The last dragon
runs in and out from childhood days to middle age. Big cities had done
it, and high, high office buildings, and crowds on street cars, and
business deals, and the rattle, rattle, rattle of the subway trains.
Heigho, where was there room for a dragon in all that, may I ask you?
He would have had his tail cut off as quick as a wink, and even a tiny
pixie would have to be pretty spry, I tell you!
And so the dragon went on his lonesome way and the children took off
their garments of Arthur’s court, and washed up for luncheon which
they tried to swallow, but couldn’t very well because of annoying
little sob-lumps in their throats. Even the thought of Sulphur Springs
and Indian Rocks could not cheer them up.
This is rather a belittling thing to tell on Billy Rose, but since
nothing really came of it, I suppose there’s no harm in telling. That
practical boy can stand a little chuckle at his expense, anyhow. The
door of the Baxter house had no sooner closed before Billy had slipped
away from Kath, Polly, Mary and Susan Oliver, and rushing around the
veranda, he began calling, “Oh, Mr. Dragon! Wait a minute, Mr. Dragon!
Oh, Mr. Dragon!”
He ran through the rose garden, up the lane skirting the fish pond,
over the creek bridge, through the truck garden, past the barn, calling
and calling, “Oh, Mr. Dragon! Mr. Dragon! I want to talk business with
you, Mr. Dragon!” Not a sound answered him, and there wasn’t a glimpse
of the dragon anywhere--just the marks of his golden claws on the
gravel paths of the garden, and the sweep of his bright green tail.
“That’s funny,” said Billy Rose, standing still and scratching his
puzzled head. “Where could he have disappeared so soon?”
Finally he had to give up his quest and go home, thoroughly disgusted,
wondering if this dragon business weren’t just a lot of nonsense, but
of course, you must remember that Billy Rose was practical. He did not
hear as he went through the rose garden what the silver snail said to
the green grasshopper, and he did not hear what the green grasshopper
replied to the silver snail. Nor did he hear a tiny chuckle that came
from a polka-dot lady bug as she sat swinging her feet on the edge of a
rose petal. If he had heard those little, velvet sounds and had put two
and two together, just like an arithmetic of voices,--snail’s voice,
grasshopper’s voice, lady bug’s voice, he might have known where the
dragon went, after looking back from the place where the red rose bush
grows.
CHAPTER VI
THE DRAGON TAPS ON THE WINDOW
That night there was a full moon that rose above the woodlot and poured
silver into the meadow, and all the little owls were out, talking it
over with each other. The yellow-striped spiders were very, very busy
with their spinnerets, spinning great silver webs to catch the dew
diamonds, and I think the mushrooms were up to some pearly mischief in
the silvery grass.
The night was as bright as a polished coin, a coin that’s kept by
a miser man and is polished every day with a green, green rag. Up
in the nursery the children slept, if you could really call it
sleeping--Peter, Johnathan and Janet Jane. Across the hall, Grandma
sat, sat all night in her famous rocking chair--rocking, rocking,
rocking--the gentle creak, creak, creak like the tick of a clock in the
stillness of the house. Oh, Grams, how your little eyes are snapping;
how your fingers are weaving in and out; how your silken gown is
rustling, and the peppermints are clicking. What are you up to, Grams,
in your famous rocking chair? Rock, rock, rock,--creak, creak, creak.
All night, sitting there, watching the moon through your little window,
seeing it slowly climb up over the tree-tops. Now, you look like a
pixie, Grams--Now, you look like an elf--And now you look young and
fragile and all spun-glass like a fairy--and yet sometimes, Grams--Oh,
sometimes you look like a dragon!
And what is disturbing the children? What dreams make them toss and
breathe funny little noises into the nursery, so that Peter’s rocking
horse opens its glassy eyes so round, and rocks a little on its rockers,
and Janet Jane’s Raggedy Ann turns and speaks to Johnathan’s china pig
who is so haughty and superior because he holds so many pennies in his
round, china stomach.
One o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock--the hours are noiselessly
running away, tiptoeing off to the place where all the hours meet--the
place where all the yesterdays live and the yesteryears, and the once
upon a times, and the spirits of all the clocks that have run down for
good.
The moon begins to sink in the west. There is the promise of something
bright in the east. The little owls know it and put their dark glasses
on, to prepare for the unwelcome glare of the sun. Four o’clock!
Grandma is still rocking. Now her ears are pricked up sharp like the
ears of a dog, and under her lavender cap that’s all awry there are
two little bumps like a pair of horns, soft and tender like mushroom
buttons.
Five o’clock! A faint red ribbon in the east. There is such a quiet
over everything--such a breathlessness. If you listened real hard, you
could hear the tiny beating of the lady bug’s heart as she slept on the
silk of the rose petal.
What’s that? What’s that sound? Tap, tap, tap,--The branches of the
white oak against the windows? No, it couldn’t be that. There’s not a
breath of wind, and besides it’s too regular for that. Tap, tap, tap.
Somebody throwing colored creek-pebbles at the windows of the nursery?
No. Too regular for that, also. Must be the tapping of fingers, but
what hand could reach way up to the second story?
Tap, tap, tap. Now, three pair of eyes are opened at once in the
nursery, and three pair of ears listen, and three hearts go pump, pump,
pump. Johnathan, Peter and Janet Jane sit up straight in their white
night clothes and look at each other with the roundest, roundest eyes.
There is a little prickling all along the roots of their bright, bright
hair.
Tap, tap, tap again, and there in the wide nursery window, the one on
the east side over the veranda, was the smiling face of the dragon, and
one gently-tapping golden claw.
“Dragon!” cried the three little Baxters all together, and from their
beds they leaped and ran to the window. Johnathan unlatched it and
flung it wide open, and three small mouths were kissing the dragon’s
cheeks. He was standing on his hind legs, and he was so tall that he
could easily have rested his forelegs on the roof of the Baxter house
if he had so desired.
“Dwagon--Dwagon, where did you go?” cried Peter.
“Oh, just around the corner,” returned the dragon, mysteriously.
“Around what corner, Dwagon?”
“Oh, the same old corner--the one just out of sight. You know--there’s
one every place”--And he winked broadly.
“Oh, _that_ corner,” said Johnathan, smiling wisely. “Yes, _I_ know. I
go around that corner all the time. It’s nice around there, isn’t it?”
“Yes, full of pleasant surprises, always different, you know. But as
soon as you get around that corner, you come to another corner, and so
you keep on going, around and around.”
“Yes, until you almost forget to come back,” pursued Johnathan, “and
you’re almost lost, and then your mother calls you.”
The dragon smiled. “Yes, and then your mother calls you, and you have
to go in and wash your neck and ears--but, by the sword of St. George,
this is no time to moralize. The sun’s already warm on my back--(his
voice sank down to a gentle whisper) so it’s time we’re going,
children.”
“Going?” echoed Janet Jane.
“Going where?” asked Peter, all breathless.
“Going with me, on my back, for a long, long ride.”
For a moment the children appeared utterly astonished, their red mouths
open like baby birds in a nest at feeding time, and then it all became
very simple and not a bit unusual, just as it had felt when the dragon
first entered the meadow.
“Will you come with me?” the dragon asked, and the children answered in
a chorus, “Yes, Dragon, because we love you.”
“Shh, not so loud,” warned the dragon, a gold finger to his lips, “we
don’t want to wake up your father and mother. They won’t understand in
the least, and it would be so hard and take so long to explain. Now,
put your arms around my neck, and I’ll hoist you on my back.”
“But can we go this way?” asked Janet Jane, indicating her white night
gown.
“Certainly. It will be so nice, riding through the springy world, just
with your night gowns on,” said the dragon.
“Oh, yes,” cried Peter, “I like that!”
“And so do I,” added Johnathan.
“Won’t we catch cold, though?” asked Janet Jane, always the little
mother.
“Not in the least. It’s as warm as a stove on my back from the fire I
used to eat, you know, and in the night”--
“Ooh, will we stay all night, Dwagon?”
“Maybe,” smiled the dragon. “Who can tell _what_ you’ll do when you go
riding on a dragon’s back. Come along.”
There were giggles, and breathless Oooohs! and shrill Weeeeees!--and
the next moment, the nursery was emptied of its children, and the
dragon’s face had vanished from the window. Only the sun was there,
peeping through on the three empty beds with their three dented pillows
and their tumbled sheets and comforters.
Quickly the dragon walked around the house, proudly carrying his
precious burden, and the dogs, Nap and Jerry, came running as fast as
they could from their round beds in the barn. They looked quite amazed
when they saw the little Baxters perched on the dragon’s back, but they
did not bark. Instead, they began to smile, their tongues sticking out,
and as the dragon stopped to look up at Grandma’s window, they leaped
aboard and sat, still smiling, at the bare feet of the children.
“Is it all right for Nap and Jerry to come, too?” Janet Jane enquired
of the dragon.
“Why, certainly! Do you think we’d leave them behind when we’re going
adventuring?” The dragon seemed indignant.
I said he was looking up at Grandma’s window, didn’t I? Well, he
continued to look up steadily, and the children followed his eyes.
Slowly the little window under the eaves opened out, slowly, slowly, as
if hands were gently pushing it, but there were no hands to be seen.
Do you remember how apples bob on the water after you’ve ducked for
them on Halloween, and they’ve fooled you, and seem to laugh at you as
they bob and bob, higher and higher? Well, that was the way Grandma’s
head bobbed up over the window sill after the windows had opened very
wide. First bobbed the lavender cap; then the soft white hair; then the
bright eyes behind the steel-rimmed spectacles, the crinkly mouth, the
proud, defiant chin, all creased with little furrows like crumpled
silk, and now the lavender silk shoulders encased in the lavender shawl
with tiny white butterflies.
What was Grams doing? Why, she was rising, higher and higher. Now, her
tiny hands are seen--now her tiny feet. She was sitting in her famous
rocking chair and rising like a bird, or like a giant mushroom that
springs up over night. In her lap was her knitting bag that was filled
with the strangest, most fascinating things under the bright balls of
colored yarn.
“Grams!” the children called in frightened wonder. “Grams! Look out!”
But Grandma only smiled serenely and sailed through the window, seated
calmly in her rocker, coming straight down to the dragon’s back, where
the rocking chair lighted, oh, so nice and gently, and rocked a little,
creaking contentedly. “Well!” breathed Grandma, “_here_ I am!”
“Oh, Grams, are you going with us?” asked Peter.
“Why, of course. I’m just like Nap and Jerry when it comes to
adventuring. It was I who told Mr. Dragon where to hide until morning.
I knew if he returned to the cave, maybe none of us would have the
courage to get him back again.”