Free The Time Garden by Edward Eager Page A

the others remained as they were. But a startling change occurred in the vicinity of the coffee tin. The Natterjack disappeared. In its place was a fabulous beast as tall as the ceiling. Gnashing teeth filled its hideous jaws. It had claws, and talons, and a great uncoiling scaly tail that nearly filled the whole room.
    "Dragons!" cried Jo, her eyes gleaming.
    "I'll defend you!" cried Laurie, reaching for the poker.
    "Don't," cried Ann. "It's our Natterjack! It's friendly!"
    "Friendly to some, " said the Natterjack, "but to those as deserves it I can be ' orrible! " And it lowered its great horrendous head to glare at the man and woman. The woman cowered, trembling, but the man stood his ground, pale but defiant.
    "It isn't a dragon, really," Jack explained to the faltering Meg. "There's no such thing. It's a prehistoric beast. Tyrannosaurus rex, I think it's called."
    "What's in a name?" remarked the Natterjack airily, blowing puffs of smoke from its nostrils. "Some

    may call us dragons an' some may call us tyrannosauruses, but we're h' all Natterjacks h'under the skin!"
    "You've kind of dwindled down, in modern times, haven't you?" said Roger.
    "Not at all," said the Natterjack. "What we once put into brawn, we puts into brain. When you think 'ow much h'extra brain that makes left over, h'it's no wonder we're magic! H'it does feel good to get back into form again once in a while, though." It swished its tail, knocking over several chairs and a table, and breathed out more puffs of brimstone-y smelling smoke. "H'I can't manage smoke rings again yet," it added. "H'out of practice!"
    There was a pause. "Well?" said Eliza. "Aren't you going to eat them?"
    The Natterjack hesitated. "By rights I should," it said, eyeing the man and woman with distaste, "but I doubt if they'd digest, from the look of them. They'd sit 'eavy. Per'aps if they was to reform, I'd h'overlook it this once."
    "Reform, Clarence," begged the woman. "Re-form before it's too late!"
    "I won't!" said the man stubbornly. "I won't never. I'd sooner be et!"
    "Oh, very well," sighed the Natterjack. And it opened its jaws.
    But there was an interruption. "Wait!" cried Jo. "Two wrongs do not make a right, and violence never yet solved anything in this world."
    She advanced on the man and woman. With her face flushed in righteous anger and her hair escaping from its pins and coming down behind, she made a glorious sight. And even in the heat of the moment Ann noticed that Jack had stopped looking at Meg and was staring at Jo with the reddening cheek and glazing eye of utter adoration. And she remembered suddenly that Jo was a teenage girl, too!
    "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" said Jo to the man.
    "No I ain't," said the man. "Take or be took by, that's the rule of life. Grab or be downtrod!"
    "No such thing," said Jo. "If you would put your shoulder to the wheel and learn to know the happy weariness that comes from honest toil, you would see things differently."
    "Wouldn't neither," said the man. "I tried working once. All I got was tired and no richer."
    "Think of the terrible influence on your poor family, if you go on as you are," said Jo. "Already they are showing the effects of an unfavorable environment. I don't mean to be rude, but your wife is not a good housekeeper. And your baby is undisciplined."
    "It certainly is," said Ann. "It stole my ring with the garnet."
    "It did?" said the man, pleased. "Clever little fellow!"
    Jo was still not discouraged. "You must have a better side somewhere ," she said. "No matter how hardened in crime you are, you, too, must have been an innocent baby once. You, too, must have had a mother!"
    "I never!" said the man. "I was born an orphing."
    "You must have had someone ," insisted Jo.
    For the first time the man's hard exterior showed signs of softening. "Aunt Jerusha!" he murmured. "Good old Aunt Jerusha! Hain't thought of her these forty years!"
    "Exactly," said Jo, triumphant. "Then think of her now. Think of that