“All you have to do, the book says, is to give the bottle a smart, deft rap with a hammer or any bit of steel, but I don’t seem to get the combination,” he observed. “The bottom busts up first thing with me every time. I’ve used up all the bottles I can find, and dad watches me like he was a policeman if I go near the shed, and ma just the same with the medicine cupboard and the kitchen sink, and I haven’t got one yet to begin on. And how are you going to do the trick, I’d like to know, if you can’t begin?”
Meadowcroft proposed to consult Herbie, the man who had lived with him for years and who now acted also as butler for his sister, with regard to a fresh supply of bottles. Tommy was properly gratified, but as the clock struck and he picked up his wad of a cap preparatory to leaving, he remarked in an offhand manner:
“I guess after all I won’t call her that any more. She’s mighty decent, you know,—no nonsense about her, and I’d sooner tell her things and have her watch me do magic than any fellow I know. She’s really my best friend, though you never see me walking by with her as probably you see me sometimes walking with other girls in my class. One reason why is she walks so slow I can’t keep up with her,—no, down, I mean. But that ain’t the real reason. She’s a head taller ’n me, and I’m not so small, either, ’bout the average for my age. And a fellow feels funny, you know, as if he was walking with his aunty. She’s taller ’n any boy in school and way up above Miss Sherman, the teacher.”
“You’ll overtake her in time, Tommy, if you give yourself a fair chance,” remarked Meadowcroft kindly. “You must remember, however, not to shut yourself up so closely with your magic as not to get enough fresh air and exercise to add the proper number of inches to your height each year.”
“Not much danger of that,” grumbled the lad. “Every single time I set things afire—even the leastest mite—or forget to take off my good clothes and get holes in ’em or borrow things like felt table covers and get spots on ’em, mother tells dad on me, and he says I ain’t to do any magic or even open a book on magic for a week or sometimes two. Those times I play ball. And they come often, I can tell you.”
He sighed, then raised himself from his usual lounging stoop to his full height, which was surely not a fraction above the average for his years.
“I’m goin’ on fourteen, but I ain’t nearly got my growth yet,” he declared stoutly. “And there’s a lot of hope. But you see it’s different with Betty. She can’t grow down. She’s more’n big enough now for a grown woman. And she just has to act like one—to go around and visit older people and pug her hair, and wear long dresses and walk slow. Of course she has to. It’s too bad, but—well, you ought to see one of my cousins in Jersey. She ain’t so tall, but she’s about as fat as Betty, and she wears her hair flying and runs and races and shouts and dresses in sailor-suits just like other girls. I don’t think it’s nice, do you, when she’s so big? Sometimes she just shrieks.”
“Which of the two girls enjoys life more, Tommy, your friend or your cousin?”
Tommy opened his eyes wide. “O, Madge has a jolly time, of course, and Betty never has any fun, but—she doesn’t care for it. She’d drather—I mean, she’s used to it by this time. She’s always been too big to play ever since she was little. And—she gets considerable quiet enjoyment out of my magic.”
Meadowcroft smiled. Tommy grinned and reluctantly left the room. Sliding down the handsome solid railing of the staircase, he landed neatly on a rug and let himself out the screen door. At that moment he heard his name called, and stepping back saw Meadowcroft leaning over the balustrade with his crutches. He wished he might have seen how he got there. He had never dreamed he was so spry as all that!