Muffs was glad when her mother slipped into the empty seat that Mary
had left. She looked beautiful with her face turned up toward the
stage. She wasn’t paying any attention to Muffs, only to the Bramble
Bush Man standing there in the blue shadows. Mary stood beside him.
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. She wiggled and
turned in her seat. It was impossible for her to sit still when she was
so excited.
Oh! Mary was climbing up onto the long table! The Bramble Bush Man was
telling her to lie down!
“It doesn’t hurt to disappear, does it, Mary?” he was asking.
Mary laughed and said, “Of course not,” in a very happy voice. Nobody
seemed worried. Even Muffs’ mother who had been afraid sat there
watching just as if she felt sure everything would be all right.
“He isn’t going to put up a screen the way most magicians do,” she said
almost to herself. “He would be different. The dear man!”
[Illustration]
“What did you say, Mother?” Muffs asked.
“I said he was different,” her mother replied quickly. “Watch, darling!
He’s doing this for us.”
Muffs wondered why her mother said that. But there wasn’t much time to
wonder. The Bramble Bush Man was chanting something and waving his wand
over Mary. There was that same flash of light and then--Boom!
“She’s gone!” cried Muffs but nobody heard her because at the same time
exclamations of surprise went up from everyone else in the audience.
The table top was empty. The magician had done what he said he would
do. He had made a girl vanish right there on the stage.
“That’s magic,” he said, beaming. “But it wouldn’t be real magic if I
couldn’t bring the girl back again. Have you ever heard of Mistress
Mary Quite Contrary? Would you like to see how her garden grows?”
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.
“They’re real roses too,” declared the magician, “not wooden like the
egg. Here they are! Catch this one! And this one!”
He and Mary were throwing all the roses out to the children who were
watching. Muffs’ mother caught one but instead of giving it to Muffs
she kissed it and put it away in her purse.
Soon the vase was as empty as it had been before the Bramble Bush Man
waved his wand over it.
“Ah, there!” he said. “I’ve given away all my flowers.”
“Grow some more,” Mary told him. She was still standing on the stage
and looked very lovely indeed for she had kept one of the roses and
fastened it in her hair.
“Grow a lily,” somebody in the audience shouted.
Almost immediately a tall, slender lily sprang up out of the pot.
“Who asked for the lily?”
“I did,” said a tall, gawky boy in the audience.
He came up on the stage to get it and everybody laughed as he took the
lily, sniffed it and some of the yellow pollen came off on the end of
his nose.
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.
“Yes, dear,” she replied. “I think he can.”
The children were growing more excited now. They were standing up in
their chairs and calling when, all at once, everything became quiet.
The magician was saying his magic words and slowly, slowly, out of the
flower pot a real bramble bush spread its branches. It was bigger than
the rose bush and taller than the lily and it was covered with berries
which the Bramble Bush Man passed around for the children to taste.
All the time they kept watching him, wondering if he really meant to
scratch out his eyes.
They had not long to wonder. Soon the berries were gone from the bush
and the magician stood beside it again.
“_Hokus! Mokus! Pokus!_” he said in a mysterious voice. Then he gave
one leap and the bush seemed to leap toward him. The vase was empty
once more and the Bramble Bush Man was caught in a tangle of briars.
Laughter and squeals filled the room while he struggled to free himself
and then--it happened! He hadn’t any eyes.
“Don’t worry, folks,” he said cheerfully. “All I need to do is grow
another bush and scratch them in again.”
The audience was clapping now. Clap! Clap! Clap! went a hundred pair of
hands. Perhaps some of them guessed that the magician had only closed
his eyes so tightly that they appeared not to be there. Whether they
did or not, they knew it was the trick they had been waiting for. None
of them expected the surprise.
The Bramble Bush Man had turned around, jumped into the other bush
and scratched his eyes in again. He had scratched his eyes in again
_but_--he had scratched off his moustache. His black robe with the gold
stars was gone too and he not only looked like but he was the headless
man.
“Headless man! Headless man!” a few of the children who had chased him
began to call.
He put up his hand. “Not any more. From now on I want to be known as
The Bramble Bush Man. Have I earned the title?”
“Yes! Yes!” shouted a great many voices and almost at once as many
questions were shouted up from the audience:
“How did you stretch the hair? How did you make the bramble bush grow?
Where did Mary go when she vanished?”
There were others too, but Tommy asked the most baffling question of
all:
“How did your house disappear?”