MR. DRAGON MEETS THE CHILDREN
“I wonder what’s keeping Peter so long in the woodlot?” wondered Janet
Jane, remembering the pixie in the pink sunbonnet.
“I don’t know,” said Johnathan, remembering the strange something he
had sensed behind the bend in the black cave.
“I bet he’s eating thimble berries,” guessed Billy Rose who was always
practical. “That’s no fair, you know.”
“I’m not going to play any more!” announced small Susan Oliver, tossing
her dark head and dropping the queen’s train. She was one of those
children who always cry and spoil the game just at the wrong moment.
“Let’s play something more exciting,” suggested Mary in the bare-back
rider’s costume. “How about circus?”
“No!” thundered Johnathan. “Wait till Sir Launcelot comes back. He’ll
tell us how he slew the dragon and that will be exciting enough.”
“I’m going right straight home,” wailed Susan Oliver, her face all
puckered up, just as though she had bitten into a crab apple.
“All _right_, if you go home, Susan Oliver, you won’t be Queen
Guinevere next Saturday!” began Janet Jane, when somebody shouted,
“Here comes Peter now!” And they all looked toward the woodlot.
There was Peter advancing with a very important stride, his sword
clasped firmly, a smile of triumph on his round, shining face. Nap, the
setter, and Jerry, the airedale, began to bark, their hair on end.
“Look! What’s that behind him?” cried Billy Rose.
“Where?”
“There!”
A gasp went up from all the children. “Why, it’s a--it’s a--”
“It’s a _real_ dragon!” squealed Janet Jane, and the rest of them took
it up--“A _real_ dragon! A _real_ dragon!”
Susan Oliver opened her mouth like a red O and began to scream. Nap and
Jerry fled, yelping. The group broke and began to run in all directions.
Peter stopped advancing and raised his sword over his curly head. “Hey,
Johnathan! Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Johnathan!”
Behind him, the last dragon chuckled. “Look at them running from me,
just like old times,” he said, with the slightest touch of pride in his
voice; and then in a tone tinged with melancholy, “If they only knew.”
On the edge of the meadow, the frightened children paused and looked
back, just to make sure they had really seen the dragon. They saw small
Peter sympathetically shake his blonde head and then reach over and pat
the dragon on his broad, green back.
Johnathan and Billy Rose were together near the willow clump, and
Johnathan said: “He looks like a very _nice_ dragon, don’t you think?”
“Yes, and very tame,” agreed Billy. “He’s smiling, I believe.”
“Peter’s patting him!”
[Illustration: “LOOK AT THEM RUNNING FROM ME”]
“He can’t be very vicious.”
“He doesn’t seem to breathe fire,” observed the well-informed Johnathan.
Peter called again. “Hey, Johnathan! Don’t run away!”
“I’m going back,” said Johnathan, sticking out his chest. “Come on,
Billy.”
“Sure! Who’s afraid?”
The two boys started back across the meadow. The sun was bright again.
All the cowslips and Johnny-jump-ups were standing erect, and the
Jenny wrens were chirping in the maples. A cheerful little wind romped
through the green grass. There was no terror and no mystery. It was all
very clear and simple. There was just a dragon in the woodlot.
Peter and the last dragon met the children in the middle of the meadow.
As soon as Janet Jane saw Johnathan and Billy Rose start back, she
came too and that gave the others courage. Susan Oliver tiptoed up
last, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, her little dancing feet as
restless on the meadow grass as tufts of thistledown. They formed in
a new-moon crescent and stared at the curious dragon. Jerry sat down
very politely beside Nap, they didn’t even sniff, and stared with their
tongues sticking out.
“Mr. Dwagon,” introduced Peter, “this is Johnathan Baxter, my brother.
Johnathan, I want you to meet Mr. Dwagon, the last dwagon in the whole,
whole world.”
Again the dragon smiled. “Delighted to meet you, Johnathan,” he said.
“You’ve got Peter’s small nose, haven’t you, and there’s something
about your eyes that are alike, but why do you wear a crown?”
Johnathan blushed. “Oh, I was just playing King Arthur,” he apologized.
“Ah, King Arthur,” sighed the dragon, “there _was_ a king!”
“Oh, did _you_ know him?” exclaimed Johnathan.
“Very well indeed. Of course, he was a great enemy of my family, and I
was taught to hate him from my cradle, but”--And here he winked very
slowly, “deep down in my heart I really admired him.”
Janet Jane spoke breathlessly: “And, and did you know Queen Guinevere?”
“Oh, yes, and a very beautiful queen she was. I saw her once, dressed
in a bright red velvet gown with gold slippers on her little feet. Is
that who you’re supposed to be?”
“Y-yes, sir,” blushed Janet Jane, hanging her sandy head and pulling at
the pink mother hubbard.
“Mr. Dwagon, that’s my sister, Janet Jane Baxter,” Peter continued with
his introductions.
The dragon cocked his head. “Yes, I can see a resemblance--Yes, the
nose again--and the eyes. Pleased indeed to meet you, Janet Jane.”
“And the boy with the freckles is Billy Rose.”
“Delighted to meet you too, Billy, but I’m sorry to see that your
armor’s rusted. You should take better care of it. In my day, the
knights were very careful of their armor. Those who were careless soon
lost their heads.”
“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Billy Rose.
Finally they were all introduced, even Nap and Jerry, and right away
questions began to fly.
“Were you in the woodlot all the time?” this from Janet Jane.
“No, not all the time,” replied the dragon.
“I know,” cried Johnathan, “you were behind the first bend in the cave
and you blew out my candle.”
“I can’t answer that correctly,” returned the dragon, “because I’m not
sure where I was. You see, I got lost and then I went to sleep for ages
and ages and ages.”
“Oh, I see. And are you _really_ the last dragon in the whole, whole
world?”
“Don’t talk about that, Janet Jane!” reprimanded Peter. “He’ll cry if
you ask him that. See?”
The dragon’s big blue eyes were again filling with tears, but he
managed to blink them back, and then he said in a trembly voice: “I’m
the last dragon because we’ve lost our purpose in life, and when a
thing loses its purpose it dies out. Once upon a time, brave knights
used to go out to fight dragons, and we served our purpose in that
way--making heroes, you know,--but that’s long past.” In spite of his
efforts a tear ran down his cheek. “So you see, I’ve become gentle and
sweet, and I don’t think I like myself a bit this way.”
“Oh, but _we_ like you!” cried the children in a shrill chorus, and Nap
and Jerry barked, quivering all over.
The dragon broke into happy smiles. “Do you _honestly_?”
“Oh, yes, we _do_!”
“Well, _that_ makes it so pleasant,” purred the dragon, again
stretching out his great gold claws like a sleepy cat.
Billy Rose jumped in with: “What do you eat, dragon? I thought--”
The dragon interrupted. “Well, I used to eat fire out of volcanoes,
but since most of the volcanoes are extinct now, I’ve taken to eating
grass.” Again he looked disgusted, just as you might look if you had to
eat milk-toast all the time.
“Is--is that what makes you so green?” ventured Janet Jane.
“No, I don’t think so. My dear mother was green. I take after her.”
“And did she have blue eyes too?”
“Yes,” said the dragon. “She was a very beautiful lady. People said all
sorts of cruel things about her, but she really had a fine soul. She
was killed by a knight who had a flaming sword. It wasn’t a fair fight
at all because the sword was a magic one.”
“Oh, how unfortunate,” sympathized Janet Jane, and her voice trembled.
“Oh, please don’t cry,” requested the dragon, “because then _I’ll_ cry
and I’m trying very hard to break myself of that habit.”
Indeed, he was blinking so fast with his long lashes that the children
could feel a little breeze against their cheeks.
“But--but what are you going to do now?” Johnathan asked quickly,
feeling he must change the subject.
The dragon thought for a moment; seemed to find the question difficult;
turned his head this way and that way; looked up at the blue sky;
looked down again; blinked his eyes; smiled; sighed; reached out and
plucked a Johnny-jump-up; held it to his long green nose; smelled it;
threw it aside, and finally said, rather coquettishly, “I’d--I’d like
to stay with you children for awhile.”
“Oh, that would be fine!” Johnathan said.
“But--but mother says we can’t have any more pets,” said Janet Jane,
sadly, “Jerry was the last.”
“A dragon isn’t a pet,” spoke up the practical Billy Rose, “but if you
don’t want him, I’ll take him!”
There had leaped up in Billy’s mind a vivid picture of a side-show
with a great canvas sign over the front reading, “The Last Dragon.”
He himself would be the barker in long checked trousers and high silk
hat--“Here you are, folks! Here you are! The only dragon in the whole
world! Step right up, folks! Step right up!”
The Baxter family cried in a chorus: “But we _do_ want him!”
“But you just said you couldn’t have any more pets,” argued Billy.
“And you just said a dragon isn’t a pet!” returned Janet Jane, tossing
her head.
“Well, in a way it isn’t and in a way it is,” replied Billy.
“_I_ found him, didn’t I?” Peter demanded, glaring at Billy Rose.
The dragon chuckled, quivering all the way down his sides. “Don’t fight
over me, children. I belong to all of you, but of course--” He turned
to Peter and smiled broadly-- “Of course Peter _really_ woke me up. He
believed I was asleep in the cave, and because he called me I came out.
He doesn’t think that he _really_ thought I was there, but--” And he
put out one of his arms and took Peter to him and hugged him. The hug
was so gentle that the rest of the children became very encouraged,
and before long they were perched all over the dragon, and the dragon
purred with contentment.
“I tell you what we’ll do!” announced Johnathan, putting his cheek
against the dragon’s cheek. “Mother’s out shopping, right now. We can
hide Mr. Dragon in the nursery without her knowing a thing about it.”
“But there’s Grandma,” said Janet Jane.
“Oh, Grandma’s all right,” piped up Peter, pressing his cheek against
the dragon’s other cheek. “She knows a lot of stories about dwagons.”
“Oh, she does, does she?” asked the dragon. “I’d like to meet your
grandmother, if that’s the case.”
“You certainly may!” thrilled Janet Jane. “She’s awfully sweet. She
has peppermints in her pocket and under her pillow at night. She’ll
probably give you one.”
“Peppermints?” enquired the dragon.
“Yes, little round candies. They’re good for indigestion and things
like that.”
“Then I’ll ask her for one,” the dragon said. “I never used to have
indigestion when I ate fire, but since I’ve taken to grass--oh, me, oh,
my!” And an expression of remembered pain passed over the dragon’s brow.
“Do you _want_ to come and hide in our nursery, Mr. Dragon?” timidly
pursued Johnathan.
“Yes, if I won’t get you into trouble,” the dragon returned,
thoughtfully. “I’m afraid your mother won’t understand it if she should
discover me in the nursery.”
“Well, we could _explain_ it,” spoke up small Peter. “We explained a
squirrel once, and a long pink worm, and--and--”
“And a potato bug!” cried Janet Jane.
“Yes, an’ a potato bug. Now, it’s awful hard to explain a potato bug!”
“But it’s harder to explain a dragon,” the dragon said, and sighed
again. “_I_ know because I’ve had experience.”
Johnathan looked up at the sun. “Well, if you’re going to take a chance
we’ll have to do it right away, because it’s almost twelve o’clock, and
Mother will be back home to fix lunch. Please come on, won’t you, Mr.
Dragon?”
“Well, all right--if you _insist_!” said the dragon, and he started
for the house, led by small Peter striding ahead in all his glory, the
wooden sword clutched tightly in his hand.