The Butterflies Children

”Will you please look after my children,” said a butterfly to a quiet caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage leaf in her odd lumbering way. “See these little eggs,” continued the butterfly; “I don’t know how long it will be before they come to life, and I feel very sick and poorly, and if I should die, who will take care of my baby butterflies when I am gone? Will you, kind, mild, green caterpillar? But you must be careful with what you give them to eat, caterpillar — they cannot, live on your rough, bland food. You must give them morning dew, and sweet nectar from the flowers, and you must let them fly around only a little way at first; for, of course, we expect them to use their wings the right way all at once. Although, it is a sad thing that you cant fly yourself. But I don't have time to look for someone else to care for them now, so I am sure you will do your best, I hope. I cant understand what made me come and lay my eggs on a cabbage-leaf. Seems to be a strange place for young butterflies to be born upon! I trust from your calm disposition that you will be kind, to my sweet little ones? Here, take this gold-dust from my wings as a reward. Oh, I feel so dizzy and tired, caterpillar! you will remember about the food — “And with these words, the butterfly drooped her wings and died; and the green caterpillar, who had not had the opportunity of saying Yes or No to the request, was left standing alone by the side of the butterfly’s eggs.” Why would she chose me, poor desperate lady!” Why her senses must have left her or she never would have asked a poor crawling creature like me to bring up her precious little ones! Why would they listen to me, when they feel their beautiful wings on their backs, and can fly away out of my sight whenever they choose.

The caterpillar was truly perplexed about this new plight of hers but she remembered in the neighboring corn-field lived a lark, and the caterpillar sent a message to him, to beg him to come and talk to her, and when he came she told him all about what happened with the butterfly and asked him what she was she should do to feed and raise the little creatures that were very different from herself. “Perhaps you will be able to inquire and hear something about it next time you go up high,” observed the caterpillar, timidly. The lark said, “Perhaps he should;” but he did not satisfy her curiosity any further. The lark went singing upwards into the bright, blue sky his voice slowly dying away in the distance, till the green caterpillar could not hear a sound. So she resumed her walk round the butterfly’s eggs, nibbling a bit of the cabbage-leaf now and then as she moved along. “The lark sure has been gone awfully long,” she thought to herself. “I wonder where he has gone, I would give all my legs to know!” And the green caterpillar took another turn round the butterfly’s eggs when she could hear the lark’s voice again. The caterpillar almost jumped for joy, and it was not long before her friend eagerly descended to the cabbage bed. “News, news, fabulous news, friend caterpillar!” sang the lark; you won’t believe me!”

“I believe everything I am told,” exclaimed the caterpillar, hastily.”Well, then, first of all, I will tell you what these little creatures are to eat. What do you think it is? Guess!” “Dew, and the honey out of flowers, I am afraid,” sighed the caterpillar.” “No such thing, little lady! Something simpler than that. Something that you can get quite easily.” said the lark proudly “I can get at nothing quite easily but cabbage-leaves,” murmured the caterpillar, in distress.”Excellent! my good friend,” cried the Lark, exultingly; “you have found it out. You are to feed them with cabbage-leaves.” “Never!” said the caterpillar, indignantly. “It was their dying mother’s last request that I should do no such thing.” “Their dying mother knew nothing about this matter,” persisted the lark; “why do you ask me, and then disbelieve what I tell you? You have neither faith or trust.” scolded the lark“Oh, I believe everything I am told,” said the caterpillar “No, but you do not,” replied the lark; “you won’t believe me even about the food, and that is just the beginning of what I have to tell you. Why, caterpillar, what do you think those little eggs will turn out to be?” “butterflies, of course,” said the caterpillar.” Nope, caterpillars!” sang the lark; “and you’ll find it out in time;” and the lark flew away because he did not want to stay and contest the point with his friend.” “I thought the lark had been wise and kind,” observed the mild green caterpillar, once more beginning to walk around the eggs, “but I find that he is foolish and saucy instead.

Perhaps he went up too high this time. I still wonder who he sees, and what he does way up there.” the caterpillar spoke while staring up at her friend flying away “I would tell you if you would believe me,” sang the Lark, as he descended once more. “I believe everything I am told,” reiterated the caterpillar, with as grave a face as if it were a fact “Then I’ll tell you something else,” cried the lark; “for the best of my news remains behind. You will one day be a butterfly yourself.” You mean bird!” exclaimed the caterpillar, “you jest with my inferiority — now you are cruel as well as foolish. Go away! I will not ask your advice anymore.” the caterpillar fumed “I told you you would not believe me!” cried the lark.” “I told you I believe everything that I am told” persisted the caterpillar;” that is” — and she hesitated — “everything that it is reasonable to believe. But to tell me that butterflies’ eggs are caterpillars and that caterpillars stop crawling and get wings, and become butterflies! — lark! you are too wise to believe such nonsense yourself, you know it is impossible.” the caterpillar said adamantly “ I know no such thing,” said the lark, warmly. “Whether I float over the corn-fields of earth, or go up into the depths of the sky, I see so many wonderful things, I know no reason why there should not be more. Oh, caterpillar! it is because you crawl, because you never get beyond your cabbage-leaf, that you confess that everything is impossible.”

“Nonsense!” shouted the caterpillar, “I know what’s possible, and what’s not possible, according to my experience and capacity, as well as you do. Look at my long green body and these endless legs, and then talk to me about having wings and a painted feathery coat! Fool! — “And fool you!” cried the indignant lark. “Fool, to attempt to reason about what you cannot understand! Do you not hear how my song praising the creator as I soar upwards to the mysterious wonder-world above? Oh, caterpillar; what comes to you from there, receive, as I do, upon trust. “That is what you call — “”Faith,” interrupted the lark. “How am I to learn Faith?” asked the caterpillar. At that moment she felt something at her side. She looked around and eight, no ten little green caterpillars were moving about and had already made a hole in the cabbage-leaf. They had broken from the butterfly’s eggs! Shame and amazement filled our green friend’s heart and she felt humbled, but joy soon followed; for, as the first wonder was possible, the second might be so too. “Teach me your wisdom, lark!” she would say; and the lark sang to her of the wonders of the earth below and of the heaven above. And the caterpillar talked all the rest of her life to anyone who would listen about how she would become a butterfly. But none of them believed her. She nevertheless had learned the lark’s lesson of faith, and when she was going into her chrysalis grave to live her last days as a caterpillar, she said — “I will be a butterfly someday!”But her friends and now grown children thought her life was ending, and they said, “Poor thing she's losing her mind!”And when she was a butterfly and was going to die once again, she said — “In my life, I have known and seen many wonders — I have faith — I can trust now what will come next!