At first, the children recognized everything around them.
“There’s the white church!” Janet Jane cried.
“And there’s Red Hill, where we coast every winter,” said Johnathan.
“There’s the road to Indian Rocks,” Billy Rose added.
“And there’s the puppy farm where Nap was born!”
Soon, though, they were far, far out in the country, passing the duck farm.
Then the scenery began to change.
It was almost as if they had suddenly entered a completely different part of the United States. In fact, the children began to wonder if they might even be in another country.
Yet Grandma seemed to recognize the places they passed. Her eyes grew brighter and sharper, and little flashes of excitement danced across her face like sunlight sparkling on a pool.
Every now and then they passed through a small town. Then they would come upon a large city.
Some of the places seemed strangely familiar.
“I know that place,” Johnathan said slowly. “Or at least I think I do.”
The buildings looked old-fashioned, and the people wore strange clothes.
“It’s as if we’ve stepped into a history book,” Janet Jane said.
Then Johnathan suddenly pointed.
“Look! Surely that place was on page one hundred and two of the American history book!”
The children stared.
There was a young man walking along the street.
“Wait a minute,” Johnathan said. “I know him!”
He had once drawn a mustache on the man’s picture with pen and ink in his Fourth Reader.
Grandma suddenly cried out.
“Merciful heavens! Look, children! There’s your father when he was a little boy!”
“Where, Grams?” Janet Jane asked.
“Right there! In front of that gray house with the dormer windows. See the iron stag on the lawn?”
The children leaned forward eagerly.
“He was just a little boy then,” Grandma continued. “It was right after he had his curls cut off.”
Janet Jane giggled.
“Oh, how funny he looks, chasing that big hoop!”
“He looks exactly like the tintype in the brown-plush album,” Johnathan said.
“That picture was taken the very next day after this,” Grandma said excitedly. “Oh, James!”
She started up from her rocking chair.
But before she could say anything more, the street, the house with the dormer windows, and the little boy disappeared.
They were suddenly traveling along a long, long stretch of white road.
What an amazing ride it was!
It was like riding on the smoothest railroad in the world, except it was even better because the dragon never stopped. Since he never stopped, there were no bumps at all.
It was like riding on a giant train with rubber wheels running over tracks made of velvet.
And the dragon’s back was wonderfully broad and comfortable.
The farther backward the dragon traveled, the broader his body became, while his tail stretched farther and farther behind them.
The children could have lain flat on his back and stared up at the sky.
But they were far too excited for that.
They didn’t want to miss a single thing.
Who knew when they would ever get another chance to do something like this?
The long, straight road finally ended in another town.
This one was even stranger.
There was a little wooden church built from logs, surrounded by a tall wooden stockade.
All the houses were made of logs too.
The streets weren’t paved. They were chopped up, muddy, and full of deep ruts.
There wasn’t a single automobile anywhere.
Instead, people used oxen and shaggy horses to haul wood and food from the thick, dark forest surrounding the town.
The men wore coonskin caps and clothes made from deerskin.
The women wore deerskin dresses too.
Now and then, however, a young girl could be seen wearing a bright printed dress and a flower-covered poke bonnet.
Every man carried a rifle.
Grandma suddenly gasped.
“Lands alive! There’s your great-grandfather when he was a little boy!”
“Oh, where, Grams?” Janet Jane asked.
“Over there! He’s riding in that cart with his father and mother. And see that little girl beside him? That’s his sister Barbara. She grew up to become a famous nurse during the Civil War.”
Peter stared at the boy.
“Is that the little boy with the scar over his eye?”
“Yes,” Grandma said. “He got that scar from an Indian arrow.”
Grandma was so excited that she could hardly sit still.
“Of course, he wouldn’t recognize me like this. He died when I was only a little girl.”
Janet Jane looked puzzled.
“But how could he be dead when he’s right there?”
“Because we’re back in the time when he was still alive, I suppose.”
Grandma gave a little shiver.
“But that makes me feel very queer.”
She tapped sharply on the dragon’s back.
The dragon turned his head to listen as he rounded a sharp corner.
“Where on earth are we going, Dragon?” Grandma demanded.
She leaned as far out of her rocking chair as she could, waiting for his answer.
“We’re going backwards,” the dragon replied, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes.
“Backwards down the road of time.”
Grandma nodded as if that were the most ordinary thing in the world.
“Why, certainly. How stupid of me not to know.”
“Going backwards?” Janet Jane asked. “Isn’t that rather strange?”
“Well, it’s not exactly something people do every day,” Grandma admitted. “But once you’re riding on a dragon’s back, it seems perfectly natural.”
She smiled.
“In fact, going backward is the natural direction for a dragon to travel.”
“How long do you think the trip will be?” Peter asked.
He was standing on the dragon’s neck like a sailor standing at the front of a ship.
The wind whistled around his ears and blew his nightgown backward like a white sail. His golden hair fluttered wildly around his face.
And in his hand he held his wooden sword.
That was strange.
How had he gotten the sword?
He was sure he hadn’t had it in the nursery.
“We’ll probably go all the way back to the days when dragons lived,” Grandma answered.
A great cheer rose from the children.
Nap and Jerry barked too, apparently just because everyone else was making noise.
The dragon heard them and turned his head around with a merry smile.
Then he raced on.
The road stretched for mile after mile, lined with tall poplar trees.
Back.
Back.
Back.
Past years.
Past centuries.
“There’s Abraham Lincoln!” Grandma called.
“There’s Jefferson and Adams!”
“There’s George Washington!”
“Not so fast, Mr. Dragon!” Johnathan shouted. “I want to get a good look at George Washington!”
But the dragon apparently didn’t hear him.
In an instant, George Washington was gone too.
“And there’s the Mayflower!” Grandma cried.
Then she looked around in amazement.
“My gracious! We’re going over the ocean!”
At that moment, something strange began happening to the famous rocking chair.
It creaked.
Then it creaked again.
The chair seemed to grow younger and younger.
Its polished wood became fresh and new, as though green leaves might sprout from it at any moment.
There was so much to see that the children hardly knew where to look.
They rode past one astonishing sight after another.
Their eyes grew tired.
Their heads spun with wonder.
“This is like reading a huge, fat history book,” Johnathan said after they passed the time of Louis XII. “Only it’s much more exciting this way.”
He thought for a moment.
“I wish arithmetic worked like this.”
Peter suddenly spoke up.
“I’m getting awfully hungry.”
“It must be very late,” Janet Jane said. “Look how dark the sky is.”
“No, it isn’t late,” Grandma replied.
She began searching through her mysterious knitting bag.
“It’s getting dark because we’re entering the Dark Ages.”
“Wheeeee!” Johnathan shouted.
“That’s when they had the Children’s Crusades, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Grandma said. “And there were many dragons too.”
She finally stopped rummaging through her bag and pulled out several little sandwiches wrapped in oiled paper.
Then she produced some oranges and bright red apples.
“Did you say you were hungry, Peter?”
“Oh, yes, Grams—awful hungry!”
“I’m hungry too, Grams!” Johnathan said.
“So am I,” Janet Jane added. “You have to remember, we didn’t have any breakfast.”
“Then come and eat your luncheon.”
The children rushed toward Grandma.
There was such a scramble that the dragon must have felt it all the way down his spine.
He turned his head and smiled again.
“Wouldn’t the dragon like a sandwich too?” Peter asked thoughtfully before taking his own.
“I hardly think so,” Grandma said.
“One of these little sandwiches wouldn’t make much of an impression on him.”
She looked ahead.
“Besides, I think he’s heading straight for that great volcano over there.”
The children looked toward the horizon.
“Now that we’re back in the Dark Ages,” Grandma continued, “he can eat fire again.”
Sure enough, far away against the dark sky stood a huge cone-shaped mountain.
Smoke poured from its summit.
“From here, it looks like a knight’s helmet with a black plume,” Johnathan said.
Johnathan always saw things that way.
Trees looked like turtles to him.
Rocks looked like old men with whiskers.
And sometimes old men looked like rocks.
“Maybe we’ll go right up to the crater!” Janet Jane squealed.
“I’ve always wanted to look down inside a crater.”
“But you can’t do that if the volcano is erupting,” Johnathan warned.
“Maybe you can if you’re riding on a dragon’s back,” Grandma said. “Just wait and see.”
She smiled at Peter.
“Would you like another sandwich?”
“Yes, please, Grams.”
Peter paused.
“And Nap would like another sandwich too.”
As they continued riding, the children ate and talked excitedly.
Soon they passed strange groups of horsemen traveling along the road.
Then came whole regiments of armored soldiers.
“Must be a war going on,” Johnathan observed after they had passed the fifteenth group of warriors.
“I think they’re attacking that castle on the hill,” Grandma said.
She pointed toward the right.
It certainly looked that way.
All the soldiers were heading toward the castle, and many had gathered at the foot of the steep, rocky mountain where the castle stood.
The castle perched on the top like a gray bird balanced on a church steeple.
“I wish the dragon wouldn’t get too close to them,” Janet Jane said nervously.
“We’re not exactly well protected in these nightgowns.”
“Why didn’t Mr. Dragon tell us to bring our armor?” Johnathan complained.
Peter proudly lifted his wooden sword.
“I’ve got my sword.”
But there was no need to worry.
The dragon wasn’t interested in the soldiers or the castle.
He had his own meal in mind.
He flew straight toward the volcano, as directly as a crow flies.
Soon they were so close to the fiery mountain that they could hear it mumbling and grumbling like an angry old man.
Then came a long, terrible hiss, like an entire nest of snakes.
The air smelled of black smoke and boiling lava.
The dragon began climbing the steep mountainside.
Before they reached the summit and the crater, his feet were already wading through molten fire.
But the dragon didn’t seem to mind at all.
His back remained perfectly comfortable.
It stayed as cool as ever.
At last, they stopped right at the edge of the boiling crater.
The dragon sighed happily.
“Home at last.”
He sounded completely satisfied.
“No more indigestion.”
Then he lowered his enormous head into the boiling crater.
And he drank.
And drank.
And drank.