The last dragon

NOW you really can’t blame Mrs. Baxter, if you look at her side of it. To her dragons were vicious, ugly beasts and she just didn’t have imagination enough to see one of them smile. She was a very, very fond mother and wanted to protect her children from all harm, which is not at all unusual for very, very fond mothers from tiny humming-bird mothers clear up to mothers like yours and mine. Maybe Mrs. Baxter gave all her own share of imagination to the children when they were born and had none left for herself, and maybe it was because when she was a little girl she had been taught to fear dragons.

At any rate, there was no help for it now, and so out the dragon had to go. He backed out sheepishly, because there wasn’t room for him to turn around and depart with dignity. When his drooping head passed Mrs. Baxter’s skirts, he raised his big blue eyes and looked at her so sweetly, but Mrs. Baxter, poor Mrs. Baxter, could only see his ugly, ugly nose and his big white teeth. That was really too bad because she might have relented had she seen that sad, sad smile all quivery with threatening tears.

“Goodbye, children!” the dragon called, lingering on the gravel walk.

“Goodbye, dear, dear dragon,” they replied in a gulpy chorus.

And now he was going away from them, dragging his green tail slowly, looking back longingly over his shoulder.

“It’s an outrage to send that poor beast away like this,” stormed Grandma, wagging a finger in Mrs. Baxter’s face. “Don’t you know that he’s all alone in the world?”

“He hasn’t a single friend!” half-sobbed Johnathan.

“Thank heavens he hasn’t,” said Mother Baxter. “Suppose there were lots of them, all trying to hide in children’s nurseries?”

“Maybe there are,” said Grandma, the strangest expression in her eyes. “Maybe there are, who knows?”

The dragon’s tail was just disappearing around the corner of the front porch when Mr. Baxter, the tall, nice-looking father of Johnathan, Janet Jane and Peter, drove up in his own automobile, having just come from the city. When he saw the group standing in the doorway, strangely agitated, he rushed up to Mrs. Baxter and demanded to know what had happened. He thought it couldn’t be anything less than robbers or a fire, from the expressions on all their faces.

“Don’t get excited, James!” Grandma said sternly, before Mrs. Baxter could speak. “Kate has just sent a dragon away.”

“A what away?”

“A dragon.”

Mr. Baxter threw back his head and burst into loud laughter. “A dragon? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t understand,” snapped Grandma, irritated.

“He’s going around the house, this very minute, back to the woodlot, poor thing!” Janet cried. “Go and look for him, Daddy. He’s the sweetest, the dearest, the—”

Peter and Johnathan had swooped down upon their father. “Yes, yes, Dad!” they both shouted—“Come and see how nice he looks!” And they pulled him over to the end of the veranda and pointed out the dragon, who was slowly dragging himself toward the rose garden.

“See, there he is!” Johnathan said. “I wish he’d turn around.”

“Oh, dwagon! Dwagon! Turn around!” called Peter, and the dragon turned, but his face was still very, very sad, and his checks were drenched with tears.

“Smile nice, Dragon,” instructed Johnathan—“smile nice for Daddy.”

The dragon hesitated a moment; blinked fiercely; sniffed so loudly that Peter and Johnathan could hear him plainly, and then forced a smile. It was a weak, watery smile and quickly vanished.

“You children are talking the greatest lot of nonsense I’ve ever listened to,” said their father. “Where did you get such imaginations?”

“It’s not imagination, Daddy,” protested Johnathan. “The dragon’s standing right there by the red rose bush. Can’t you see him, honest?” His big eyes were searching his father’s face.

“No, and you can’t either. What is this, April fool? Come on, let’s stop this joking and go into luncheon. This is Daddy’s Saturday afternoon off and we’re going to take a long auto ride up to Sulphur Springs and the Indian Rocks.”

Now, you really must feel sorry because Daddy Baxter could not see the dragon. Once he could see dragons and pixies and everything else that’s delicious and exciting, but the crystal key that opens the door to that magic world had been lost somewhere along the twisting road that 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.