Free The Time Garden by Edward Eager Page B

gentlewoman caring for you and watching you flower into manhood!"
    "She warn't gentle!" said the man, indignantly. "She were tough! Cuff you as soon as look at you, she would!" And his face relaxed in a look of happy remembrance. Jo was quick to press home her advantage.
    "Think of her poor hands, weary with cuffing!" she said. "Think of her arm, weary with switching. Think of her face, worn with the care of thinking up new punishments, all in hope that you'd grow into a good man! And think of how you have repaid her!"
    The man looked from Jo to the Natterjack-dragon and back again. His lip trembled. "'Tain't fair," he said. "Gangin' up on a man's soft spots, reformin' him against his will! 'Tain't no-ways fair!"
    "Why don't you give in?" said Ann. "It's easy being good, when you get started."
    "It's fun, too, in a way," said Eliza, "now and then."
    The man hesitated. Then he made up his mind. "All right," he said. "I've tried everything else. Might as well try that! " And his iron control gave way, and he burst into sobs of repentance. "Ain't it awful?" he said, between sobs. "Ain't it horrible to think what I've went an' become? Maybe it's 'cause Aunt Jerusha died and there warn't no more cuffing! Maybe if one of you was to cuff me now, I'd be a better man!"
    Laurie and Jack and Roger were perfectly willing, but Jo dissuaded them. "No," she said. "He has reformed at last, and that is punishment enough."
    "Yes," said Ann, carried away by the emotion of the moment, "let's turn the other cheek and heap coals of fire on it!"
    "Do I have to give the ring back, too, Clarence?" asked the woman.
    "Yes, Eupheemy, you do," said the man. "If we're going to reform, might as well go the whole hog!" And the woman handed it over.
    Everyone was being so noble that Ann almost hated to take it. If it hadn't been a present from her favorite Aunt Jane, she wouldn't have.
    "Of course," said the Natterjack, speaking for the first time in quite a while, "that isn't quite h'all there is to it. H'it isn't quite as h'easy as that! There 'as to be signs of h'improvement in future. The first thing to do is clean up this messy room!"
    And urged on by gentle shoves from the Natterjack's dragonlike claws and hot gusts of its smoky breath, the man and woman proceeded to give the room such a thorough cleaning as it had never known in all its days, dusting and sweeping and scouring and waxing till they were nearly dropping with weariness. When it came time for beating the carpets on the line in the yard, the Natterjack took pity on the man and woman and offered the use of its tail. All the neighbors and passersby took one look at the carpet-beating dragon, and rushed inside and locked the doors and sent for the police, and the man and woman were later forced to move out of town, for harboring undesirable pets. But that is another story.
    "And now," said Eliza to the Natterjack, when the house cleaning was finally over, "let's all go back to dragon-time with you. Did you used to eat many princesses? Was it you who fought Saint George? Can we watch?"
    "Let's not," said Ann. "Let's go back to Concord and have sledding and apples and gingerbread instead."
    The Natterjack shook its head regretfully. "HTm afraid we can't do h'either," it said. "When this 'ere magic stops, it stops. The next whiff will take h'each of us back to 'is own century. It's time to say good-bye."
    "Couldn't we have a stopover on the way?" pleaded Ann, loath to leave the magnificent Jo behind in time forever. As for Jack, he said nothing, but his face as he looked at Jo was more crimson and his eyes more glazed than ever.
    "I'll see what I can do," said the Natterjack, "but it's 'ighly h'improbable."
    "And if not," said Jo, with a mock-sentimental face, "let's bear it cheerfully, and keep each other green in memory's garland!"
    "And we can always reread the book," added Roger.
    "Don't forget to write it," said Ann. " Little Women, it's called."
    " Little Women! " said Jo. "What a good idea.