Well, there was certainly lots of excitement over the return of the princess, and everybody kissed everybody else, there on the King’s Great Highway, back in the Dark Ages, and even the disgusted donkey began to smile.
Dallahan was the first to break up the party. “Now that I’m my old self again,” he said, stretching a trifle longer, “I’ll have to go about my business, doing good deeds, this time, so farewell, my old friend.” Solemnly he shook hands with the cave dragon. “If you’re ever in Ireland, stop in and see me. You’ll always be welcome.”
“And my cave is always open to you, friend of my youth,” said the cave dragon.
“I thank you,” returned Dallahan, bowing low.
And then he said farewell to the princess and apologized to her for having stolen her, and then he hugged Peter and told him he would always, always remember him. “You are a brave knight,” he said. “You should have been with great King Arthur.” And he patted Peter’s curly head.
Then turning his nose toward Ireland, he went away, his red-gold scales flashing like rubies in the sun. Far down the highway, he turned and waved at them and then was gone.
“Pardon me,” said the white donkey in a disgusted voice, “I’m going too. Mig magicked me out of a nice warm barn filled with oats and hay and I want very much to get back to it. Goodbye, all--very unhappy to have made your acquaintance.” And he too was gone, taking the cart with him.
“And what’s to be done now?” Grandma asked.
“We’ll have to fight something,” announced Crubby, “now that we’ve bought all this armor and these swords.”
“Nonsense!” said Grandma, “that’s no argument! We’ll just go home to sleep. Look at those children.”
Dropped down beside the highway, under the poplar trees, Johnathan, Janet Jane and Peter were nodding, their eyes closed, and the dogs were lying asleep.
“They’ve had a long, long day of adventure,” said the dragon, smiling wistfully as he looked at the drowsy children. “We’ll go back to the cave and put them to bed.”
“No,” said Grandma, after a short pause, “we’ll take them back to the nursery.”
“Back to the nursery?” exclaimed the dragon, very much surprised.
“Yes, back to where they belong. You belong here. They belong there. They can run back with you down the road of time but they cannot stay. You know that, Dragon, just as well as I do.”
“Yes, you’re right,” agreed the dragon with a sigh. “Dear, dear me, the world’s a funny place, isn’t it now?”
“Don’t begin feeling sorry for yourself,” Grandma snapped. “You have your princess and you have Crubby. Be satisfied with what you have.”
“Yes, you have me, always and always, dear, dear dragon,” said the Princess Silver Toes, throwing her arms around the dragon’s neck. “I’ll sing for you and dance for you for ever and ever and ever.”
“Now, see that?” said Grandma, “What could be sweeter?”
“If she sings for ever and ever and ever, I’ll leave!” said Crubby. He was very, very jealous of the princess.
“Tut, tut,” Grandma said, “you know you never could. Come now, Dragon, get the children on your back. Look at poor Peter”--
When they returned to the cave, the dragon turned and winked at Grandma before plunging in, and Grandma winked back at the dragon. Then into the darkness of the cave they plunged, stopping for only a moment to pick up Grandma’s famous rocking chair, and after the old lady was seated in it, creaking away once more, down, down, down into the cave the dragon ran, deeper and deeper, darker and darker, and faster and faster. But only Grandma knew how fast they were going, and maybe Crubby in his perch behind the dragon’s ear, for the rest of them slept, cuddled together on the dragon’s warm back, Silver Toes, too.
And finally, far, far ahead, Grandma saw a tiny speck of light like a round pin-hole which grew and grew, and she could feel the dragon becoming smaller and smaller, and the armor of the Dark Ages melted away and Grandma was in her lavender gown once more and the children were cuddled up in their white night gowns.
“What’s that?” whispered Grandma, like a little child in the dark.
“That’s the drip, drip, drip of the spring-shelf,” said the dragon. “Don’t you know where you are now?”
“Yes, I do now,” said Grandma, “it’s the first bend of the cave in the woodlot. We’re home again.”
“Yes,” said the dragon.
A burst of sunlight and the green of the trees and they came into morning again--a Sunday morning with all the bells ringing and birds on the wing. In the woodlot, pixies ran for shelter as the dragon came through, and one, in a flurry, lost his pink sunbonnet in the thimble berry thicket....
At the breakfast table that morning, Dad Baxter silenced the shrill voices of Johnathan, Janet Jane and Peter. “You children are talking the greatest lot of nonsense,” he said. “Where did you get such imaginations?”
“It’s not imagination, Daddy!” they all protested--“Is it, Grams?”
Grandma, seated in her corner by the window, smiled slyly. “Don’t argue about it, dears,” she said. “We know what we know.”
“Yes,” repeated Peter, solemnly, “we know what we know.”
And outside in the rose garden, the silver snail said something to the green grasshopper and the green grasshopper said something to the silver snail, and then the polka-dot lady bug wrapped her arms around her shell and chuckled and chuckled and chuckled. In the mud, at the mouth of the cave in the woodlot, was the print of a foot that was certainly not the print of a dog’s foot or the print of a pixie’s foot either. Maybe it was imagination but it certainly resembled the footprint of a dragon.
END
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: italics.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
Some illustrations have been moved to locations nearer to their related text. The List of Illustrations has been updated to reflect these moves.
