The last dragon

“I  WONDER what’s keeping Peter so long in the woodlot?” wondered Janet Jane, remembering the pixie in the pink sunbonnet.

“I don’t know,” said Johnathan, remembering the strange something he had sensed behind the bend in the black cave.

“I bet he’s eating thimble berries,” guessed Billy Rose who was always practical. “That’s no fair, you know.”

“I’m not going to play any more!” announced small Susan Oliver, tossing her dark head and dropping the queen’s train. She was one of those children who always cry and spoil the game just at the wrong moment.

“Let’s play something more exciting,” suggested Mary in the bare-back rider’s costume. “How about circus?”

“No!” thundered Johnathan. “Wait till Sir Launcelot comes back. He’ll tell us how he slew the dragon and that will be exciting enough.”

“I’m going right straight home,” wailed Susan Oliver, her face all puckered up, just as though she had bitten into a crab apple.

“All right, if you go home, Susan Oliver, you won’t be Queen Guinevere next Saturday!” began Janet Jane, when somebody shouted, “Here comes Peter now!” And they all looked toward the woodlot.

There was Peter advancing with a very important stride, his sword clasped firmly, a smile of triumph on his round, shining face. Nap, the setter, and Jerry, the airedale, began to bark, their hair on end.

“Look! What’s that behind him?” cried Billy Rose.

“Where?”

“There!”

A gasp went up from all the children. “Why, it’s a—it’s a—”

“It’s a real dragon!” squealed Janet Jane, and the rest of them took it up—“A real dragon! A real dragon!”

Susan Oliver opened her mouth like a red O and began to scream. Nap and Jerry fled, yelping. The group broke and began to run in all directions.

Peter stopped advancing and raised his sword over his curly head. “Hey, Johnathan! Wait a minute! Wait a minute, Johnathan!”

Behind him, the last dragon chuckled. “Look at them running from me, just like old times,” he said, with the slightest touch of pride in his voice; and then in a tone tinged with melancholy, “If they only knew.”

On the edge of the meadow, the frightened children paused and looked back, just to make sure they had really seen the dragon. They saw small Peter sympathetically shake his blonde head and then reach over and pat the dragon on his broad, green back.

Johnathan and Billy Rose were together near the willow clump, and Johnathan said: “He looks like a very nice dragon, don’t you think?”

“Yes, and very tame,” agreed Billy. “He’s smiling, I believe.”

“Peter’s patting him!”

“He can’t be very vicious.”

“He doesn’t seem to breathe fire,” observed the well-informed Johnathan.

Peter called again. “Hey, Johnathan! Don’t run away!”

“I’m going back,” said Johnathan, sticking out his chest. “Come on, Billy.”

“Sure! Who’s afraid?”

The two boys started back across the meadow. The sun was bright again. All the cowslips and Johnny-jump-ups were standing erect, and the Jenny wrens were chirping in the maples. A cheerful little wind romped through the green grass. There was no terror and no mystery. It was all very clear and simple. There was just a dragon in the woodlot.

Peter and the last dragon met the children in the middle of the meadow. As soon as Janet Jane saw Johnathan and Billy Rose start back, she came too and that gave the others courage. Susan Oliver tiptoed up last, ready to fly at a moment’s notice, her little dancing feet as restless on the meadow grass as tufts of thistledown. They formed in a new-moon crescent and stared at the curious dragon. Jerry sat down very politely beside Nap, they didn’t even sniff, and stared with their tongues sticking out.

“Mr. Dwagon,” introduced Peter, “this is Johnathan Baxter, my brother. Johnathan, I want you to meet Mr. Dwagon, the last dwagon in the whole, whole world.”

Again the dragon smiled. “Delighted to meet you, Johnathan,” he said. “You’ve got Peter’s small nose, haven’t you, and there’s something about your eyes that are alike, but why do you wear a crown?”

Johnathan blushed. “Oh, I was just playing King Arthur,” he apologized.

“Ah, King Arthur,” sighed the dragon, “there was a king!”

“Oh, did you know him?” exclaimed Johnathan.

“Very well indeed. Of course, he was a great enemy of my family, and I was taught to hate him from my cradle, but”—And here he winked very slowly, “deep down in my heart I really admired him.”

Janet Jane spoke breathlessly: “And, and did you know Queen Guinevere?”

“Oh, yes, and a very beautiful queen she was. I saw her once, dressed in a bright red velvet gown with gold slippers on her little feet. Is 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.