BETWEEN A BUTTERFLY'S WINGS
There was a glamour upon it. One knew it was going to grow into one of
those wonderful and shining days in whose enchanted hours any
exquisite miracle might happen. I am perfectly sure that the Lord God
walked in the garden in the cool of an April day, and that it was a
morning in spring when the angels visited Abraham, sitting watchful in
the door of his tent.
There was in the air itself something long-missed and come back, a
heady and heart-moving delight, a promise, a thrill, a whisper of
"_April! April!_" that the Green Things and the hosts of the Little
People had heard overnight. In the dark the sleeping souls of the
golden butterflies had dreamed it, known it was a true Word, and now
they were out, "Little flames of God" dancing in the Sunday sunlight.
The Red Gulf Fritillary had heard it, and here she was, all in her
fine fulvous frock besmocked with black velvet, and her farthingale
spangled with silver. And the gallant Red Admiral, the brave beautiful
Red Admiral that had dared unfriendlier gales, trimmed his painted
sails to a wind that was the breath of spring.
Over by the gate the spirea had ventured into showering sprays
exhaling a shy and fugitive fragrance, and what had been a blur of
gray cables strung upon the oaks had begun to bud with emerald and
blossom with amethyst--the wisteria was a-borning. And one knew there
was Cherokee rose to follow, that the dogwood was in white, and the
year's new mintage of gold dandelions was being coined in the fresh
grass.
There wasn't a bird that wasn't caroling _April!_ at the top of his
voice from the full of his heart; for wasn't the world alive again,
wasn't it love-time and nest-time, wasn't it Spring?
Even to the tired faces of my work-folks that shining morning lent a
light that was hope. Without knowing it, they felt themselves a vital
part of the reborn world, sharers in its joy because they were the
children of the common lot, the common people for whom the world is,
and without whom no world could be. Classes, creeds, nations, gods,
all these pass and are gone; God, and the common people, and the
spring remain.
When I was young I liked as well as another to dwell overmuch upon the
sinfulness of sin, the sorrow of sorrow, the despair of death. Now
that these three terrible teachers have taught me a truer wisdom and a
larger faith, I like better to turn to the glory of hope, the wisdom
of love, and the simple truth that death is just a passing phase of
life. So I sent my workers home that morning rejoicing with the truth,
and was all the happier and hopefuller myself because of it.
Afterwards, when Clélie was giving me my coffee and rolls, the
Butterfly Man came in to breakfast with me, a huge roll of those New
York newspapers which contain what are mistakenly known as Comic
Supplements tucked under his arm.
He said he bought them because they "tasted like New York" which they
do not. Just as Major Cartwright explains his purchase of them by the
shameless assertion that it just tickles him to death "to see what
Godforsaken idjits those Yankees can make of themselves when they
half-way try. Why, suh, one glance at their Sunday newspapers ought to
prove to any right thinkin' man that it's safer an' saner to die in
South Carolina than to live in New York!"
_I_ think the Butterfly Man and Major Cartwright buy those papers
because they think they are _funny_! After they have read and
sniggered, they donate them to Clélie and Daddy January. And presently
Clélie distributes them to a waiting colored countryside, which
wallpapers its houses with them. I have had to counsel the erring and
bolster the faith of the backsliding under the goggle eyes of inhuman
creations whose unholy capers have made futile many a prayer. And yet
the Butterfly Man likes them! Is it not to wonder?
He laid them tenderly upon the table now, and smiled slyly to see me
eye them askance.
"Did you know," said he, over his coffee, "that Laurence came in this
morning on the six-o'clock? January had him out in the garden showing
off the judge's new patent hives, and I stopped on my way to church
and shook hands over the fence. It was all I could do to keep from
shouting that all's right with the world, and all he had to do was to
be glad. I didn't know how much I cared for that boy until this
morning. Parson, it's a--a terrible thing to love people, when you
come to think about it, isn't it? I told him you were honing to see
him: and that we'd be looking for him along about eleven. And I
intimated that if he didn't show up then I'd go after him with a gun.
He said he'd be here on the stroke." After a moment, he added gently:
"I figured they'd be here by then--Madame and Mary Virginia."
"What! You have induced Laurence to come while she is here--without
giving him any intimation that he is likely to meet her?" I said,
aghast. "You are a bold man, John Flint!"
The study windows were open and the sweet wind and the warm sun poured
in unchecked. The stir of bees, the scent of honey-locust just
opening, drifted in, and the slow solemn clangor of church bells, and
lilts and flutings and calls and whistlings from the tree-tops. We
could see passing groups of our neighbors, fathers and mothers
shepherding little flocks of children in their Sunday best, trotting
along with demure Sabbath faces on their way to church. The Butterfly
Man looked out, waved gaily to the passing children, who waved back a
joyous response, nodded to their smiling parents, followed the flight
of a tanager's sober spouse, and sniffed the air luxuriously.
"Oh, somebody's got to stage-manage, parson," he said at last, lightly
enough, but with a hint of tiredness in his eyes. "And then vanish
behind the scenes, leaving the hero and heroine in the middle of the
spotlight, with the orchestra tuning up 'The Voice that Breathed o'er
Eden,'" he finished, without a trace of bitterness. "So I sent Madame
a note by a little nigger newsie." His eyes crinkled, and he quoted
the favorite aphorism of the colored people, when they seem to
exercise a meticulous care: "Brer Rabbit say, 'I trus' no mistake.'"
"You are a bold man," said I again, with a respect that made him
laugh. Then we went over to his rooms to wait, and while we waited I
tried to read a chapter of a book I was anxious to finish, but
couldn't, my eyes being tempted by the greener and fresher page
opening before them. Flint smoked a virulent pipe and read his papers.
Presently he laid his finger upon a paragraph and handed me the
paper.... And I read where one "Spike" Frazer had been shot to death
in a hand-to-hand fight with the police who were raiding a dive
suspected of being the rendezvous of drug-fiends. Long wanted and at
last cornered, Frazer had fought tigerishly and died in his tracks,
preferring death to capture. A sly and secretive creature, he had had
a checkered career in the depths. It was his one boast that more than
anybody else he had known and been a sort of protegé of the once
notorious Slippy McGee, that King of Crooks whose body had been found
in the East River some years since, and whose daring and mysterious
exploits were not yet altogether forgotten by the police or the
underworld.
"_Sic transit gloria mundi!_" said the Butterfly Man in his gentle
voice, and looked out over the peaceful garden and the Sunday calm
with inscrutable eyes. I returned the paper with a hand that shook. It
seemed to me that a deep and solemn hush fell for a moment upon the
glory of the day, while the specter of what might have been gibbered
at us for the last time.
Out of the heart of that hush walked two women--one little and rosy
and white-haired, one tall and pale and beautiful with the beauty upon
which sorrow has placed its haunting imprint. Her black hair framed
her face as in ebony, and her blue, blue eyes were shadowed. By an
odd coincidence she was dressed this morning just as she had been when
the Butterfly Man first saw her--in white, and over it a scarlet
jacket. Kerry and little Pitache rose, met them at the gate, and
escorted them with grave politeness. The Butterfly Man hastily emptied
his pipe and laid aside his newspapers.
"Your note said we were to come, that everything was all right," said
my mother, looking up at him with bright and trustful eyes. "Such a
relief! Because I know you never say anything you don't mean, John."
He smiled, and with a wave of the hand beckoned us into the workroom.
Madame followed him eagerly and expectantly--she knew her John Flint.
Mary Virginia came listlessly, dragging her feet, her eyes somber in a
smileless face. She could not so quickly make herself hope, she who
had journeyed so far into the arid country of despair. But he, with
something tender and proud and joyful in his looks, took her
unresisting hand and drew her forward.
"Mary Virginia!" I had not known how rich and deep the Butterfly Man's
voice could be. "Mary Virginia, we promised you last night that if you
would trust us, the Padre and me, we'd find the right way out, didn't
we? Now this is what happened: the Padre took his troubles to the
Lord, and the Lord presently sent him back to _me_--with the beginning
of the answer in his hand! And here's the whole answer, Mary
Virginia." And he placed in her hand the package of letters that meant
so much to her.
My mother gave a little scream. "Armand!" she said, fearfully. "She
has told me all. _Mon Dieu_, how have you two managed this, between
midnight and morning? My son, you are a De Rancé: look me in the eyes
and tell me there is nothing wrong, that there will be no ill
consequences--"
"There won't be any comebacks," said John Flint, with engaging
confidence. "As for you, Mary Virginia, you don't have to worry for
one minute about what those fellows can do--because they can't do
anything. They're double-crossed. Now listen: when you see Hunter, you
are to say to him, '_Thank you for returning my letters_.' Just that
and no more. If there's any questioning, _stare_. Stare hard. If
there's any threatening about your father, _smile_. You can afford to
smile. They can't touch him. But _how_ those letters came into your
hands you are never to tell, you understand? They did come and that's
all that interests you." He began to laugh, softly. "All Hunter will
want to know is that you've received them. He's too game not to lose
without noise, and he'll make Inglesby swallow his dose without
squealing, too. So--you're finished and done with Mr. Hunter and Mr.
Inglesby!" His voice deepened again, as he added gently: "It was just
a bad dream, dear girl. It's gone with the night. Now it's morning,
and you're awake."
But Mary Virginia, white as wax, stared at the letters in her hand,
and then at me, and trembled.
"Trust us, my child," said I, somewhat troubled. "And obey John Flint
implicitly. Do just what he tells you to do, say just what he tells
you to say."
Mary Virginia looked from one to the other, thrust the package upon
me, walked swiftly up to him, and, laying her hands upon his arms
stared with passionate earnestness into his face: the kind, wise,
lovable face that every child in Appleboro County adores, every woman
trusts, every man respects. Her eyes clung to his, and he met that
searching gaze without faltering, though it seemed to probe for the
root of his soul. It was well for Mary Virginia that those brave eyes
had caught something from the great faces that hung upon his walls and
kept company and counsel with him day and night, they that conquered
life and death and turned defeat into victory because they had first
conquered themselves!
"Yes!" said she, with a deep sigh of relief. "I trust you! Thank God
for just how much I can believe and trust you!"
I think that meeting face to face that luminous and unfaltering
regard, Mary Virginia must have divined that which had heretofore been
hidden from her by the man's invincible modesty and reserve; and being
most generous and of a large and loving soul herself, I think she
realized to the uttermost the magnitude of his gift. Her name, her
secure position, her happiness, the hopes that the coming years were
to transform into realities--oh, I like to think that Mary Virginia
saw all this, in one of those lightning-flashes of spiritual insight
that reveal more than all one's slower years; I like to think she saw
it given her freely, nobly, with joy, a glorious love-gift from the
limping man into whose empty hand she had one day put a little gray
underwing!
I glanced at my mother, and saw by her most expressive face that she
knew and understood. She had known and understood, long before any of
us.
"If I might offer a suggestion," I said in as matter-of-fact a voice
as I could command, "it would be, that the sooner those letters are
destroyed, the better."
Mary Virginia took them from me and dropped them on the coals
remaining from last night's fire--the last fire of the season. They
did not ignite quickly, though they began to turn brown, and thin
spirals of smoke arose from them. The Butterfly Man knelt, thrust a
handful of lightwood splinters under the pile, and touched a match
here and there. When the resinous wood flared up, the letters blazed
with it. They blazed and then they crumbled; they disappeared in bits
of charred and black paper that vanished at a touch; they were gone
while we watched, the girl kneeling upon the hearthrug with her hand
on Flint's arm, and I with my old heart singing like a skylark in my
breast, and my mother's mild eyes upon us all.
Life and color and beauty flowed back into Mary Virginia's face and
music's self sang again in her voice. She was like the day itself,
reborn out of a dark last night. When the last bit of blackened paper
went swirling up the chimney, and the two of them had risen, the most
beautiful and expressive eyes under heaven looked up like blue and
dewy flowers into the Butterfly Man's face. She was too wise and too
tender to try to thank him in words, and never while they two lived
would this be again referred to so much as once by either; but she
took his hand, palm upward, gave him one deep long upward glance, and
then bent her beautiful head and dropped into the center of his palm a
kiss, and closed the fingers gently over it for everlasting keeping
and remembrance. The eyes brimmed over then, and two large tears fell
upon his hand and washed her kiss in, indelibly.
None of us four had the power of speech left us. Heaven knows what we
should have done, if Laurence hadn't opened the door at that moment
and walked in upon us. I don't think he altogether sensed the
tenseness of the situation which his coming relieved, but he went pale
at sight of Mary Virginia, and he would have left incontinently if my
mother, with a joyous shriek, hadn't pounced upon him.
"Laurence! Why, Laurence! But we didn't expect you home until
to-morrow night!" said she, kissing him motherly. "My dear, dear boy,
how glad I am to see you! What happy wind blew you home to-day,
Laurence?"
"Oh, I finished my work ahead of schedule and got away just as soon as
I could," Laurence briefly and modestly explained thus that he had won
his case. He edged toward the door, avoiding Mary Virginia's eyes. He
had bowed to her with formal politeness. He wondered at the usually
tactful Madame's open effort to detain him. It was a little too much
to expect of him!
"I just ran in to see how you all were," he tried to be very casual.
"See you later, Padre. 'By, p'tite Madame. 'By, Flint." He bowed again
to Mary Virginia, whose color had altogether left her, and who stood
there most palpably nervous and distressed.
"Laurence!" The Butterfly Man spoke abruptly. "Laurence, if a chap was
dying of thirst and the water of life was offered him, he'd be
considerable of a fool to turn his head aside and refuse to see it,
wouldn't he?"
Laurence paused. Something in the Butterfly Man's face, something in
mine and Madame's, but, above all, something in Mary Virginia's,
arrested him. He stood wavering, and my mother released his arm.
"I take it," said John Flint, boldly plunging to the very heart of the
matter, "I take it, Laurence, that you still care a very great deal
for this dear girl of ours?" And now he had taken her hand in his and
held it comfortingly. "More, say, than you could ever care for anybody
else, if you lived to rival Methusaleh? So much, Laurence, that not to
be able to believe she cares the same way for you takes the core out
of life?" His manner was simple and direct, and so kind that one could
only answer him in a like spirit. Besides, Laurence loved the
Butterfly Man even as Jonathan loved David.
"Yes," said the boy honestly, "I still care for her--like that. I
always did. I always will. She knows." But his voice was toneless.
"Of course you do, kid brother," said Flint affectionately. "Don't you
suppose I know? But it's just as well for you to say it out loud every
now and then. Fresh air is good for everything, particularly feelings.
Keeps 'em fresh and healthy. Now, Mary Virginia, you feel just the
same way about Laurence, don't you?" And he added: "Don't be ashamed
to tell the most beautiful truth in the world, my dear. Well?"
She went red and white. She looked entreatingly into the Butterfly
Man's face. She didn't exactly see why he should drive her thus, but
she caught courage from his. One saw how wise Flint had been to have
snared Laurence here just now. One moment she hesitated. Then:
"Yes!" said she, and her head went up proudly. "Yes, oh, yes, I
care--like that. Only much, much more! I shall always care like that,
although he probably won't believe me now when I say so. And I can't
blame him for doubting me."
"But it just happens that I have never been able to make myself doubt
you," said Laurence gravely. "Why, Mary Virginia, you are _you_."
"Then, Laurence," said the Butterfly Man, quickly, "will you take your
old friends' word for it--mine, Madame's, the Padre's--that you were
most divinely right to go on believing in her and loving her, because
she never for one moment ceased to be worthy of faith and affection?
No, not for one moment! She couldn't, you know. She's Mary Virginia!
And will you promise to listen with all your patience to what she may
think best to tell you presently--and then forget it? You're big
enough to do that! She's been in sore straits, and she needs all the
love you have, to help make up to her. Can she be sure of it,
Laurence?"
Laurence flushed. He looked at his old friend with reproach in his
fine brown eyes. "You have known me all my life, all of you," said he,
stiffly. "Have I ever given any of you any reason to doubt me!"
"No, and we don't. Not one of us. But it's good for your soul to say
things out loud," said Flint comfortably. "And now you've said it,
don't you think you two had better go on over to the Parish House
parlor, which is a nice quiet place, and talk this whole business over
and out--together?"
Laurence looked at Mary Virginia and what he saw electrified him.
Boyishness flooded him, youth danced in his eyes, beauty was upon him,
like sunlight.
"Mary Virginia!" said the boy lover to the girl sweetheart, "is it
really so? I was really right to believe all along that you--care?"
"Laurence, Laurence!" she was half-crying. "Oh, Laurence, are you sure
_you_ care--yet? You are sure, Laurence? You are _sure_? Because--I--I
don't think I could stand things now if--if I were mistaken--"
I don't know whether the boy ran to the girl at that, or the girl to
the boy. I rather think they ran to each other because, in another
moment, perfectly regardless of us, they were clinging to each other,
and my mother was walking around them and crying heartily and
shamelessly, and enjoying herself immensely. Mary Virginia began to
stammer:
"Laurence, if you only knew--Laurence, if it wasn't for John
Flint--and the Padre--" The two of them had the two of us, each by an
arm; and the Butterfly Man was brick-red and furiously embarrassed, he
having a holy horror of being held up and thanked.
"Why, I did what I did," said he, uncomfortably. "But,"--he brightened
visibly--"if you _will_ have the truth, have it. If it wasn't for this
blessed brick of a parson I'd never have been in a position to do
anything for anybody. Don't you forget that!"
"What ridiculous nonsense the man talks!" said I, exasperated by this
shameless casuistry. "John Flint raves. As for me--"
"As for you," said he with deep reproach, "you ought to know better
than to tell such a thumping lie at this time of your life. I'm
ashamed of you, parson! Why, you know good and well--"
"Why, John Flint, you--" I began, aghast.
My mother began to laugh. "For heaven's sake, thank them both and
have done with it!" said she, a bit hysterically. "God alone knows how
they managed, but this thing lies between them, the two great geese.
Did one ever hear the like?"
"Madame is right, as always," said Laurence gravely. "Remember, I
don't know anything yet, except that somehow you've brought Mary
Virginia and me back to each other. That's enough for _me_. I haven't
got any questions to ask." His voice faltered, and he gripped us by
the hand in turn, with a force that made me, for one, wince and
cringe. "And Padre--Bughunter, you both know that I--" he couldn't
finish.
"That we--" choked Mary Virginia.
"Sure we know," said the Butterfly Man hastily. "Don't you know you're
our kids and we've got to know?" He began to edge them towards the
door. I think his courage was getting a little raw about the corners.
"Yes, you two go on over to the Parish House parlor, where you'll have
a chance to talk without being interrupted--Madame will see to
that--and don't you show your noses outside of that room until
everything's settled the one and only way everything ought to be
settled." His eyes twinkled as he manoeuvered them outside, and then
stood in the doorway to watch them walk away--beautiful, youthful,
radiantly happy, and very close together, the girl's head just on the
level of the boy's shoulder. He was still faintly smiling when he came
back to us; if there was pain behind that smile, he concealed it. My
mother ran to him, impulsively.
"John Flint!" said she, profoundly moved and earnest. "John Flint, the
good God never gave me but one child, though I prayed for more. Often
and often have I envied her silly mother Mary Virginia. But now.
John, I know that if I could have had another child that, after
Armand, I'd love best and respect most and be proudest of in this
world, it would be _you_. Yes, _you_. John Flint, you are the best
man, and the bravest and truest and most unselfish, and the finest
gentleman, outside of my husband and my son, that I have ever known.
What makes it all the more wonderful is that you're a genius along
with it. I am proud of you, and glad of you, and I admire and love you
with all my heart. And I really wish you'd call me mother. You should
have been born a De Rancé!"
This, from my mother! I was amazed. Why, she would think she was
flattering one of the seraphim if she had said to him, "You might have
been a De Rancé!"
"Madame!" stammered Flint, "why, Madame!"
"Oh, well, never mind, then. Let it go at Madame, since it would
embarrass you to change. But I look upon you as my son, none the less.
I claim you from this hour," said she firmly, as one not to be
gainsaid.
"I'm beginning to believe in fairy-stories," said Flint. "The beggar
comes home--and he isn't a beggar at all, he's a Prince. Because the
Queen is his mother."
My mother looked at him approvingly. The grace of his manner, and the
unaffected feeling of his words, pleased her. But she said no more of
what was in her heart for him. She fell back, as women do, upon the
safe subject of housekeeping matters.
"I suppose," she mused, "that those children will remain with us
to-day? Yes, of course. Armand, we shall have the last of your
great-grandfather's wine. And I am going to send over for the judge.
Let me see: shall I have time for a cake with frosting? H'm! Yes, I
think so. Or would you prefer wine jelly with whipped cream, John?"
He considered gravely, one hand on his hip, the other stroking his
beard.
"Couldn't we have both!" he wondered hopefully. "Please! Just for this
once?"
"We could! We shall!" said my mother, grandly, recklessly,
extravagantly. "Adieu, then, children of my heart! I go to confer with
Clélie." She waved her hand and was gone.
The place shimmered with sun. Old Kerry lay with his head between his
paws and dozed and dreamed in it, every now and then opening his hazel
eyes to make sure that all was well with his man. All outdoors was one
glory of renewing life, of stir and growth, of loving and singing and
nest-building, and the budding of new green leaves and the blossoming
of April boughs. Just such April hopes were theirs who had found each
other again this morning. All of life at its best and fairest
stretched sunnily before those two, the fairer for the cloud that had
for a time darkened it, the dearer and diviner for the loss that had
been so imminent.
... That was a redbird again. And now a vireo. And this the
mockingbird, love-drunk, emptying his heart of a troubadour in a song
of fire and dew. And on a vagrant air, a gipsy air, the scent of the
honey-locust. The spring for all the world else. But for him I
loved,--what?
I suppose my wistful eyes betrayed me, for used to the changing
expressions of my thin visage, he smiled; and stood up, stretching
his arms above his head. He drew in great mouthfuls of the sweet air,
and expanded his broad chest.
"I feel full to the brim!" said he gloriously. "I've got almost too
much to hold with both hands! Parson, parson, it isn't possible you're
fretting over _me_? Sorry for _me_? Why, man, consider!"
Ah, but had I not considered? I knew, I thought, what he had to hold
fast to. Honor, yes. And the friendship of some and the admiration of
many and the true love of the few, which is all any man may hope for
and more than most attain. Outside of that, a gray moth, and a
butterfly's wing, and a torn nest, and a child's curl, and a ragdoll
in her grave; and now a girl's kiss on the palm and a tear to hallow
it. But I who had greatly loved and even more greatly lost and
suffered, was it not for me of all men to know and to understand?
"But I have got the thing itself," said the Butterfly Man, "that makes
everything else worth while. Why, I have been taught how to love! My
work is big--but by itself it wasn't enough for me. I needed something
more. So I was swept and empty and ready and waiting--when she came.
Now hadn't there got to be something fine and decent in me, when it
was she alone out of all the world I was waiting for and could love?"
"Yes, yes. But oh, my son, my son!"
"Oh, it was bad and bitter enough at first, parson. Because I wanted
her so much! Great God, I was like a soul in hell! After awhile I
crawled out of hell--on my hands and knees. But I'd begun to
understand things. I'd been taught. It'd been burnt into me past
forgetting. Maybe that's what hell is for, if folks only knew it.
Could anything ever happen to anybody any more that I couldn't
understand and be sorry for, I wonder?
"No, don't you worry any about me. I wouldn't change places with
anybody alive, I'm too glad for everything that's ever happened to me,
good and bad. I'm not ashamed of the beginning, no, nor I'm not afraid
of the end.
"Will you believe me, though, when I tell you what worried me like the
mischief for awhile? Family, parson! You can't live in South Carolina
without having the seven-years' Family-itch wished on you, you know. I
felt like a mushroom standing up on my one leg all by myself among a
lot of proper garden plants--until I got fed up on the professional
Descendant banking on his boneyard full of dead ones; then I quit
worrying. I'm Me and alive--and I should worry about ancestors! Come
to think about it, everybody's an ancestor while you wait. I made up
my mind I'd be my own ancestor and my own descendant--and make a good
job of both while I was at it."
But I was too sad to smile. And after awhile he asked gently:
"Are you grieving because you think I've lost love? Parson, did you
ever know something you didn't know how you knew, but you know you
know it because it's true? Well then--I know that girl's mine and I
came here to find her, though on the face of it you'd think I'd lost
her, wouldn't you? Somewhere and sometime I'll come again--and when I
do, she'll know _me_."
And to save my life I couldn't tell him I didn't believe it! His
manner even more than his words impressed me. He didn't look
improbable.
"One little life and one little death," said the Butterfly Man,
"couldn't possibly be big enough for something like this to get away
from a man forever. I have got the thing too big for a dozen lives to
hold. Isn't that a great deal for a man to have, parson?"
"Yes." said I. "It is a great deal for a man to have." But I foresaw
the empty, empty places, in the long, long years ahead. I added
faintly: "Having that much, you have more than most."
"You only have what you are big enough not to take," said he. "And I'm
not fooling myself I shan't be lonesome and come some rough tumbles at
times. The difference is, that if I go down now I won't stay down. If
there was one thing I could grieve over, too, it would be--kids. I'd
like kids. My own kids. And I shall never have any. It--well, it just
wouldn't be fair to the kids. Louisa'll come nearest to being mine by
bornation--though I'm thinking she's managed to wish me everybody
else's, on her curl."
"So! You are your own ancestor and your own descendant, and
everybody's kids are yours! You are modest, _hein_? And what else have
you got?"
His eyes suddenly danced. "Nothing but the rest of the United States,"
said the Butterfly Man, magnificently. And when I stared, he laughed
at me.
"It's quite true, parson: I have got the whole United States to work
for. Uncle Sam. U.S. _Us!_ I've been drafted into the Brigade that
hasn't any commander, nor any colors, nor honors, nor even a name;
but that's never going to be mustered out of service, because we that
enlist and belong can't and won't quit.
"Parson, think of _me_ representing the Brigade down here on the
Carolina coast, keeping up the work, fighting things that hurt and
finding out things that help Lord, what a chance! A hundred millions
to work for, a hundred millions of one's own people--and a trail to
blaze for the unborn millions to come!" His glance kindled, his face
was like a lighted lamp. The vision was upon him, standing there in
the April sunlight, staring wide-eyed into the future.
Its reflected light illumined me, too--a little. And I saw that in a
very large and splendid sense, this was the true American. He stood
almost symbolically for that for which America stands--the fighting
chance to overcome and to grow, the square deal, the spirit that looks
eagle-eyed and unafraid into the sunrise. And above all for unselfish
service and unshakable faith, and a love larger than personal love,
prouder than personal pride, higher than personal ambition. They do
not know America who do not know and will not see this spirit in her,
going its noble and noiseless way apart.
"The whole world to work for, and a whole lifetime to do it in!" said
the voice of America, exultant. "Lord God, that's a man-sized job, but
You just give me hands and eyes and time, and I'll do the best I can.
You've done Your part by me--stand by, and I'll do mine by You!"
Are those curious coincidences, those circumstances which occur at
such opportune moments that they leave one with a sense of a guiding
finger behind the affairs of men--are they, after all, only fortuitous
accidents, or have they a deeper and a diviner significance?
There stood the long worktable, with orderly piles of work on it; the
microscope in its place; the books he had opened and pushed aside last
night; and some half-dozen small card-board boxes in a row, containing
the chrysalids he had been experimenting with, trying the effect of
cold upon color. The cover of one box had been partially pushed off,
possibly when he had moved the books. And while we had been paying
attention to other things, one of these chrysalids had been paying
strict attention to its own business, the beautiful and important
business of becoming a butterfly. Flint discovered it first, and gave
a pleased exclamation.
"Look! Look! A Turnus, father! The first Turnus of the year!"
The insect had been out for an hour or two, but was not yet quite
ready to fly. It had crawled out of the half-opened box, dragged its
wormy length across the table, over intervening obstacles, seeking
some place to climb up and cling to.
Now the Butterfly Man had left the Bible open, merely shoving it aside
without shutting it, when he had found no comfort for himself last
night in what John had to say. Protected by piled-up books and propped
almost upright by the large inkstand, it gave the holding-place the
insect desired. The butterfly had walked up the page and now clung to
the top.
There she rested, her black-and-yellow body quivering like a tiny live
dynamo from the strong force of circulation, that was sending vital
fluids upward into the wings to give them power and expansion. We had
seen the same thing a thousand and one times before, we should see it
a thousand and one times again. But I do not think either of us could
ever forego the delight of watching a butterfly's wings shaping
themselves for flight, and growing into something of beauty and of
wonder. The lovely miracle is ever new to us.
She was a big butterfly, big even for the greatest of Carolina
swallow-tails; not the dark dimorphic form, but the true Tiger Turnus
itself, her barred yellow upper wings edged with black enamel indented
with red gold, her tailed lower wings bordered with a wider band of
black, and this not only set with lunettes of gold but with purple
amethysts, and a ruby on the upper and lower edges. Her wings moved
rhythmically; a constant quivering agitated her, and her antennæ with
their flattened clubs seemed to be sending and receiving wireless
messages from the shining world outside.
And as the wings had dried and grown firmer in the mild warm current
of air and the bright sunlight, she moved them with a wider and bolder
sweep. The heavy, unwieldy body, thinned by the expulsion of those
currents driven upward to give flying-power to the wings, had taken on
a slim and tapering grace. She had reached her fairy perfection. She
was ready now for flight and light and love and freedom and the
uncharted pathways of the air, ready to carry out the design of the
Creator who had fashioned her so wondrously and so beautiful, and had
sent ahead of her the flowers for that marvelous tongue of hers to
sip.
Waiting still, opening and closing her exquisite wings, trying them,
spreading them flat, the splendid swallow-tail clung to the page of
the book open at the Gospel of John. And I, idly enough, leaned
forward, and saw between the opening and the closing wings, words. The
which John Flint, bending forward beside me, likewise saw. "_Work_,"
flashed out. And on a lower line, "_while it is day_."
I grasped the edge of the table; his knuckles showed white beside
mine.
"_I must work the works of him
that sent me, while it is day._"
His eyes grew larger and deeper. A sort of inward light, a serene and
joyous acceptance and assurance, flowed into them. I that had dared to
be despondent felt a sense of awe. The Voice that had once spoken
above the Mercy Seat and between the wings of the cherubim was
speaking now in immortal words between, the wings of a butterfly.
She was poising herself for her first flight, the bright and lovely
Lady of the Sky. Now she spread her wings flat, as a fan is unfurled.
And now she had lifted them clear and uncovered her message. The
Butterfly Man watched her, hanging absorbed upon her every movement.
And he read, softly:
"_I must work
... while it is day_."
Lightly as a flower, a living and glorious flower, she lifted and
launched herself into the air, flew straight and sure for the outside
light, hung poised one gracious moment, and was gone.
He turned to me the sweetest, clearest eyes I have ever seen in a
mortal countenance, the eyes of a little child. His face had caught a
sort of secret beauty, that was never to leave it any more.
"Parson!" said the Butterfly Man, in a whisper that shook with the
beating of his heart behind it: "Parson! _Don't it beat hell?_"
I rocked on my toes. Then I flung my arms around him, with a jubilant
shout:
"It does! It does! Oh, Butterfly Man, by the grace and the glory and
the wonder of God, it beats hell!"
THE END