The last dragon
mail.
Such excitement as was going on in that tailor shop, you never have
seen! “Just like a department store at Christmas,” remarked Janet Jane,
“only worse, I guess.” The din was ear-splitting. You had to shriek to
be heard. Knights would thunder in on horseback, or would come rushing
in on foot, their armor banging and clanging, and how they would shout
for service and demand all sorts of impossible things at once. Little
pages, just like messenger boys, scurried about yelling for their
masters’ armor--“But you said he could have it at five o’clock!” “I
didn’t!” “You did!” “I didn’t!” “You did!” “It isn’t five yet, anyhow!”
“It is! It’s five and then morning!” “No!” “But he _has_ to have it!
He has to fight all morning and afternoon, and he can’t go out in that
old suit! It’s filled with holes and bags at the knees!”
And in the back room where the tailors worked, sitting up with their
legs crossed like scissors, the noise and confusion was even worse. You
can imagine it, can’t you? Think of working with hammers and bolts, and
pinchers and pliers, and iron and steel, instead of needles and thread,
and scissors and thimbles! It resembled a blacksmith’s shop with all
its clangety-clang-clang, and forges stuck out red tongues and sparks
flew.
Well, Allan himself couldn’t wait on Crubby’s party, so they were
turned over to Allan’s brother-in-law, Lars the Red, who had hair like
fire, and a disposition just as fiery. He pulled the children about as
if they had no feelings at all, as he fitted them, but when it came to
pulling Grandma about, that was a different story. She gave him one
terrifying look from behind her steel-rimmed spectacles and he became
gentle and extremely polite, and bowed almost double when she asked him
a question. Even his red hair that was standing up all over his head
calmed down and lay flat.
After that, he picked out the best ready-to-wear armor in the whole
shop, and took great care in fitting it, seeing that the shoulders set
just right and the vizors were in working order, and the joints were
well-oiled and the bolts were tight. Oh, how pleased the dragon was to
see Grandma and the children getting into their armor--even the dogs
were given little coats of steel that fitted around their middles like
blankets, and the dragon was quite tearful because they all looked so
beautiful.
Of course, Johnathan and Peter were delighted when they each received
a sword,--Peter gladly exchanging his wooden one for a real slim blade
of Damascus steel, but Janet Jane was rather afraid of hers,--she never
liked swords, anyhow, or guns either, and she had great difficulty in
getting it back into its sheath, once she had taken it out. Grandma
received a sword too and poked it at Red Lars whenever she thought he
was becoming fiery again.
Crubby marched up and down like a little officer with his chest puffed
out, giving orders in his shrill voice, standing on his very tiptoes,
and wagging his finger. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” he kept on shrieking.
At length they were all fitted. Grandma looked very strange in her
black armor with her sharp nose sticking out from the vizor, spectacles
still on, and, somehow, the armor didn’t fit right in places, and the
mysterious knitting bag didn’t match at all. But the children were
fitted perfectly in small sizes and they couldn’t help exclaiming with
delight when they saw themselves in the tall mirror that was stood up
in a corner by two strange objects that looked like monkeys but had no
tails and were much larger than any monkeys the little Baxters had ever
seen in a zoo. One day, on a boar hunt, Allan had captured them in the
black forest, and had trained them to be excellent servants. One was
named Booh and the other Shoo.
“That’s enough primping,” Crubby snapped, after even the dogs had come
up to take a peek, and barked because they didn’t know themselves.
“It’s very late and we must get started for we have far to go.”
“Come, come, children,” said Grandma, “obey at once!”
They all returned to the dragon’s back while Crubby paid the armor bill
with a handful of coins that he took from a pouch that he wore on a
belt about his round middle. They were worn copper coins with dragons
on them. Then, swinging a brown sack over his shoulders,--it contained
oil cans and tools for oiling and mending armor--he perched himself
once more behind the dragon’s ear, and off they flew, Allan and Red
Lars shouting good luck after them. And Lars yelled, “Hope Dallahan
doesn’t eat you, but I’m afraid he will!” which was certainly far from
encouraging.
“Did you hear that?” said Janet Jane, looking frightened.
“Bosh!” said Grandma.
CHAPTER XI
ON THE KING’S GREAT HIGHWAY
Riding along the king’s great highway, the sun was very bright and all
the birds were out and many large and colorful wild flowers grew right
down to the white road. Janet Jane, who knew the names of almost all
the wild flowers in the meadow and the woodlot and up on the little
hills beyond, couldn’t recognize any of these.
“I’m all mixed up about time,” said Johnathan, squinting up at the
sun--“Seems to me it’s been ages and ages since we left home before
breakfast.”
“Seems to me it’s morning again,” said Janet Jane, “although we haven’t
been to bed.”
“It’s the morning of adventure,” said Grandma, taking in a deep breath
of the keen air that smelled of flowers and of dew. Grandma seemed to
have become younger and all her delicate wrinkles seemed ironed out.
“Do you suppose we’ll _really_ have to fight Dallahan?” asked the
worried Janet Jane.
Grandma was about to reply when Crubby crawled up over the dragon’s
forehead and slid down the long green neck. Landing on his feet and
springing up straight, he was very severe and spoke with military
harshness. “This is no time to be discussing the time and the weather
or the suppose, either!” he shouted. “Everybody up on their feet!
Quick!”
Startled, they all scrambled up.
“Stand at attention! Swords by your sides!” commanded Crubby. “Now, in
order to outwit Dallahan and rescue the princess, you’ve got to be in
good physical condition. No one can do battle and expect to win without
training.”
“That’s right,” Grandma agreed.
Crubby clicked his heels together. “Arms out!” he snapped--“Take a deep
breath! Hold it! Let it out! Arms down! Arms raise! Take a deep breath!
Hold it! Let it out! Arms down! Arms raise! Take a deep breath! Hold
it! Let it out! Bend the knees! Straighten the knees! Bend the knees!
Straighten the knees! Down flat! Stand up! Down flat! Stand up!” Well,
you’ve never seen exercises given so fast, and soon everybody was out
of breath and doing everything the wrong way, and Grandma’s face was
the color of cooked beets.
But Crubby didn’t give them a chance to rest. “Now, we’ll have a race
down to the very tip of the dragon’s tail and back again. Are you
ready? On your mark. Get set. Go!” And down the dragon’s back they
raced, tripping over their swords; falling; getting up again; crashing
down once more; their joints squeaking like a whole chorus of baby mice.
They reached the tip of the dragon’s tail, and they turned to rush
back when small Peter tripped over one of the dragon’s scales; lost his
balance; gave a cry for help; was not heard by the others who raced on
toward the dragon’s head, and fell off, rolling over and over until he
lay in the ditch by the king’s great highway. When he sat up he could
see the dragon, a tiny speck, running very fast down the white road,
and in a moment he was lost to sight.
Peter stood up and looked about him, dazed for a moment. It was very
quiet on the road, as quiet as the woodlot,--even more quiet because
there was no drip, drip, drip of the spring. Now, here was a pretty
fix indeed. Small Peter alone in the Dark Ages, dressed in a suit of
armor with a sword in his hand. This was a morning of adventure, to be
sure,--Peter lost in the once upon a time, way, way back in the long,
long ago.
He climbed up to the road again and for a moment he was afraid, and
called at the top of his voice: “Grams! Johnathan! Janet Jane! Dwagon!”
But of course they didn’t hear him, being out of sight and far away.
“Well,” he reasoned, at last, his little brow all knitted, “I guess
there’s nothing to do but follow the dwagon’s footprints up the king’s
highway, until I meet an auto or a motorcycle,” but here he paused and
laughed, correcting himself--“There’s no autos or motorcycles here.”
No! People in this age used horses almost entirely. When Peter played
Sir Launcelot he rode a horse, too, but that was only a broomstick
horse. Could he ride a real one if it should happen to come along
without a rider? He didn’t think so, because in the first place he
couldn’t see how he could possibly get on the horse’s back, all alone.
The horse would be very tall--most horses were--and encased as he was
in stiff armor, that made it simply out of the question.
So on Peter trudged, head down, following the dragon’s tracks. “Why
don’t they notice I’m gone and come back for me?” he asked himself,
puzzled--“They _must_ notice by this time that I’m not with them.
Why doesn’t Mr. Dwagon turn around?” And he strained his eyes ahead,
looking for a black spot to appear.
Finally a black spot did come into sight and Peter took heart, although
when the spot came nearer and took on form, he could see it was not the
dragon. It was a strange company,--a dark, pretty girl with clothes
like a gypsy--a mountebank in a motley suit of red, green and yellow,
ornamented with many tiny bells, and a black bear walking on his hind
legs with a silver ring in his nose, to which was attached a long
silver chain that the girl held in her hand.
When they saw Peter standing in the middle of the road with his sword
clasped tightly, they stopped short, and the mountebank turned a
handspring in the dust and said in a high falsetto voice: “Honored
knight, we’re only poor show folk on our way to the fair. If you won’t
harm us we’ll give you a show, free of charge.” And then he stood on
his head and made faces upside down.
“I won’t harm you,” Peter said in a manly little voice, which instantly
made the girl laugh, and the mountebank flipped himself to his feet and
said, shaking his bauble of bells, “Good Master Popinjay, he’s nothing
but a child, heigho!”
“I’m--I’m not!” said Peter, “I’m Sir Launcelot and I’m going to kill
Dallahan, the Iwish dwagon.”
This information threw the girl into fits of laughter; the mountebank
turned two complete somersaults in mid-air, landing on his feet with
a whoop, and even the bear chuckled, shaking his fat sides. He was a
very humorous appearing bear who could appreciate a joke, there was no
doubt about that.
The mountebank pranced up to Peter and peeked through his vizor and
said, “Whoops! here’s a wee lad lost in the Middle Ages. Where did
you come from?” And the bear peeked through the vizor also and licked
Peter’s small nose with his long red tongue.
“I--I was going to kill the Iwish Dwagon,” Peter said in answer to the
mountebank’s question, “but--but I fell off.”
“Fell off? Fell off of what?--the roof?--the bridge?--the swing?--the
branch, like a plum? Make yourself plainer,” chortled the clown,
ringing all his bells by shaking himself like a dog that has just come
out of the water.
“Off the dwagon’s back.”
“Who?--the Irish Dragon?”
“No, my dwagon.”
“_Your_ dragon?” the mountebank looked severe--“Do you own a dragon?”
“N--no, but”--
“Then why did you say you did?”
“I--I mean--it’s _our_ dwagon, but--but _I_ found him in the
cave”----By this time, poor Peter was very confused.
“I know, Beppo,” spoke up the pretty girl, “he was riding that dragon