At first Creepy-Crawly was nothing but a tiny egg on a blade of grass;
but when he hatched out into a caterpillar he was Creepy-Crawly indeed,
for though he had about sixteen pairs of legs, they were all so tiny
that he could not be said to walk on them. But he crawled about quite
happily, and was well content with life as he found it.
"Why don't you grow long legs like me?" said the Spider. "It must be
terribly slow work crawling about like that."
Creepy-Crawly did not stay to answer. Out of his body he drew two
threads as fine as the spider's own, glued them together with his mouth
into a rope, and dropped by the rope from the branch to the ground. He
did not like Mrs. Spider.
"Well, I wouldn't wear a green coat if I were you," said an Earth-worm
whom he met. "Brown is a much nicer colour."
"Brown may be best for you who live in the ground," said Creepy-Crawly,
"but green is better for me. The birds would like me for dinner, you
know, but they cannot see me so well if I look like the leaves I feed
on."
"You should wear a hard shell on your back." said a Beetle. "You are
absurdly soft."
Creepy-Crawly wriggled quickly out of the beetle's sight, and a
Butterfly who saw him laughed. She said: "Better grow wings,
Creepy-Crawly. They are the best means of escape from your enemies."
Creepy-Crawly looked wistfully at her as she flew off. "Yes," he said
to himself, "that is what I should like--to fly through the air in that
grand, free way. That would be glorious! Ah, well! I have no wings,
but I may as well be as happy as I can."
Creepy-Crawly had been eating hard for weeks, but now he began to feel
less and less hungry and more and more drowsy. One day he curled
himself up under a dead leaf and went to sleep; there he slept on and
on for week after week without waking once to eat.
As he slept his skin turned brown like the worm's, and hard like the
beetle's; but inside the skin a still more wonderful change was taking
place. From his body six slender jointed legs with clawed toes grew
slowly out, followed by four wings, which promised to be broad and
beautiful when they had room to open. From the head grew two long
feelers with little knobs at their ends. Over body, head, and wings a
coat of tiny, many-coloured scales spread itself, softer than down, and
as beautiful as the rainbow.
Creepy-Crawly woke up at last, but he was Creepy-Crawly no longer. He
pushed his way out of his hard shell and stood on the dead leaf to dry
himself. He spread his wings in the sun; he shook his six jointed legs
one after the other; he turned and twisted himself this way and that in
his delight.
"Who would have thought I should have come to this?" he said to
himself. "Now I am a Butterfly. I am like the one that spoke to me
that day. I will fly through the air as she did, and find her, and
show her how I have changed."
He spread his beautiful wings and rose up into the warm air, and flew
away to drink honey from the flowers and to dance with his butterfly
cousins.