You really couldn’t blame Mrs. Baxter, if you looked at things from her point of view. To her, dragons were vicious, ugly creatures. She simply didn’t have enough imagination left to picture one smiling.
She was a very loving mother, and she wanted to protect her children from every possible danger. There was nothing unusual about that. Mothers everywhere, from tiny hummingbird mothers to mothers like yours and mine, have always worried about keeping their children safe.
Perhaps Mrs. Baxter had given all her imagination to her children when they were born and had none left for herself. Or perhaps, when she was a little girl, someone had taught her to be afraid of dragons.
Whatever the reason, there was nothing to be done now.
The dragon had to leave.
He backed out of the house awkwardly because there wasn’t enough room for him to turn around and make a dignified exit. When his drooping head passed Mrs. Baxter’s skirts, he lifted his big blue eyes and looked at her with such a gentle expression.
But poor Mrs. Baxter could see only his ugly nose and his enormous white teeth.
That was a terrible shame.
If only she could have seen his sad little smile, trembling with the effort not to cry, she might have changed her mind.
“Goodbye, children!” the dragon called as he lingered on the gravel path.
“Goodbye, dear, dear dragon!” the children answered together, their voices thick with tears.
Slowly, the dragon began to move away.
His green tail dragged behind him as he walked. Every few steps, he looked back over his shoulder at the children.
“It’s an outrage to send that poor creature away like this!” Grandma stormed. She shook a finger right in Mrs. Baxter’s face.
“Don’t you know he’s all alone in the world?”
“He hasn’t a single friend!” Johnathan cried, almost sobbing.
“Thank heavens he hasn’t!” Mother Baxter replied.
“Just imagine if there were dozens of them, all trying to hide in children’s nurseries!”
“Maybe there are,” Grandma said.
There was a very strange look 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 drove up in his automobile.
He was Johnathan, Janet Jane, and Peter’s tall, pleasant-looking father, and he had just returned from the city.
The moment he saw everyone gathered in the doorway with such troubled expressions, he hurried toward Mrs. Baxter.
“What happened?” he demanded.
From the looks on their faces, he was sure it had to be something serious—perhaps robbers or a fire.
“Don’t get excited, James,” Grandma said sternly, before Mrs. Baxter could answer.
“Kate has just sent a dragon away.”
“A what?”
“A dragon.”
Mr. Baxter threw his head back and burst into loud laughter.
“A dragon? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t understand,” Grandma snapped irritably.
“He’s going around the house right now,” Janet cried.
“He’s heading back to the woodlot. Poor thing!”
“Go and find him, Daddy. He’s the sweetest, dearest—”
Peter and Johnathan rushed over to their father.
“Yes, yes, Dad!” they shouted.
“Come and see how nice he looks!”
They pulled him toward the end of the veranda and pointed toward the dragon, who was slowly making his way toward the rose garden.
“See? There he is!” Johnathan said.
“I wish he would turn around.”
“Oh, dwagon! Dwagon! Turn around!” Peter called.
The dragon turned.
But his face was still terribly sad, and tears covered his cheeks.
“Smile nice, Dragon,” Johnathan instructed.
“Smile nice for Daddy.”
The dragon hesitated.
He blinked hard.
Then he sniffed so loudly that both Peter and Johnathan heard him clearly.
Finally, he forced himself to smile.
It was a weak, watery smile.
And it disappeared almost at once.
“You children are talking the greatest lot of nonsense I’ve ever heard,” their father said.
“Where did you ever get such wild imaginations?”
“It’s not imagination, Daddy!” Johnathan protested.
“The dragon is standing right there beside the red rose bush. Can’t you see him? Really?”
His big eyes searched his father’s face.
“No, and you can’t either,” Mr. Baxter said.
“Is this some kind of April Fool joke?”
He waved them off.
“Come on. Let’s stop this nonsense and go have lunch. This is Daddy’s Saturday afternoon off, and we’re going to take a long automobile ride up to Sulphur Springs and Indian Rocks.”
You really ought to feel sorry for Daddy Baxter because he couldn’t see the dragon.
Once upon a time, he had been able to see dragons and pixies and all sorts of wonderful, exciting things.
But somewhere along the twisting road that leads from childhood into middle age, he had lost the crystal key that opened the door to that magical world.
The big city had taken it from him.
So had the tall office buildings, the crowded streetcars, business deals, and the endless rattling of subway trains.
Heigh-ho!
Where was there room for a dragon in a life like that?
A dragon wouldn’t last a minute in the middle of all those busy city streets. His tail would be cut off before he knew what had happened, and even a tiny pixie would have to be quick on its feet to survive.
So the dragon continued on his lonely way.
The children took off their costumes from King Arthur’s court and washed up for lunch.
They tried to eat.
They really did.
But it was difficult to swallow with those painful little lumps of tears stuck in their throats.
Even the promise of a ride to Sulphur Springs and Indian Rocks couldn’t cheer them up.
Now, what I’m about to tell you is a little embarrassing for Billy Rose.
But since nothing really came of it, I suppose it won’t hurt to tell the story. Besides, Billy was such a practical boy that he could certainly survive being laughed at a little.
The moment the door of the Baxter house closed, Billy slipped away from Kath, Polly, Mary, and Susan Oliver.
Then he raced around the veranda.
“Oh, Mr. Dragon!”
“Wait a minute, Mr. Dragon!”
“Oh, Mr. Dragon!”
He ran through the rose garden and down the lane beside the fish pond.
He hurried across the creek bridge, through the vegetable garden, past the barn, calling the whole time.
“Oh, Mr. Dragon!”
“Mr. Dragon!”
“I want to talk business with you, Mr. Dragon!”
But no one answered.
Billy couldn’t see the dragon anywhere.
There was nothing left except the marks of his golden claws in the gravel paths and the trail left by his bright green tail.
“That’s funny,” Billy Rose said.
He stopped and scratched his puzzled head.
“Where could he have disappeared to so quickly?”
At last, Billy had to give up.
He went home thoroughly disgusted, wondering whether this whole dragon business had been nothing more than a lot of nonsense after all.
But you must remember that Billy Rose was a practical boy.
He didn’t hear what the silver snail whispered to the green grasshopper as he passed through the rose garden.
He didn’t hear the green grasshopper’s reply.
And he certainly didn’t hear the tiny chuckle of a polka-dot ladybug sitting on the edge of a rose petal, swinging her little feet.
If Billy had heard those soft, velvety voices and put them together like an arithmetic problem made of sounds—the snail’s voice, the grasshopper’s voice, and the ladybug’s voice—he might have discovered where the dragon had gone.
All he would have had to do was look back toward the place where the red rose bush grew.