furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry; all the
young folks tended flocks.
The situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery
plain extended in a wide sweep to the river–the Meuse; from the
rear edge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top
was the great oak forest–a forest that was deep and gloomy and
dense, and full of interest for us children, for many murders had
been done in it by outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times
prodigious dragons that spouted fire and poisonous vapors from
their nostrils had their homes in there. In fact, one was still living
in there in our own time. It was as long as a tree, and had a body as
big around as a tierce, and scales like overlapping great tiles, and
deep ruby eyes as large as a cavalier’s hat, and an anchor-fluke on
its tail as big as I don’t know what, but very big, even unusually so
for a dragon, as everybody said who knew about dragons. It was
thought that this dragon was of a brilliant blue color, with gold
mottlings, but no one had ever seen it, therefore this was not
known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was not my opinion; I
think there is no sense in forming an opinion when there is no
evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any bones in
h8im he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber and
cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an
opinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another
time, and try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that
dragon, I always held the belief that its color was gold and without
blue, for that has always been the color of dragons. That this
dragon lay but a little way within the wood at one time is shown by
the fact that Pierre Morel was in there one day and smelt it, and
recognized it by the smell. It gives one a horrid idea of how near to
us the deadliest danger can be and we not suspect it.
In the earliest times a hundred knights from many remote places in
the earth would have gone in there one after another, to kill the
dragon and get the reward, but in our time that method had gone
out, and the priest had become the one that abolished dragons.
PЉre Guillaume Fronte did it in this case. He had a procession,
with candles and incense and banners, and marched around the
edge of the wood and exorcised the dragon, and it was never heard
of again, although it was the opinion of many that the smell never
wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell again,
for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other–and lacked
bones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the
exorcism, but whether it was there afterward or not is a thing
which I cannot be so positive about.
In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground
toward Vaucouleurs stood a most majestic beech tree with
wide-reaching arms and a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid
spring of cold water; and on summer days the children went
there–oh, every summer for more than five hundred years–went
there and sang and danced around the tree for hours together,
refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it was
most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and
hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies
that lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little
creatures, as all fairies are, and fond of anything delicate and
pretty like wild flowers put together in that way. And in return for
this attention the fairies did any friendly thing they could for the
children, such as keeping the spring always full and clear and cold,
and driving away serpents and insects that sting; and so there was