86 
BY THE WAYSIDE. 
blowing flames into your sister’s face, this mo¬ 
ment! or not a word shall you hear. 
“There was once a most delightful land, 
full of bogs and moist-smelling marshes, of 
dark rocky caves, all damp and cold. The 
lakes were covered with beautiful green mold, 
no flowers grew in the fields—nothing but 
cool rushes, ferns, and mosses. In short, it 
was a land in which any dragon might be glad 
to crawl: no sunshine to crinkle the scales or 
dry up the wings, no bright, glaring fields to 
dazzle one’s poor eyes. Why, even at midday 
one could slide comfortably about on the 
slippery slimy banks and never catch a blink of 
a sunbeam on the water.” 
“Oh, how nice! Really and truly, Mamma?” 
asked the small dragons, laughing with so 
much delight that the flames from their pretty 
scarlet throats lighted up the cave until 
Mr. Dragon stirred uneasily in his dreams; 
for he had fallen asleep. 
“Really and truly,” their mother went on, in 
a lower tone. “In this charming country, 
your father and I began our cave-keeping. We 
were very happy for a time, for not too far 
from us was your father’s estate,—a fertile 
valley well stocked with plump and well-flav¬ 
ored inhabitants. You have never seen any 
whole men, have you?” 
“No,” they replied eagerly. “What are they 
like?” 
“Oh, so ugly. To begin with, they have no 
scales, no wings, no claws—” 
“No wings and no claws? How frightful 
they must be!” exclaimed young Samuel 
Dragon, Jr., proudly expanding his green pin¬ 
ions. 
“Not a wing!” replied Mrs. Dragon. “And 
they walk, when mature, exclusively on their 
hind legs.” 
“Why is that?” asked the children. 
“I cannot tell. It does seem absurd. When 
young they go on all four like sensible ani¬ 
mals, but the elders pull and persuade, teach 
and coax, until the poor little things rear up on 
their hind legs, and then the foolish old ones 
seem satisfied. Men are very queer. When 
they first came on this earth,—this earth where 
dragons dwell,—they lived properly enough, 
in caves like the rest of the world. But they 
are stupid and restless kind of creatures, 
and soon began to tear pieces out of the world 
to make caves to suit themselves. Now they 
slaughter trees, slice and split them, fasten 
the pieces together, and stalk in and out of 
queer little holes called ‘doors.’ But I cannot 
spare time to tell you any more about their 
curious instincts—you must read it for your¬ 
selves some day, in the ‘Dragon’s Economical 
Cavekeeper,’ the marketing manual. Look in 
the index under Animal Foods: ‘Apes, Men, 
and Various Bipeds.’ You will find it interest¬ 
ing:—and useful, too. 
“As I said, we were happy for a time. We 
used to steal out quietly in. the evening, and 
often managed to secure a nice chubby man or 
two, in an hour’s flight. But at length came an 
ao-e when those mean creatures decided to 
© 
revolt. That is, they kept in their little caves 
at night, and compelled us to go out so fre¬ 
quently in the unhealthful, glaring daylight, 
that our scales were hardly fit to be seen. 
Even with all this exposure, we would succeed 
in catching only some of the little ones—in¬ 
deed during a whole month I caught nothing 
but two of these miserable specimens. Think 
how vour poor mother suffered!. I was almost 
starved! I became so thin that I rattled!” 
9 
Mrs. Dragon looked at the young audience, 
and saw that they eyes of the two smallest 
were really shedding sparks. She was touched 
by their sympathy, but, fearing that the story 
was becoming too sad, hastened to brighten it. 
“Well, dears, it did not last long. Your 
father was young, rash, and brave, in those 
nights. One dawn he said, ‘Really. Scalena, 
this will not do. I can stand this foolishness 
no longer!’ I asked what he intended, but he 
o 
waved his tail in a threatening way, and smiled 
knowingly as he whetted his claws on a new 
piece of sandstone. The next night, bidding 
me not to be anxious, he left me. I looked after 
him as long as I could see the flames in the 
