From the time when she was a tiny golden-green Caterpillar, Miss
Polyphemus had wanted to go into society. She began life on a maple leaf
with a few brothers and sisters, who hatched at the same time from a
cluster of flattened eggs which their mother had laid there ten days
before. The first thing she remembered was the light and color and sound
when she broke the shell open that May morning. The first thing she did
was to eat the shell out of which she had just crawled. Then she got
acquainted with her brothers and sisters, many of whom had also eaten
their egg-shells, although two had begun at once on maple leaves. It was
well that she took time for this now, for the family were soon
scattered and several of her sisters she never saw again.
She found it a very lovely world to live in. There was so much to eat.
Yes, and there were so many kinds of leaves that she liked,--oak,
hickory, apple, maple, elm, and several others. Sometimes she wished
that she had three mouths instead of one. In those days she had few
visitors. It is true that other Caterpillars happened along once in a
while, but they were almost as hungry as she, and they couldn't speak
without stopping eating. They could, of course, if they talked with
their mouths full, but she had too good manners for that, and, besides,
she said that if she did, she couldn't enjoy her food so much.
You must not think that it was wrong in her to care so much about
eating. She was only doing what is expected of a Polyphemus Caterpillar,
and you would have to do the same if you were a Polyphemus Caterpillar.
When she was ten days old she had to weigh ten times as much as she did
the morning that she was hatched. When she was twenty days old she had
to weigh sixty times as much; when she was a month old she had to weigh
six hundred and twenty times as much; and when she was fifty days old
she had to weigh four thousand times as much as she did at hatching.
Every bit of this flesh was made of the food she ate. That is why eating
was so important, you know, and if she had chosen to eat the wrong kind
of leaves just because they tasted good, she would never have become
such a fine great Caterpillar as she did. She might better not eat
anything than to eat the wrong sort, and she knew it.
Still, she often wished that she had more time for visiting, and thought
that she would be very gay next year, when she got her wings. "I'll
make up for it then," she said to herself, "when my growing is done and
I have time for play." Then she ate some more good, plain food, for she
knew that there would be no happy Moth-times for Caterpillars who did
not eat as they should.
She had five vacations of about a day each when she ate nothing at all.
These were the times when she changed her skin, crawling out of the
tight old one and appearing as fresh and clean as possible in the new
one which was ready underneath. After her last change she was ready to
plan her cocoon, and she was a most beautiful Caterpillar. She was about
as long as a small cherry leaf, and as plump as a Caterpillar can be.
She was light green, with seven slanting yellow lines on each side of
her body, and a purplish-brown V-shaped mark on the back part of each
side. There were many little orange-colored bunches on her body, which
showed beautiful gleaming lights when she moved. Growing out of these
bunches were tiny tufts of bristles.
She had three pairs of real legs and several pairs of make-believe ones.
Her real legs were on the front part of her body and were slender. These
she expected to keep always. The make-believe ones were called pro-legs.
They grew farther back and were fat, awkward, jointless things which she
would not need after her cocoon was spun. But for them, she would have
had to drag the back part of her body around like a Snake. With them,
the back part of her body could walk as well as the front, although not
quite so fast. She always took a few steps with her real legs and then
waited for her pro-legs to catch up.
As the weather grew colder the Polyphemus Caterpillar hunted around on
the ground for a good place for her cocoon. She found an excellent twig
lying among the dead leaves, and decided to fasten to that. Then began
her hardest work, spinning a fluffy mass of gray-white silk which clung
to the twig and to one of the dry leaves and was almost exactly the
color of the leaf. Other Caterpillars came along and stopped to visit,
for they did not have to eat at cocoon-spinning time.
"Better fasten your cocoon to a tree," said a pale bluish-green
Promethea Caterpillar. "Put it inside a curled leaf, like mine, and wind
silk around the stem to strengthen it. Then you can swing every time the
wind blows, and the silk will keep the leaf from wearing out."
"But I don't want to swing," answered the Polyphemus Caterpillar. "I'd
rather lie still and think about things."
"Fasten to the twig of a tree," advised a pale green Cecropia
Caterpillar with red, yellow, and blue bunches. "Then the wind just
moves you a little. Fasten it to a twig and taper it off nicely at each
end, and then----"
"Yes," said the Polyphemus Caterpillar, "and then the Blue-Jays and
Chickadees will poke wheat or corn or beechnuts into the upper end of
it. I don't care to turn my sleeping room into a corn-crib."
Just here some other Polyphemus Caterpillars came along and agreed with
their relative. "Go ahead with your tree homes," said they. "We know
what we want, and we'll see next summer who knew best."
The Polyphemus cocoons were spun on the ground where the dead leaves had
blown in between some stones, and no wandering Cows or Sheep would be
likely to step on them. First a mass of coarse silk which it took half a
day to make, then an inside coating of a kind of varnish, then as much
silk as a Caterpillar could spin in four or five days, next another
inside varnishing, and the cocoons were done. As the Polyphemus
Caterpillars snuggled down for the long winter's sleep, each said to
himself something like this: "Those poor Caterpillars in the trees! How
cold they will be! I hope they may come out all right in the spring, but
I doubt it very much."
And when the Cecropia and Promethea Caterpillars dozed off for the
winter, they said: "What a pity that those Polyphemus Caterpillars would
lie around on the ground. Well, we advised them what to do, so it isn't
our fault."
They all had a lovely winter, and swung or swayed or lay still, just as
they had chosen to do. Early in the spring, the farmer's wife and little
girl came out to find wild flowers, and scraped the leaves away from
among the stones. Out rolled the cocoon that the first Polyphemus
Caterpillar had spun and the farmer's wife picked it up and carried it
off. She might have found more cocoons if the little girl had not
called her away.
This was how it happened that one May morning a little girl stood by the
sitting-room window in the white farmhouse and watched Miss Polyphemus
crawl slowly out of her cocoon. A few days before a sour, milky-looking
stuff had begun to trickle into the lower end of the cocoon, softening
the hard varnish and the soft silken threads until a tiny doorway was
opened. Now all was ready and Miss Polyphemus pushed out. She was very
wet and weak and forlorn. "Oh," said she to herself, "it is more fun to
be a new Caterpillar than it is to be a new Moth. I've only six legs
left, and it will be very hard worrying along on these. I shall have to
give up walking."
It was discouraging. You can see how it would be. She had been used to
having so many legs, and had looked forward all the summer before to the
time when she should float lightly through the air and sip honey from
flowers. She had dreamed of it all winter. And now here she was--wet and
weak, with only six legs left, and four very small and crumpled wings.
Her body was so big and fat that she could not hold it up from the
window-sill. She wanted to cry--it was all so sad and disappointing. She
would have done so, had she not remembered how very unbecoming it is to
cry. When she remembered that, she decided to take a nap instead, and
that was a most sensible thing to do, for crying always makes matters
worse, while sleeping makes them better.
When she awakened she felt much stronger and more cheerful. She was
drier and her body felt lighter. This was because the fluids from it
were being pumped into her wings. That was making them grow, and the
beautiful colors began to show more brightly on them. "I wonder," she
said to herself, "if Moths always feel so badly when they first come
out?"
If she had but known it, there were at that very time hundreds of Moths
as helpless as she, clinging to branches, leaves, and stones all through
the forest. There were many Polyphemus Moths just out, for in their
family it is the custom for all to leave their cocoons at just about
such a time in the morning. Perhaps she would have felt more patient if
she had known this, for it does seem to make hard times easier to bear
when one knows that everybody else has hard times also. Of course other
people always are having trouble, but she was young and really believed
for a time that she was the only uncomfortable Moth in the world.
All day long her wings were stretching and growing smooth. When it grew
dark she was nearly ready to fly. Then the farmer's wife lifted her
gently by the wings and put her on the inside of the wire window-screen.
When the lights in the house were all put out, the moonbeams shone in on
Miss Polyphemus and showed her beautiful sand-colored body and wings
with the dark border on the front pair and the lighter border on the
back pair.
On the back ones were dark eye-spots with clear places in the middle,
through which one could see quite clearly.
"I would like to fly," sighed Miss Polyphemus, "and I believe I could if
it were not for this horrid screen." She did not know that the farmer's
wife had put her there to keep her safe from night birds until she was
quite strong.
The wind blew in, sweet with the scent of wild cherry and shad-tree
blossoms, and poor Miss Polyphemus looked over toward the forest where
she had lived when she was a Caterpillar, and wished herself safely
there. "Much good it does me to have wings when I cannot use them," said
she. "I want something to eat. There is no honey to be sucked out of
wire netting. I wish I were a happy Caterpillar again, eating leaves on
the trees." She was not the first Moth who has wished herself a
Caterpillar, but she soon changed her mind.
There fluttered toward her another Polyphemus Moth, a handsome fellow,
marked exactly as she was, only with darker coloring. His body was more
slender, and his feelers were very beautiful and feathery. She was fat
and had slender feelers.
"Ah!" said he. "I thought I should find you soon."
"Indeed?" she replied. "I wonder what made you think that?"
"My feelers, of course," said he. "They always tell me where to find my
friends. You know how that is yourself."
"I?" said she, as she changed her position a little. "I am just from my
cocoon. This was my coming-out day."
"And so you have not met any one yet?" he asked. "Ah, this is a strange
world--a very strange world. I would advise you to be very careful with
whom you make friends. There are so many bad Moths, you know."
"Good-evening," said a third voice near them, and another Polyphemus
Moth with feathery feelers alighted on the screen. He smiled sweetly at
Miss Polyphemus and scowled fiercely at the other Moth. It would have
ended in a quarrel right then and there, if a fourth Moth had not come
at that minute. One after another came, until there were nine handsome
fellows on the outside and Miss Polyphemus on the inside of the screen
trying to entertain them all and keep them from quarrelling. It made her
very proud to think so many were at her coming-out party. Still, she
would have enjoyed it better, she thought, if some whom she had known as
Caterpillars could be there to see how much attention she was having
paid to her. There was one Caterpillar whom she had never liked. She
only wished that she could see her now.
Still, society tires one very much, and it was hard to keep her guests
from quarrelling. When she got to talking with one about maple-trees,
another was sure to come up and say that he had always preferred beech
when he was a Caterpillar. And the two outside would glare at each other
while she hastily thought of something else to say.
At last those outside got to fighting. There was only one, the
handsomest of all, who said he thought too much of his feelers to fight
anybody. "Supposing I should fight and break them off," said he. "I
couldn't smell a thing for the rest of my life." He was very sensible,
and really the eight other fellows were fighting on account of Miss
Polyphemus, for whenever they thought she liked one best they began to
bump up against him.
[Illustration: THEY LIVED IN THE FOREST AFTER THAT. _Page 109_]
Toward morning the farmer's wife awakened and looked at Miss Polyphemus.
When she saw that she was strong enough to fly, she opened the screen
and let her go. By that time three of those with feathery feelers were
dead, three were broken-winged and clinging helplessly to the screen,
and two were so busy fighting that they didn't see Miss Polyphemus go.
The handsome great fellow who did not believe in fighting went with her,
and they lived in the forest after that. But she never cared for society
again.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]