The meadow and the adjoining woodlot were just right for brave knights and fair ladies on that spring Saturday afternoon.
The meadow was soft, green, and wide open. It was the perfect place for the pavilion where the jousting match would take place. At the far end, where the sun rose, stood a huge beech tree. Its spreading branches made a wonderful canopy over the king’s judgment throne.
And after the jousting was over, when the victorious knight was sent into the woodlot to battle the dragon, there could hardly have been a more mysterious hiding place for a twisting, fire-breathing beast.
The woodlot was full of thick thimbleberry bushes, shadowy trees, a black cave beneath a dripping shelf of rock, and tightly packed oaks and maples.
There was always something frightening about that woodlot to the children, even when sunlight managed to break through the branches and leaves.
No one had ever completely explored the thimbleberry thicket.
As for the damp, muddy cave, Johnathan had once ventured inside as far as the first bend. He had carried a small lighted candle with him, but the candle had suddenly gone out.
He had rushed back to Peter and Janet Jane, who had been waiting outside and staring wide-eyed into the cave’s black entrance.
When Johnathan finally caught his breath, he insisted that he had seen something strange around the bend just before the candle went out.
But Johnathan had a very lively imagination. In fact, he was the one who invented all the plays and games that took place in the meadow and sometimes spilled over into the woodlot on Saturdays.
So Peter and Janet Jane had no way of knowing whether he had really seen something strange or had simply imagined it.
Their mother, of course, had no doubt.
“What nonsense, Johnathan! You’re too old to imagine things like that.”
She had frowned at him.
“No wonder you’re doing so poorly in arithmetic this month!”
Johnathan could not see what arithmetic had to do with the cave.
But that was not the only strange thing about the woodlot.
Peter, who was only six, claimed that he had once heard a lion roaring in the thimbleberry thicket.
It had happened one quiet evening when he had gone back to the meadow to look for his lost cap.
But Peter had quite a generous imagination too.
“Lions only live in Africa or in circuses,” Janet Jane had told him with the confidence of someone who considered the matter settled.
Peter had tilted his head and answered in his familiar little lisp.
“There’s no good reason a lion couldn’t be in a thimbleberry thicket just as well as a badger or a chipmunk.”
Nothing Janet Jane said could convince him otherwise.
“What if lions don’t eat thimbleberries?”
He had thought about it seriously.
“Couldn’t a lion be in the thicket for some other reason?”
He paused.
“Or couldn’t it just be there for no reason at all?”
“Why does everything always have to have a reason?”
Peter liked going places for no reason.
“Maybe lions do too!”
Janet Jane pretended to be skeptical whenever anyone talked about unknown and terrifying creatures hiding in the woodlot.
But one morning, quite early, she had gone there alone to look for mushroom buttons.
That was when she saw a pixie stick his head out from the bushes.
He grinned at her.
At the same time, he wriggled his pointed ears like a rabbit.
Janet Jane stood frozen.
Then another pixie appeared over the first one’s shoulder.
This one wore a pink sunbonnet, even though he looked very much like a boy-pixie in every other way.
He wriggled his long nose at her, just like a rabbit too.
Janet Jane stared at them in astonishment.
Then, she said, the two pixies began to sing.
One sang tenor.
The other sang bass.
Strangely enough, Janet Jane remembered every word.
They sang:
“Butter and eggs, butter and eggs,
Mushroom buttons and spider legs.
Mix them up and bake them brown,
And you’ll have a dish that will tempt the town.”
Johnathan found this story suspicious.
Janet Jane was only beginning to learn how to cook, and she was always singing recipes to herself. Some of the dishes she dreamed up were certainly very strange.
So why would two pixies she supposedly met in the early morning be singing recipes too?
Janet Jane had an answer.
“Not at all! They were making fun of me.”
She was quite certain about that.
“Pixies always make fun of people.”
“They’re like brownies that way.”
“But they’re nothing like fairies. Fairies are much too well-mannered to make fun of anyone.”
The two pixies sang their little song twice.
Each time, they used a different tune.
At last Janet Jane managed to find her voice.
“Shooo!”
The pixies disappeared into the woodlot.
Janet Jane bent down to pick up the mushroom basket she had dropped.
Then she heard the rude little creatures laughing at her.
It was a high, shrill laugh, sharp and quick like the bark of a tree squirrel.
So, as you can see, Janet Jane was certain she had seen the pixies.
Peter was certain he had heard a lion.
And Johnathan was certain there was something mysterious inside the cave, somewhere beyond the first bend.
There was therefore no question in their minds that the woodlot was a terrifying place.
And any victorious knight who entered it with a drawn wooden sword was almost certain to find himself in the middle of an adventure.
It was just after breakfast on that memorable Saturday morning when the children gathered in the soft, green meadow, which was sprinkled with cowslips and Johnny-jump-ups.
The little troop came through the willow clump at the sunset end of the meadow.
They advanced solemnly toward the great beech tree, where the king’s throne was already waiting.
Johnathan and Billy Rose had fixed it there after school on Friday.
Their arrival sent two fat meadow mice racing desperately toward their holes.
A flock of Jenny wrens flew away in a noisy flutter, chirping angrily at being disturbed.
They looked like a group of little gray ladies who had suddenly been interrupted at a tea party.
It was quite an impressive procession.
It had begun at the back door of the Baxter house, under the watchful eyes of Grandma, who was looking down from an upstairs window.
Johnathan led the procession, naturally.
He was King Arthur, after all.
From the Baxter house, the procession wound through the rose garden and up the lane.
It passed the fish pond, crossed the creek bridge, and went through the vegetable garden.
Then it skirted the barn.
After that, the children made their way through the orchard.
They had to duck and twist their heads to avoid the low willow branches.
Finally, they passed through a green tunnel of leaves and emerged into the open meadow, still wet with morning dew.
There were ten members of the procession in all, counting the two dogs, Nap the Irish setter and Jerry the Airedale.
At the head was Johnathan Baxter, King Arthur.
He wore the green-and-red portiere with tassels that had already served in many royal ceremonies.
A paper crown rested on his head.
In his hand he carried a royal scepter made from an oak branch.
Close behind him came Her Majesty, Queen Guinevere.
She was Janet Jane Baxter, dressed in a long pink Mother Hubbard gown that had once belonged to Mrs. Baxter.
The children had transformed it into a queen’s costume by pinning silver paper stars all around the hem.
Behind the queen came five-year-old Susan Oliver.
She was carrying the queen’s train.
Susan had eyes like mulberries and a great cloud of blue-black hair.
She was also sulking.
She believed it was her turn to be queen.
Before the procession began, there had been serious doubt about whether Susan would play at all.
Finally, the promise that she could be queen the following Saturday had persuaded her to join them.
Even so, she carried the train with such disdain that the queen’s dignity was badly damaged.
The train dragged along the ground on one side and was pulled up much too high on the other.
It revealed the queen’s long, skinny legs.
After Susan came the two knights.
Each carried a wooden sword.
The shorter one was Peter Baxter, chubby and blond and curly-haired, playing Sir Launcelot.
Beside him marched the taller and older Billy Rose as Sir Galahad.
Both boys held their heads high and stuck out their little noses proudly.
They wore armor made from tin cans.
They were extremely proud of it.
Their broomstick horses were waiting beneath the beech tree, tied to young saplings.
Behind the knights came the public.
There were three little girls: Mary, Kath, and Polly.
They had been allowed to make their own costumes.
Mary wore a collection of fluffy skirts that made her look like a bareback circus rider.
Kath dragged behind her a green train that was almost as long as the queen’s.
That train had caused a serious argument before the procession began.
And Polly, who was seven years old, had almost disappeared inside her mother’s old riding suit.
The boots were so large that they might have belonged to Puss in Boots himself.
The procession went around the meadow once.
Then it went around a second time.
After the second circuit, the children stopped in front of the throne.
King Arthur sat down on a bench covered with a piece of red, white, and blue bunting.
Queen Guinevere sat beside him.
Susan Oliver stood behind the queen.
She stared down at the top of Janet Jane’s sandy-colored head.
Sandy hair was not nearly as suitable for a queen as black hair.
Not nearly.
Susan was supposed to fan the queen.
But she had deliberately forgotten the fan.
That was all we need to say about Susan’s mood for the moment.
The three members of the public spread themselves out on either side of the throne.
They settled into poses of intense interest.
For a moment, there was complete silence.
Then the king rose.
His paper crown had slipped down over his eyes, so he pushed it back.
He lowered his chin against his throat to make his voice sound deep and powerful.
“On with ye fight, and the victor will enter yonder forest to slay ye dragon who has been spreading terror and destruction throughout ye countryside.”
He sat down.
The queen smiled at him.
“Ye spoke well, O King.”
But the king did not answer.
A queen should never speak in public unless the king asked her a question.
And when the king did ask her something, she was supposed to answer in as few words as possible.
At the king’s command, the two knights drew their swords.
They pointed them toward the ground and bowed deeply to the king.
Then they hurried to the saplings, untied their horses, and mounted.
The fiery steeds immediately began leaping up and down.
The knights nearly fell off.
Their whirling feet tore up the grass.
King Arthur raised his voice.
“Quiet with ye horses, and on with ye fight!”
At once, as if the horses truly understood him, they became still.
The knights rode apart.
Then they raised their wooden swords and waited for the final signal from King Arthur.
King Arthur stood.
He raised one hand.
He held it there for one breathless moment.
Then he dropped it quickly to his side.
The public leaned forward with renewed excitement.
The blond, chubby knight, Sir Launcelot, charged first.
The wooden swords crashed together.
And the furious battle began.