Muffs and Mary agreed that his house would probably be covered with blackberry vines. Half believing their play, they looked cautiously at either side of any bushes before they dared pick berries from them. The Bramble Bush Man might be cross if he caught them picking berries from his own private bushes.
“I think a wise man would be cross,” Muffins said.
But Mary, as usual, was contrary and thought he would be kind. He would have to be very old too and yet young enough to jump into brambles. They would keep on talking like that until the whole thing got too puzzling. Then they would have a game of hide-and-seek and forget it until, suddenly, the question of the Bramble Bush Man’s wisdom would bob up again.
They had come to a regular forest of blackberry briars and, once more, were playing hide-and-seek. Tommy was “it.” He had borrowed the Guide to help him hunt. They had already found Mary, and Muffs could hear them trampling in among the brambles looking for her. She crouched under a particularly tall and brambly bush and plopped a berry in her mouth to keep herself quiet.
“All out’s in free!” she heard them calling.
She scrambled to her feet and then, all in a flash, she saw something sparkling in the late afternoon sun. It made little flickers of light dance across the bramble bushes. Could it be—someone’s eyes? The Bramble Bush Man’s?
Muffs called, “Mary! Tommy! Come here—QUICK!!!”
They came, pushing through the brush as fast as they could and then they saw her pointing. There, with one bow looped over a bramble, were the oddest looking pair of spectacles that they had ever seen.
“I—I thought they were eyes at first,” Miss Muffet stammered.