The Book of Dragons
"Yes, I might," answered the dragon, "but then again I mightn't."
"Why--you'd never fight him?" said Tina.
"No," said the dragon; "I'm all for peace, I am. You let me out, and
you'll see."
So the children loosed the dragon from the chains and the collar, and
he broke down one end of the dungeon and went out--only pausing at the
forge door to get the blacksmith to rivet his wing.
He met the lame giant at the gate of the town, and the giant banged on
the dragon with his club as if he were banging an iron foundry, and the
dragon behaved like a smelting works--all fire and smoke. It was a
fearful sight, and people watched it from a distance, falling off their
legs with the shock of every bang, but always getting up to look again.
At last the dragon won, and the giant sneaked away across the marshes,
and the dragon, who was very tired, went home to sleep, announcing his
intention of eating the town in the morning. He went back into his old
dungeon because he was a stranger in the town, and he did not know of
any other respectable lodging. Then Tina and Johnnie went to the mayor
and corporation and said, "The giant is settled. Please give us the
thousand pounds reward."
But the mayor said: "No, no, my boy. It is not you who have settled the
giant, it is the dragon. I suppose you have chained him up again? When
he comes to claim the reward he shall have it."
"He isn't chained up yet," said Johnnie. "Shall I send him to claim the
reward?"
But the mayor said he need not trouble; and now he offered a thousand
pounds to anyone who would get the dragon chained up again.
"I don't trust you," said Johnnie. "Look how you treated my father when
he chained up the dragon."
But the people who were listening at the door interrupted, and said that
if Johnnie could fasten up the dragon again they would turn out the
mayor and let Johnnie be mayor in his place. For they had been
dissatisfied with the mayor for some time, and thought they would like a
change.
So Johnnie said, "Done," and off he went, hand in hand with Tina, and
they called on all their little friends and said: "Will you help us to
save the town?"
And all the children said: "Yes, of course we will. What fun!"
"Well, then," said Tina, "you must all bring your basins of bread and
milk to the forge tomorrow at breakfast time."
"And if ever I am mayor," said Johnnie, "I will give a banquet, and you
shall be invited. And we'll have nothing but sweet things from beginning
to end."
All the children promised, and next morning Tina and Johnnie rolled
their big washing tub down the winding stair.
"What's that noise?" asked the dragon.
"It's only a big giant breathing," said Tina, "He's gone by now."
Then, when all the town children brought their bread and milk, Tina
emptied it into the wash tub, and when the tub was full Tina knocked at
the iron door with the grating in it and said: "May we come in?"
"Oh, yes," said the dragon, "it's very dull here."
So they went in, and with the help of nine other children they lifted
the washing tub in and set it down by the dragon. Then all the other
children went away, and Tina and Johnnie sat down and cried.
"What's this?" asked the dragon. "And what's the matter?"
"This is bread and milk," said Johnnie; "it's our breakfast--all of it."
"Well," said the dragon, "I don't see what you want with breakfast. I'm
going to eat everyone in the town as soon as I've rested a little."
"Dear Mr. Dragon," said Tina, "I wish you wouldn't eat us. How would you
like to be eaten yourself?"
"Not at all," the dragon confessed, "but nobody will eat me."
"I don't know," said Johnnie, "there's a giant--"
"I know. I fought with him, and licked him."
"Yes, but there's another come now--the one you fought was only this
one's little boy. This one is half as big again."
"He's seven times as big," said Tina.
"No, nine times," said Johnnie. "He's bigger than the steeple."
"Oh, dear," said the dragon. "I never expected this."
"And the mayor has told him where you are," Tina went on, "and he is
coming to eat you as soon as he has sharpened his big knife. The mayor
told him you were a wild dragon--but he didn't mind. He said he only ate
wild dragons--with bread sauce."
"That's tiresome," said the dragon. "And I suppose this sloppy stuff in
the tub is the bread sauce?"
The children said it was. "Of course," they added, "bread sauce is only
served with wild dragons. Tame ones are served with apple sauce and
onion stuffing. What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at
you then," they said. "Good-bye, poor dragon, we shall never see you
again, and now you'll know what it's like to be eaten." And they began
to cry again.
"Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a
tame dragon? Tell the giant that I'm just a poor little timid tame
dragon that you kept for a pet."
"He'd never believe it," said Johnnie. "If you were our tame dragon we
should keep you tied up, you know. We shouldn't like to risk losing such
a dear, pretty pet."
Then the dragon begged them to fasten him up at once, and they did so:
with the collar and chains that were made years ago--in the days when
men sang over their work and made it strong enough to bear any strain.
And then they went away and told the people what they had done, and
Johnnie was made mayor, and had a glorious feast exactly as he had said
he would--with nothing in it but sweet things. It began with Turkish
delight and halfpenny buns, and went on with oranges, toffee, coconut
ice, peppermints, jam puffs, raspberry-noyeau, ice creams, and
meringues, and ended with bull's-eyes and gingerbread and acid drops.
This was all very well for Johnnie and Tina; but if you are kind
children with feeling hearts you will perhaps feel sorry for the poor
deceived, deluded dragon--chained up in the dull dungeon, with nothing
to do but to think over the shocking untruths that Johnnie had told him.
When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began
to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates. And
presently he began to feel faint, as people sometimes do when they have
been crying, especially if they have not had anything to eat for ten
years or so.
And then the poor creature dried his eyes and looked about him, and
there he saw the tub of bread and milk. So he thought, "If giants like
this damp, white stuff, perhaps I should like it too," and he tasted a
little, and liked it so much that he ate it all up.
And the next time the tourists came, and Johnnie let off the colored
fire, the dragon said shyly: "Excuse my troubling you, but could you
bring me a little more bread and milk?"
So Johnnie arranged that people should go around with carts every day to
collect the children's bread and milk for the dragon. The children were
fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing
but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was
very welcome to their bread and milk.
Now, when Johnnie had been mayor ten years or so he married Tina, and on
their wedding morning they went to see the dragon. He had grown quite
tame, and his rusty plates had fallen off in places, and underneath he
was soft and furry to stroke. So now they stroked him.
And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything
but bread and milk. I _am_ a tame dragon now, aren't I?" And when they
said that yes, he was, the dragon said: "I am so tame, won't you undo
me?" And some people would have been afraid to trust him, but Johnnie
and Tina were so happy on their wedding day that they could not believe
any harm of anyone in the world. So they loosened the chains, and the
dragon said: "Excuse me a moment, there are one or two little things I
should like to fetch," and he moved off to those mysterious steps and
went down them, out of sight into the darkness. And as he moved, more
and more of his rusty plates fell off.
In a few minutes they heard him clanking up the steps. He brought
something in his mouth--it was a bag of gold.
"It's no good to me," he said. "Perhaps you might find it useful." So
they thanked him very kindly.
"More where that came from," said he, and fetched more and more and
more, till they told him to stop. So now they were rich, and so were
their fathers and mothers. Indeed, everyone was rich, and there were no
more poor people in the town. And they all got rich without working,
which is very wrong; but the dragon had never been to school, as you
have, so he knew no better.
And as the dragon came out of the dungeon, following Johnnie and Tina
into the bright gold and blue of their wedding day, he blinked his eyes
as a cat does in the sunshine, and he shook himself, and the last of his
plates dropped off, and his wings with them, and he was just like a
very, very extra-sized cat. And from that day he grew furrier and
furrier, and he was the beginning of all cats. Nothing of the dragon
remained except the claws, which all cats have still, as you can easily
ascertain.
And I hope you see now how important it is to feed your cat with bread
and milk. If you were to let it have nothing to eat but mice and birds
it might grow larger and fiercer, and scalier and tailier, and get wings
and turn into the beginning of dragons. And then there would be all the
bother over again.
VII. The Fiery Dragon,
or The Heart of Stone and the Heart of Gold
The little white Princess always woke in her little white bed when the
starlings began to chatter in the pearl gray morning. As soon as the
woods were awake, she used to run up the twisting turret-stairs with her
little bare feet, and stand on the top of the tower in her white
bed-gown, and kiss her hands to the sun and to the woods and to the
sleeping town, and say: "Good morning, pretty world!"
Then she would run down the cold stone steps and dress herself in her
short skirt and her cap and apron, and begin the day's work. She swept
the rooms and made the breakfast, she washed the dishes and she scoured
the pans, and all this she did because she was a real Princess. For of
all who should have served her, only one remained faithful--her old
nurse, who had lived with her in the tower all the Princess's life. And,
now the nurse was old and feeble, the Princess would not let her work
any more, but did all the housework herself, while Nurse sat still and
did the sewing, because this was a real Princess with skin like milk and
hair like flax and a heart like gold.
Her name was Sabrinetta, and her grandmother was Sabra, who married St.
George after he had killed the dragon, and by real rights all the
country belonged to her: the woods that stretched away to the mountains,
the downs that sloped down to the sea, the pretty fields of corn and
maize and rye, the olive orchards and the vineyards, and the little town
itself--with its towers and its turrets, its steep roofs and strange
windows--that nestled in the hollow between the sea, where the whirlpool
was, and the mountains, white with snow and rosy with sunrise.
But when her father and mother had died, leaving her cousin to take care
of the kingdom till she grew up, he, being a very evil Prince, took
everything away from her, and all the people followed him, and now
nothing was left her of all her possessions except the great dragon
proof tower that her grandfather, St. George, had built, and of all who
should have been her servants only the good nurse.
This was why Sabrinetta was the first person in all the land to get a
glimpse of the wonder.