Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/615

1858.] "Oh, yes, I did," said Mark;—"there, don't you see the end of his tail sticking out from under the largest stone? May-be he has had one little girl for breakfast this morning, and don't care about another for luncheon, or else he would spring up after you, and gobble you up in a minute."

"What stories, Mark! Aunt Eleanor says there are no dragons, nor ever were."

"Pooh!" retorted Mark, contemptuously,—"Aunt Eleanor has not seen everything that there is to be seen in the world. Look again, Rosy."

Again the little curly head was bent over the well, somewhat puzzled which to believe, Aunt Eleanor or Mark, but half-inclined to credit Mark's eyes rather than Aunt Eleanor's words.

"Do you think that can be one of his scales?" asked she, pointing to a small piece of tin which glittered in a stray sunbeam among the stones.

Mark's eyes followed the direction of her finger, and he was about to declare that it must be a scale that the dragon had scraped off his back, wriggling among the stones, when both children were startled by a loud voice calling out, "What are you doing, children? You will fall into the well and break your good-for-nothing little necks!"

Mark and Rosamond drew back, and saw a young man, their brother Bradford, with a basket and a fishing-rod in his hand, coming up the knoll.

"Why are you here, Mark?" asked he. "Aunt Eleanor thinks it a dangerous place, and has forbidden you to play here."

Mark looked up at his brother. "I come," said he, sturdily, "for that very reason,—because I am told not to. I won't mind Aunt Eleanor, nor any other woman."

Bradford shook his head and burst out into a laugh. "Ah, Mark, my boy," said he, with a serious, comical air, "it will do very well for you to talk,—you will find out, sooner or later, that all men have to do just what women wish."

Mark opened his incredulous eyes, and inwardly resolved that this should never be the case with him; and considering that Bradford was only eighteen it is somewhat remarkable that he should have gained so much wisdom, either by observation or experience, at so early an age.

"Mark says," chimed in Rosamond, "that there is a dragon at the bottom of the well; and I want to see him."

"A dragon?" cried Bradford,—"Mark is a story-teller, and you are a goose;—but if there is one, I will catch him for you";—and he stood on the brink of the well, and sportively threw his line into it.

"You are a pretty fellow to talk about catching a dragon, Brad!" retorted Mark, a little nettled at the tone in which Bradford spoke of him,—"you can't even catch a shiner!"—and he glanced at Bradford's empty basket.

Bradford laughed louder than before. "And for that very reason I expect to catch the dragon. One kind of a line will not catch all kinds of fish; and this line may be good for nothing but dragons, after all.—There! I've got a bite. Stand back, Rosy," cried he, "the dragon will be on the grass in a minute."

Bradford tried to pull up his line, but it was either entangled among the stones, or had some heavy object attached to it, for the rod bent beneath the weight as he with a strong pull endeavored to draw up his prize. Rosamond's eyes opened to their widest extent, and, fully expecting to see the dragon swinging wide-mouthed in the air over her head, drew a little closer to Mark, who, on his part, wondered what Bradford was at, and whether he was not playing some trick upon him.

When the end of the line rose to the top of the well, they saw suspended by the two hooks, not a winged, scaly monster, but a small rusty box, in the fastenings of which the hooks had caught.

Rosamond drew a long breath,—"Is that all, Bradford? I am so sorry! I thought, to be sure, you had the dragon."

"Never mind the dragon, Rosy," cried he; "let us see what I have caught.