Part 12 (2/2)
”Fly a little,” she asked
”Shall I fly away?”
”Oh no I just want to see your great white wings move in the blue air But never mind I can wait till later Where do you live?”
”Nowhere specially A settled hoet to be really delightful until I turned into a butterfly Before that, while I was still a caterpillar, I couldn't leave the cabbage the livelong day, and all one did was eat and squabble”
”Just what do you mean?” asked Maya, mystified
”I used to be a caterpillar,” explained Fred
”Never!” cried Maya
”No,” said Fred, pointing both feelers straight at Maya ”Everyone knows a butterfly is first a caterpillar Even hus know it”
Maya was utterly perplexed Could such a thing be?
”You must really explain more clearly,” she said ”I couldn't accept what you say just so, could I? You wouldn't expect me to”
The butterfly perched beside the little bee on the slender swaying branch of the raspberry bush, and they rocked together in the un life as a caterpillar and then, one day, when he had shed his last caterpillar skin, he came out a pupa or chrysalis
”At the end of a feeeks,” he continued, ”I woke up out of s or pupa-case I can't tell you, Maya, what a feeling comes over you when, after a tih I were olden ocean, and I loved an to pound”
”I understand,” said Maya, ”I understand I felt the same way the first tiht scented world of blosso of her first flight-- But then she wanted to kno the butterfly's large wings could grow in the small space of the pupa-case
Fred explained
”The wings are delicately folded together like the petals of a flower in the bud When the weather is bright and warm, the flower must open, it cannot help itself, and its petals unfold
So with s, they were folded up, then unfolded No one can resist the sun when it shi+nes”
”No, no--one cannot--one cannot resist the sunshi+ne” Maya olden light of the ainst the blue sky
”People often charge us with being frivolous,” said Fred ”We're really happy--just that--just happy You wouldn't believe how seriously I sometimes think about life”
”Tell me what all you think”
”Oh,” said Fred, ”I think about the future It's very interesting to think about the future-- But I should like to fly now The meadows on the hillside are full of yarrow and canterbury bells; everything's in bloom I'd like to be there, you know”
This Maya understood, she understood it well, and they said good-by and fleay in different directions, the white butterfly rocking silently as if wafted by the gentle wind, little Maya with that uneasy zoom-zoom of the bees which we hear upon the flowers on fair days and which ays recall e think of the summer
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX