BACK AGAIN
Well, there was certainly lots of excitement over the return of the
princess, and everybody kissed everybody else, there on the King’s
Great Highway, back in the Dark Ages, and even the disgusted donkey
began to smile.
Dallahan was the first to break up the party. “Now that I’m my old self
again,” he said, stretching a trifle longer, “I’ll have to go about my
business, doing _good_ deeds, this time, so farewell, my old friend.”
Solemnly he shook hands with the cave dragon. “If you’re ever in
Ireland, stop in and see me. You’ll always be welcome.”
“And my cave is always open to you, friend of my youth,” said the cave
dragon.
“I thank you,” returned Dallahan, bowing low.
And then he said farewell to the princess and apologized to her for
having stolen her, and then he hugged Peter and told him he would
always, always remember him. “You are a brave knight,” he said. “You
should have been with great King Arthur.” And he patted Peter’s curly
head.
Then turning his nose toward Ireland, he went away, his red-gold scales
flashing like rubies in the sun. Far down the highway, he turned and
waved at them and then was gone.
“Pardon me,” said the white donkey in a disgusted voice, “_I’m_ going
too. Mig magicked me out of a nice warm barn filled with oats and hay
and I want very much to get back to it. Goodbye, all--very unhappy to
have made your acquaintance.” And he too was gone, taking the cart with
him.
“And what’s to be done now?” Grandma asked.
“We’ll have to fight _something_,” announced Crubby, “now that we’ve
bought all this armor and these swords.”
“Nonsense!” said Grandma, “that’s no argument! We’ll just go home to
sleep. Look at those children.”
Dropped down beside the highway, under the poplar trees, Johnathan,
Janet Jane and Peter were nodding, their eyes closed, and the dogs were
lying asleep.
“They’ve had a long, long day of adventure,” said the dragon, smiling
wistfully as he looked at the drowsy children. “We’ll go back to the
cave and put them to bed.”
“No,” said Grandma, after a short pause, “we’ll take them back to the
nursery.”
“Back to the nursery?” exclaimed the dragon, very much surprised.
“Yes, back to where they belong. _You_ belong here. _They_ belong
there. They can run back with you down the road of time but they cannot
stay. _You_ know that, Dragon, just as well as I do.”
“Yes, you’re right,” agreed the dragon with a sigh. “Dear, dear me, the
world’s a funny place, isn’t it now?”
“Don’t begin feeling sorry for yourself,” Grandma snapped. “You have
your princess and you have Crubby. Be satisfied with what you have.”
“Yes, you have me, always and always, dear, dear dragon,” said the
Princess Silver Toes, throwing her arms around the dragon’s neck. “I’ll
sing for you and dance for you for ever and ever and ever.”
“Now, see that?” said Grandma, “What could be sweeter?”
“If she sings for ever and ever and ever, _I’ll_ leave!” said Crubby.
He was very, very jealous of the princess.
“Tut, tut,” Grandma said, “you know you never could. Come now, Dragon,
get the children on your back. Look at poor Peter”--
When they returned to the cave, the dragon turned and winked at Grandma
before plunging in, and Grandma winked back at the dragon. Then into
the darkness of the cave they plunged, stopping for only a moment to
pick up Grandma’s famous rocking chair, and after the old lady was
seated in it, creaking away once more, down, down, down into the cave
the dragon ran, deeper and deeper, darker and darker, and faster and
faster. But only Grandma knew how fast they were going, and maybe
Crubby in his perch behind the dragon’s ear, for the rest of them
slept, cuddled together on the dragon’s warm back, Silver Toes, too.
[Illustration: “YES, YOU HAVE ME ALWAYS, DEAR DRAGON!”]
And finally, far, far ahead, Grandma saw a tiny speck of light like
a round pin-hole which grew and grew, and she could feel the dragon
becoming smaller and smaller, and the armor of the Dark Ages melted
away and Grandma was in her lavender gown once more and the children
were cuddled up in their white night gowns.
“What’s that?” whispered Grandma, like a little child in the dark.
“That’s the drip, drip, drip of the spring-shelf,” said the dragon.
“Don’t you know where you are now?”
“Yes, I do now,” said Grandma, “it’s the first bend of the cave in the
woodlot. We’re home again.”
“Yes,” said the dragon.
A burst of sunlight and the green of the trees and they came into
morning again--a Sunday morning with all the bells ringing and birds
on the wing. In the woodlot, pixies ran for shelter as the dragon came
through, and one, in a flurry, lost his pink sunbonnet in the thimble
berry thicket....
At the breakfast table that morning, Dad Baxter silenced the shrill
voices of Johnathan, Janet Jane and Peter. “You children are talking
the greatest lot of nonsense,” he said. “Where _did_ you get such
imaginations?”
“It’s _not_ imagination, Daddy!” they all protested--“Is it, Grams?”
Grandma, seated in her corner by the window, smiled slyly. “Don’t argue
about it, dears,” she said. “We know what we know.”
“Yes,” repeated Peter, solemnly, “we know what we know.”
* * * * *
And outside in the rose garden, the silver snail said something to
the green grasshopper and the green grasshopper said something to the
silver snail, and then the polka-dot lady bug wrapped her arms around
her shell and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled. In the mud, at the
mouth of the cave in the woodlot, was the print of a foot that was
certainly not the print of a dog’s foot or the print of a pixie’s
foot either. Maybe it was imagination but it certainly resembled the
footprint of a dragon.
END
[Illustration]
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Perceived typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
Some illustrations have been moved to locations nearer to their
related text. The List of Illustrations has been updated to reflect
these moves.