The last dragon
and yet the dragon said it was considered a modest dwelling. All his
relatives lived in much larger and much more handsome quarters. He
was just a modest dragon with a modest income, and without much of a
reputation, not a bit like St. George’s dragon, for instance.
“Now, make yourselves perfectly at home,” said the dragon, lying down
flat on the parlor floor and stretching until he groaned. “I’m pretty
tired from that long run backwards.”
“I can well believe so!” exclaimed Grandma, fumbling in her mysterious
knitting bag and drawing forth a little bottle which she proceeded to
shake, vigorously. “What you need is a good alcohol rub and I’m going
to give it to you.”
“Oh, no!” protested the dragon. “There’s too much of me to rub. You’d
be exhausted in no time.”
“Exhausted? Stuff and nonsense!” snapped Grandma. “Besides, the
children can help.”
“Oh, yes, yes!” they cried, and rushed all around the reclining dragon.
Grandma poured a little clear liquid in each outstretched palm, and
then they all began to rub up and down, back and across--rubbed and
rubbed and rubbed. They rubbed his back. They rubbed his chest. They
rubbed his ribs and the length of his tail and the tired soles of his
feet. And how the dragon adored those kind hands rubbing him! He lay
back and purred like a kitten when it is having its fur rubbed the
right way. Indeed, you had to rub the dragon’s scales the right way
too, or else you tickled him and he rolled about in spasms of laughter.
And as they rubbed him, so intently occupied, they did not notice a
little round door open in the side of the room, and a little head as
brown as a hazel nut and shaped rather like a hazel nut too, came
poking out cautiously, like a mouse pokes from a hole before it darts
for the cupboard where the cheese is kept. Then followed the round,
fat stomach of a tiny old man dressed all in brown, the color of the
earth. He was only about twelve inches high but carried himself with
a great deal of dignity, as most little things do, if you’ve ever
noticed. His face and hands were all lumpy as if they had pebbles in
them, and his tiny eyes looked like bright creek-pebbles stuck in the
face of a mud-pie man.
Still unnoticed, he walked pompously over to the dragon, and stood by
the great beast’s pointed ear (he could have crawled into it easily)
and bending down he whispered something in a voice that sounded like
the buzz of a gnat.
At once, the dragon grinned from ear to ear and sat up, exclaiming:
“Crubby! My old friend Crubby!” And he took the tiny man up in one of
his golden claws and held him close to one of his enormous eyes, and
studied him carefully. The little man looked very serious and severe
and demanded, “Where have you been, sir? Give an account of yourself.”
And the dragon explained, meekly: “I’ve been looking ahead, Crubby.”
“Oh, yes,” said Crubby, sarcastically, the most knowing expression on
his old, old face, “you always were ahead of your time.”
“Yes,” agreed the dragon, tears threatening to roll down his cheeks,
“but I got _too_ far ahead, this trip.”
Crubby seemed to be grimly delighted. “Umm, I thought so! I thought so!
Well, smarty, what did you learn by looking ahead?”
“Very little that was pleasant,” the dragon admitted, sadly. “I found
myself all out-of-date and very, very lonesome. That is, lonesome until
I found Grandame and the children.”
“Oh,” muttered the tiny man, not at all pleased.
The dragon hastened on to explain. “You see, they believed in me,
Crubby. They gave me a place in their world, do you understand? So I
might have stayed up there in the future all the time, if their mother
and their father hadn’t sent me back to the Dark Ages again.”
“It’s just as well that they did!” said Crubby. “You don’t belong there
for one moment.”
The dragon sighed. “Maybe not--maybe not--but, Crubby, let me introduce
you to my new friends, fresh from the future. Turn around, Crubby.”
Crubby didn’t seem at all excited about meeting Grandma and the
children. He took his time about turning around on the dragon’s palm,
and then he stood just like a Fourth of July orator on a platform, and
bowed very distantly, with his right hand pressed to his chest, the
fingers spread out.
“This is Crubby,” announced the dragon with a great deal of pride.
“He’s my most intimate friend.” And Johnathan instantly thought of
a mouse and an elephant, although mice and elephants are really not
supposed to be friendly the least little bit.
“Oh, isn’t he the cutest little fellow!” cried Janet Jane, really
meaning it, but Crubby did not seem to like this a bit. His pride was
hurt, and he deliberately snubbed Janet Jane and all the rest, for that
matter, by turning his back. He faced the dragon once more, and the
dragon looked lovingly at him and said, “Dear old Crubby, I’m so happy
to see you again, and I’m so grateful I didn’t take you with me when I
was looking ahead.”
“I wouldn’t have gone if you’d asked me,” said the impudent little
mite, turning his pimple-of-a-nose up in the air.
“You would have had a most miserable time,” the dragon went on.
“I don’t doubt it,” snapped Crubby, “judging by what it’s done to you!”
“Now, just how do you mean that, Crubby?” asked the dragon. “Do I look
so terrible?”
“You certainly do!”
“How? Have I lost my good looks?” The dragon was really distressed, and
Grandma couldn’t help whispering to Peter that she thought Crubby had a
very mean disposition.
“In the first place,” Crubby continued, relentlessly, “you’re all out
of condition. Imagine _you_, a perfectly healthy, athletic dragon being
exhausted after a little run like that! You ought to be ashamed of
yourself!”
The dragon looked sheepish and tried to defend himself: “It wasn’t a
_little_ run, Crubby. It was a very long run, clear from 1927 back to
1227.”
But Crubby waived that excuse aside and said, testily, “Don’t talk
nonsense. I’m going to run you up the volcano and back, every morning
before breakfast, to harden up your muscles again. What would become of
you now if a knight should take it into his head to do battle with you?”
“Am I really as soft as that?” queried the dragon, pathetically. “My,
you make me afraid!”
“You ought to be! You’re soft and you’re fat!”
“Fat?” exclaimed the dragon. “How could that be, when I was almost
starved, living on grass?”
“No more excuses!” commanded the little man, wagging a finger in the
dragon’s face. “For let me tell you, this is no time for you to be
making excuses!”
“Just what do you mean by that, Crubby? Tell me, what has happened
since I’ve been away?”
“Oh, a terrible thing,” said Crubby, “and it’s all _your_ fault for
delving into the future.”
Surely, here was excitement and adventure beginning already, and the
children, led by Grams, tiptoed up closer to catch every tiny chirp of
the little brown gnome.
“What do you mean?--tell me, Crubby!” begged the dragon, but Crubby
took his time, cleared his throat, adjusted his brown belt, took a few
turns up and down, and then said planting himself very firmly with his
legs wide apart, “Your Princess Silver Toes is gone.”
“What?” cried the dragon--“Silver Toes gone? And I was saving her as a
beautiful surprise for the children. But how could she be gone? She was
enchanted!”
“Yes, she was enchanted, but an enchanted princess can be stolen,
can’t she, you idiotic fellow!” fairly screamed the irritable little
man--“Oh, I warned you never to go looking ahead.”
“But who has stolen her, Crubby? Who has stolen my Silver Toes?” The
dragon was really distressed.
“Now, who do you suppose? Have you forgotten your enemies so soon?”
“Yes, I have,” admitted the dragon, ready to weep. “I’ve forgotten my
enemies and I’ve forgotten the magic formula that changes my shape and
makes me invisible.”
“Oh, my beard and my nose!” cried Crubby, although he didn’t have
a beard. “Such a thing I’ve never, never heard. Now suppose _I’d_
forgotten it? You’d be in a nice muddle, wouldn’t you?”
“But you haven’t, Crubby! Oh, please say you haven’t!”
“Well,” drawled the tiny man, keeping the dragon in terrible
suspense--“Well,--I just wonder now--I just wonder. Maybe I have.”
“But your memory was always much better than mine, Crubby. You know you
haven’t forgotten it,” stammered the poor dragon.
Finally Crubby gave in. “No, I really haven’t,” he admitted, “which is
certainly fortunate for you. However, that isn’t important, right at
this moment.”
The dragon agreed. “The important thing is Silver Toes. Who stole her,
Crubby? Please tell me.”
For another agonizing minute, Crubby kept them all in suspense; then
he said to the dragon, “Come to the door with me,” and the dragon
obeyed. Grandma and the children followed, puzzled and excited.
In the thick mud by the river bank, just where the black water flowed
from the cave, Crubby pointed down to a large footprint that was shaped
for all the world, Johnathan thought, like a four-leaf clover or a
shamrock.
“Now, what does that look like?” demanded Crubby, and the dragon said
immediately, his brow all puckered--“Why, that’s the footprint of
Dallahan, the Irish dragon.”
“Yes!” hissed Crubby, “Dallahan! Now what do you think of that?”
The dragon clasped his brow, and swayed back and forth like somebody
gone suddenly dizzy, and nearly fell into the river. “Dallahan! Oh,
me, oh, my! Oh, zounds, oh, woe! Dallahan is the most powerful and
resourceful dragon in the whole Dark Ages. What can we do about it?”
“Do about it? Why, we’ll just find him and take the princess away from
him!” screamed the little man, thumping his puffed up chest with his
fists; and then turning to the little Baxters and Grandma, he pointed
a stern finger right in their amazed faces--“And _you’ll_ help us!”
adding as they stared at him, speechless--“Oh, don’t think you can go
backwards, way into the Dark Ages, without risking your lives. You’re
going to get your share of adventure--lots of it!”
Grandma put her hands on her hips and thrust out her sharp chin. “Don’t
think you can frighten us!” she snapped. “Adventure was what we all
came out to find!” And her fearful expression of defiance so startled
the little mite that he fell back and rubbed his chin in a most
perplexed manner. From then on, he had a deep respect for Grandma and
listened to everything she had to say.
CHAPTER IX
THE ENCHANTED SILVER TOES
They all returned to the dragon’s apartment, and presently Crubby
disappeared through his little door, very quick and business-like,
saying he’d be back in a moment to plan the campaign; and the poor
dragon walked up and down, his paws clasped behind his back, his head
bent and his brow knitted in thought.
Grandma allowed him to pace for a few moments and then stopped him.
“If we’re going to help you, we’ve got to know something about this
enchanted princess of yours. Who is she and how did she become
enchanted?”
The dragon paused and heaved a great sigh. “Oh, my scales and my
claws,” he said, plaintively, “it’s a long story, but I suppose you’ll
just have to know it. It seems a shame, though, that I have to be such
a poor host, throwing my guests into trouble and excitement as soon as
they step into my house.”
Grandma spoke up sharply. “Don’t be absurd! We’re looking for
excitement.”
“Ah, but you don’t know Dallahan. He’s much more than excitement. He’s
almost certain death.”
“Come, come,” said Grandma, “don’t talk like that. There’s nothing
certain about anything. Now, stop imagining things and tell us about
this princess.”
Down in a great chair the dragon sat, wrapping his great tail around
him like a cloak, and Grandma, the children and the dogs surrounded him.
“Well, you see,” began the dragon slowly, “Silver Toes came to me quite