The last dragon
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.
CHAPTER IV
GRANDMA MEETS THE DRAGON
They filed through the willow clump tunnel, wriggled through the
orchard, skirted the barn, passed over the truck garden, the dragon
stepping daintily to avoid trampling the new carrots and beets, passed
over the creek bridge, went up the lane past the fish pond, and winding
through the rose garden they saw Grandma Baxter, in her lavender cap,
at the window of her upstairs bedroom.
Now, Grandma Baxter had been dreaming all by herself in the little
room, seated in her famous rocking chair. Why was the rocking chair
famous? Well, because in the first place, it came clear across the
Atlantic ocean in the May Flower, and had rocked through many a storm;
and in the second place, George Washington once sat in it, and in the
third place, it could talk--a creaky sort of talk that only Grandma
could understand, and it told her fascinating stories of the English
forest in which it was born, and of all its adventures; and it was
heard to chuckle in the middle of the night and rock back and forth
when no one was in it, and Grandma would chuckle with it.
Did I say Grandma was dreaming? Yes. She had been dreaming of things
that had happened ever so long ago, before there were automobiles,
before there were electric lights, before there were phonographs,
before there was Jello and corn-flakes; Oh, before there were many,
many things ready and waiting, but not thought of yet. And as Grandma
sat there dreaming, she wore a funny little smile. It wasn’t only a
funny little smile--it was also a wise little smile, and a kind little
smile, and somewhere, mixed up in it, was a sad little smile. Grandma
was that way, anyhow. She was all sorts of things at once. You never
knew exactly what was going to pop out next from Grandma.
From her dreams she awoke to see the children and the dragon, and you
won’t be surprised when I say that Grandma, for the moment, believed
she was _still_ dreaming. She rubbed her eyes; she looked again;
she said, “Dear me!” She rubbed her eyes a second time. But the next
minute she had hopped up like a purple finch in her lavender gown,
the rustle of a bag of peppermints in the silk pocket, and out of the
window popped her little head with the lavender cap all awry. “Heigho!”
cried Grandma, “what’s all this?” And the dragon heard her at once, and
stopped. He looked up at the window and his blue eyes twinkled, and he
said to Peter who stood by his ear. “Is _that_ Grandma?”
“Yes, that’s Grandma,” said Peter, and he waved his sword at the old
lady, calling: “Hello, Grams, I want you to meet Mr. Dwagon, the last
dwagon in the whole, whole world.”
“Oh, how-do-you-do, Mr. Dragon?” replied Grandma, leaning far out of
the window. “So delighted you called. Bring him around the front way,
Peter. _Never_ take a dragon through the kitchen.” And before Peter,
or Johnathan, or any one else could reply, Grandma had popped out of
sight.
“Quite delightful, isn’t she?” chuckled the dragon.
“We told you she was,” thrilled Janet Jane.
“Keep to the right of the tulips, if you don’t mind, Mr. Dragon,”
directed Johnathan.
On the front steps of the Baxter house Grandma was impatiently waiting,
her sharp eyes, behind their spectacles, just twinkling, and her pretty
white hands fluttering with excitement, just like butterflies all on
a summer day. You would have thought the dragon and she were old, old
friends to have seen the way they greeted each other, and indeed it
occurred to Johnathan that perhaps Grams _had_ seen the dragon before,
some strange place or another. Grams was tricky that way.
“Well, I’ll just have to kiss you, that’s all there is to it!” Grandma
exclaimed, and down the steps she flew, all in a rustle of silk, and
pressed her lips against the dragon’s green cheek.
“The nicest thing that’s ever happened to me,” purred the dragon,
“since my lady mother kissed me.” And his gold claws stretched out like
velvet.
“_I_ found him, Grams!” Peter crowed, sticking out his chest.
“Of course you did!” Grandma chortled, hugging Peter. “Who else is more
likely to find a beautiful dragon?”
“And now we’ve got to hide him some place,” said Janet Jane, “but I’m
afraid he’s a little large.”
On the road that winds up the hill from the town, was heard the hum of
a motor car. Johnathan was the first to hear the warning sound. “There
comes Mother,” he shouted. “Get Mr. Dragon upstairs, quick!”
Never was there such a frantic scramble. If you’ve never tried to put