then Mom must have taken him out,” said Tommy. “Let’s go in the house
and see.”
[Illustration]
Muffs and Mary lifted their dresses high because they were full of
lettuce and spinach leaves. 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.”
“Mom, where’s Bunny Bright Eyes?” Mary asked.
“A man came for him.” She stopped speaking when she saw the blank way
that the children were looking at her.
“Who was the man?” they asked.
“He didn’t give his name. He asked about the glasses but I’d forgotten
where you put them. I called and called.”
“We were in the workshop.”
Tommy didn’t say, “painting a house for Bunny Bright Eyes.” He felt
there was no need of saying that. His mother would say the children
were foolish to plan on keeping the rabbit. She would be right too. But
what a shame that they had missed seeing the Bramble Bush Man!
“Maybe he’ll come for his glasses another time and we can see him,”
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.”
So they waited on the One Way Steps. It was nearly noon when Muffs came
out of the workshop. She was walking along the Way of Peril, holding
the paper in one hand and a post card in the other and smiling to
herself.
[Illustration:
PUT THE EDGE OF THE CARD HERE |
\|/
/|\
| AND HERE
NOW PUT YOUR NOZE DOWN ON
THE OTHER EDGE
AND LOOK!
]
“Wait a minute!” called Mary. “Can’t we see it too?”
Muffs turned around in surprise and held out the paper. “Look!” she
cried. “I’ve made him come back again. I’ve made Bunny Bright Eyes go
into his little house!”
On the paper was the picture she had drawn, first the house and then a
rabbit that looked for all the world like Bunny Bright Eyes.
“But he isn’t in the house,” Mary objected.
“_Now_ he is,” said Muffs and, placing the edge of the post card
between the rabbit and the house, she bent closer and looked. Tommy
looked too. At first the rabbit didn’t go all the way in, but when he
looked a little closer, sure enough, there he was inside his own little
house. He sat there behind the wire screen until Tommy took the card
away.
“It’s magic,” said Mary. She helped Muffs print directions so that
other people could work the magic too.
But to Muffs it was more than magic. Whenever she longed to see Bunny
Bright Eyes, she could look at the paper bunny and play he was real.
She could even forgive the Bramble Bush Man for taking the real bunny
away.