The last 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 a perfectly healthy, perfectly normal, full-sized dragon into a modern house that was built for perfectly normal people, you’ll have no idea of the difficulty. Let me tell you it took strategy! It was push and pull and grunt and squeal with all the children bracing their legs and straining their backs, and the dragon puffing and holding in his waist-line and letting it out, and crying: “Oh, dear me, dear, dear me, this will never, never do! No, never, never do!” every two or three seconds. If Grandma hadn’t been there to superintend it is very doubtful whether the children would have manœuvered him into the house, but she was full of helpful suggestions, and the dragon’s glittering tail was half way up the hall stairs by the time Mrs. Baxter had driven her bright blue automobile around to the garage.

However, and unfortunately, half way up the stairs was not in the nursery and under Peter’s bed as Johnathan had planned. It was indeed far from that. The dragon’s head was in the nursery and his shoulders and part of his back, but that distressingly long tail of his was certainly a problem. “Couldn’t you curl it around you like a cat?” Grandma suggested.

“Under the present cramped circumstances that’s impossible,” the dragon told her, a helpless tear in each eye.

“Seems to me,” said Johnathan, pondering, “that I read some place where dragons could turn themselves into any size they wished.”

Janet Jane clapped her hands, gleefully. “Yes, I read that too. It’s in my red fairy book. Can’t you turn yourself into a little green worm, Mr. Dragon, just for the time being?”

“I’m sorry but I can’t do that either. I’ve lost the formula.”

“Gracious! Can’t you possibly remember it?” Grandma urged, frantically.

“No. I always had a remarkably poor memory. It was a very complicated formula and there was a magic verse tacked onto it that was extremely difficult. When I was little I got many a spanking from my stern father for not remembering it.”

“There’s a magic verse in my red fairy book,” said Janet Jane. “Maybe that will help? It begins:

The dragon shook his head and said mournfully: “That doesn’t help me a bit, I’m sorry to say. It has to be your own particular magic verse, like your own particular porridge bowl or your own particular napkin ring, before it does any good. Well, I suppose I’d better withdraw and go back to the cave. It’s no good staying here and getting all you children into trouble.” And the dragon sighed so deeply that all the curtains in the nursery were blown out of the windows and one of the fat feather pillows flew off Peter’s little bed.

The children sent up a cry of disapproval that was interrupted by the voice of Mrs. Baxter who had just entered the house through the French doors on the side porch. “What are you children doing in doors?” called up Mrs. Baxter. “I thought I told you to play in the meadow until luncheon?”

“We—we—” began Johnathan, but Grandma silenced him. “Let me attend to this, Johnathan,” she said, and started down stairs, stepping daintily so as not to tread on the dragon’s tail. She had hoped to meet Mrs. Baxter in the living room and prevent her from coming into the hall, but she was too late. At the bottom of the stairs, Mrs. Baxter was standing gazing in horror at the long green tail.

“What is that ugly thing?” she demanded.

“Be calm, Kate, be calm,” said Grandma, “it’s only a dragon.”

“A dragon? For heaven’s sake, where did it come from?”

“Peter found it.”

“Found it? How could he find a dragon?”

“Very easily—easier than finding a pocket-book,” said Grandma.

“Oh, isn’t it terrible? Where are the children? Has it eaten any of them yet? I’ll run and phone for the police and the fire department.”

Grandma stopped her before she could get to the telephone. “Don’t be nonsensical, Kate!” she snapped, standing on her tiptoes. “The children are perfectly safe. It’s an adorable dragon.”

“Adorable? Who ever heard of an adorable dragon?” cried Mrs. Baxter. “Why, that long green tail was perfectly hideous. What is it doing upstairs?”

“The children were trying to hide it in the nursery, and I was helping them,” replied Grandma, her head wagging proudly.

“Are you insane, Grandma Baxter? Helping the children to hide a dragon in the nursery! It was bad enough when you bought them that vicious nanny goat.”

“That nanny goat wasn’t vicious,” returned Grandma with dignity. “It butted no one but the butcher’s boy and he deserved it because he hit the perfectly innocent beast with a sling-shot.”

Grandma had no sooner spoken than a sharp shriek came from upstairs, followed by frightened sobs. It was Susan Oliver doing just the wrong thing at the wrong time, as usual. It seemed that in trying to wriggle further upstairs, the dragon had accidentally flipped Susan with one of his fin-like scales, not hurting her a bit, but frightening her into tears. Quite naturally, Mrs. Baxter believed that the dragon was doing harm to the children, and she ran to the foot of the stairs and called, “Children! Come down here at once! All of you!”

Susan Oliver stopped crying, and there was silence and a pause. Mrs. Baxter called again: “Children! Do you hear me? Come down at once!”

What was her surprise to see them all come sliding down on the dragon’s back and off his tail, just as if he were a nice, shiny bannister, the exciting kind, long and smooth with a curve in it. First came Peter in his armor, and then Johnathan in his kingly robes, and then Janet Jane in the pink wrapper, and then Billy Rose in his rusty armor, and then Kath in her green train, and then Mary in the circus rider’s costume, and then Polly in her mother’s riding habit. Susan Oliver was the only one who did not take the slide. She was too busy crying and missed an experience that the other children talked about for ages afterwards. To slide down a real dragon’s back is something that doesn’t happen to every one, let me tell you.

The children landed together in a heap on the floor at Mrs. Baxter’s feet, and instantly they untangled themselves and the three little Baxter’s encircled their mother and began to plead: “Oh, please don’t be cross with him, Mother!” “Please let us keep him, Mother!” “Please don’t send him away, Mother!” “He’s beautiful, Mother!” “We love him, Mother!”

Billy Rose drew apart with Kath and Polly and Mary, ready any moment to say: “Let me take him, Mrs. Baxter. My mother won’t mind.” And this was quite true. Billy’s mother allowed him to do quite as he pleased and consequently he was always getting into trouble. Even practical people find themselves in trouble if they are permitted to do exactly as they please. Now isn’t that so?

“Children, be quiet!” Mrs. Baxter commanded. “It’s nonsense to think that you could keep a big monster like that in our house. Why, we couldn’t even go upstairs without stepping on him. Besides, he may be gentle now but no dragon could live around children for any length of time without desiring to eat one of them for his breakfast.”

“No, Mother, he only eats grass,” piped Peter.

“Hush, Peter. And another thing, you know how your father feels about pets in the house. If he objects to dogs and cats, what would he say about a great big dragon? No, my dears, your dragon has to go!”