AN AWAKENING.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

I used to think that Fido was a most exciting pet; He'd come up in the morning and beneath the bed-clothes get, And play that he was savage, and go biting at my toes; But now he doesn't scare me—little Fi no longer goes. I used to think our gardener a hero great and grand, The biggest man of all the big in all our great big land; But now I take no stock in him; he doesn't interest, Although to make a wonder he just tries his level best. You see, somebody gave me, not so very long ago, A little book of fairy tales—it's wonderful, you know, To read about the fearful things they do in books like that. And it's what's made old Fido and the gardener seem flat. I want a dragon for a pet—a dragon big and fierce— That feeds on fire and powder, with a glance that seems to pierce, I sort of don't get wrought up by old Fido when I read Of how that fierce old dragon takes in lions for his feed. And as for John the garden man, he doesn't seem to me One half the hero that one time I thought that he must be, For he don't kill off giants, like Hop o' my Thumb and Jack, And all my liking for his tales is growing very slack. So, daddy, get a dragon that will jump into my bed Each morning when the sun comes up, and sniff about my head The way old Fido does, and let the market garden go To some real ogre-killer, like Great Jacky was, you know.