Li'l Genius #21

Li'l Genius Ollie Orwell has been practicing magic tricks and decides to show them off when his father's new company president, Mr. Coldcash, visits the house. What starts as a simple hat trick spirals into an increasingly chaotic series of mishaps—egg, flour, feathers, and stranger items keep appearing from Coldcash's coat—but the executive begins to suspect there's more to Ollie's "magic" than meets the eye.

When Buster's mother's malted machine breaks down, leaving the boy inconsolable, Li'l Genius springs into action with an impromptu solution that keeps everyone happy. This quick-thinking youngster proves that sometimes the best fix requires a little creativity and a helpful hand from an unexpected ally.

When Li'l Genius (Ollie Orwell) is left to his own devices while his parents shop at a department store, he decides to tinker with the store's escalator—and then moves on to "improving" a toy airplane with a lawn mower motor, with increasingly chaotic results. His well-meaning but mischievous tinkering catches the attention of Mr. Blather, the store owner, and sets off a chain of unexpected events that might just turn out better than anyone expected.

Li'l Genius learns how a basement drain works when his father explains it—then decides to test the same principle on their fishing boat with decidedly different results. This 1959 humor tale from Li'l Genius #21 shows what happens when a clever kid's logic meets real-world consequences, and how Henry Orwell's fishing day becomes an improvised lesson in why boats and basements aren't quite the same thing.

When Li'l Genius decides to salvage boards from the old haunted house on the hill to build a sailboat, he figures a creepy reputation is just local legend—until strange sounds and unexplained scares make him question what's really lurking in that abandoned place. Determined to stay and gather what he needs, Li'l Genius explores deeper into the house, only to encounter increasingly mysterious encounters that test his nerve. As eerie events unfold, he begins to wonder if the haunted house's reputation might have some truth to it after all.