“our magic?” asked the children in bewilderment.
“why, yes,” replied the bramble bush man, sitting down in his chair again. they saw that he hadn’t meant them to leave at all. “certainly i should thank you for your magic. 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.
“i was not always so,” he admitted. “not so long ago i was a cranky headless man—headless in more ways than one. it was your magic that worked the change.”
they began to see what he meant. but still they did not quite understand.
“i’m no good at explaining things,” the magician confessed. “my business is mystifying, not explaining. run and get your mother, muffs girl. she can explain.”
“my mother!” muffs exclaimed. “she’s afraid of you. she said she didn’t want to meet you.”
“i want to meet her,” he insisted. “tell her the bramble bush man wants to meet her, that he won’t take no for an answer.”
111 “you’ll wait right here?” asked muffs uncertainly. “and may mary and tommy go with me? mary’s good at getting her own way.”
the bramble bush man agreed to this with a chuckle and sat there smiling to himself as they walked away.
“he’s happy over his show,” said tommy. “he has fun fooling everybody and making them think he’s wondrous wise.”
“he is wondrous wise,” said mary, “and he’s happy because we worked magic on him.”
but muffs was beginning to think that her mother might have something to do with his happiness. it was hard to make her consent to seeing him but, finally, she gave in. she walked with the children across the lawn to the place where he sat waiting.
muffs could not understand the timid way she approached him or why they looked at each other for a moment and then kissed. strangers didn’t do things like that.
“tommy,” she whispered. “let me take those magic glasses for a minute. i want to see something.”
let me take those magic
glasses for a minute.
112 “gee!” he exclaimed. “i forgot to give them to the bramble bush man.”
“never mind that now, tommy. i must get a better look at him. who is he anyway?”
“he’s the headless man. i thought you knew.”
“he is not. he’s the bramble bush man. he’s the wisest magician in the whole world and i’m one of his helpers,” mary added proudly, remembering her part in the show.
then muffs put on the magic glasses. she was beginning to see it anyway, but now, with the glasses to help, she saw as plainly as day.
“why, he’s my daddy!” she exclaimed. “only he used to have a real moustache like that make-believe one he wore in the show. he’s my daddy that went away to the ends of the earth.”
the magician turned around and there was a new brightness in his eyes.
“my little girl!” he said. “do you remember? will you ever forgive your blundering old daddy for running away and leaving such a wonderful woman as your mother?”
“she never told me that you were a magician,” muffs replied.
mrs. moffet hung her head for a moment, looking like a naughty little girl who has been punished. then she confessed.
“i didn’t think he was much of a magician, darling.”
“and i didn’t think your mother was much of an artist. maybe that’s why we didn’t get along.”
“wise man,” she teased him.
muffs and mary and tommy stood watching them. the party was over and mrs. tyler had taken baby ellen home long113 before. great aunt charlotte had gone too. only mr. tyler and donald were left. they strolled about on the far side of the grove blowing out japanese lanterns and when mary saw them she ran to keep them company.
tommy was ready to go too but first he must return the magician’s glasses. he reached in his pocket and held them out. “here,” he said. “i almost forgot these. i guess they’re yours.”
“they were once,” replied the bramble bush man. “but i have a new pair now and your guide will want his eyes.”
“why didn’t you tell us before?” asked muffs. “you knew tommy had them and all you needed to do was to tell him they were yours.”
“you’re wrong, my dear,” he said. “i had to do a great deal more than that. you were so sure the glasses belonged to a wondrous wise man that i had to do something, well, rather wonderful.”
“you did!” cried miss muffet. “it was wonderfuller than wonderful. it was the most wonderfullest show in the world!”
“my! what big words,” laughed her mother, “but i agree with all of them.”
“you think i’m wondrous wise too?” he asked softly.
“oh, yes you are. you’re changed!”
“it was the children’s magic and something else too—the words of that song muffs sang.”
“i know. i’ll sing it again,” she said happily and when she came to the part that went:
for love has made me wondrous wise.
your eyes have told me so,
114 her father sang with her and looked into her mother’s lovely brown eyes.
right then muffs knew that they wouldn’t be taking the train back to new york and the crowded little studio and the landlady who didn’t like children. they would be moving into the bramble bush man’s big, beautiful house and all the bare places would be filled with her mother’s dainty things. she could have the fairyland where she had slept for her very own and perhaps her mother could have the glass topped palace for a studio.
“it’s going to be so wonderful,” she said. “mary and tommy can play with me all the time and so can bunny bright eyes. we can help you with your tricks too, can’t we daddy brambles?”
“i like that name,” he said.
“but can’t we help you?” she insisted.
he looked at her with the old scowl that the headless man used to wear. “magic makers like you help me with my poor tricks?”
“you might even teach them a few,” her mother suggested.
“nonsense! they’ll be too busy teaching me.”
but muffs, who had learned a lot in a very short time, took her father’s arm and then her mother’s arm and looking up at them she said, “come, let’s go home.”
it was almost midnight when they walked up the steps. the house seemed to smile a welcome and its mysterious magic room held forth a promise of more and more adventures for muffs and mary and tommy.
