The Manitou Butterfly.
On the evening of the seventh day, hardly had Bertha deflowered the
bush, when suddenly it burst again into bloom more glorious than ever
before. Hardly had the flowers unfolded, when they resolved themselves
into a blood-red mist, which quickly enveloped the whole bush, and when
it had cleared away the Manitou arbor vitae had vanished--a thing too
beautiful to be seen again in a lifetime.
But now, when the last culling of that mysterious life-giving flower was
strewn upon him, Sprigg not only smiled with brighter, more present
intelligence than at any previous time, but opened his long-closed eyes.
And how beautiful his eyes had grown! As uncloudedly clear, as
innocently sweet, as those of an infant awaking from a long and
untroubled slumber. Raising himself, unassisted, to his elbow, he began
gazing about him, though with too dreamy a look for any clear perception
of his surroundings. "I am going," said he, talking as dreamily as he
looked, and beginning with the falsehood which he had sent back to his
mother as he was running away from home--"I am going to our best spring,
down there in the edge of the woods, to fetch dear Meg of the Hills a
good, cool drink of water. Then I am going to grandpap's house with Nick
of the Woods. But where is the fence, and the trees--where are they? And
the bright sun? I am still asleep and only dreaming."
So concluding, he lay quietly down again, and closing his eyes, remained
perfectly still for some moments, as if to assure himself that he had
concluded aright and was really asleep. In a little while, however, he
recommenced his dreamy talk, which, with his eyes still closed, and
occasional intervals of sleep-like silence, he kept up for many minutes.
His words, to those who listened, seemed but the incoherent wandering of
a feverish fancy.
"They kiss me, embrace me--weep over me as though I were going to die. I
think they mean it for Sprigg; but Sprigg is dead already--passed away
into nothing. They have lost him and found me, though they do not seem
to know the difference yet. That is the way, I think; or why should they
keep on calling me for him? They shall never see their old Sprigg again.
Never! Never!" A sleep-like pause.
"Sprigg had a pair of red moccasins--long, long ago, when I was a
little, a very little boy. I think he had them; and I think he put them
on and wore them, far, far away, when he had been forbidden to do so.
Yes, I am sure of it now; for I remember telling him how wrong he was
doing, and that he ought not to think of such a thing. But he wouldn't
listen to me; he would have his own way. Whither he went, he never knew
to his dying day; for his eyes and thoughts were so bewitched by his
moccasins that he quite forgot everything else; and, so, soon got
completely lost. It was a wild and lonely place where Sprigg found
himself when he came to his senses. A great hill, whose top was in a sky
all burning and red with the light of the setting sun. Sprigg blamed the
moccasins for his mishap; was very angry at them--jerked them from his
feet and flung them away. But here they came right back again, walking,
walking straight up to him. With the red moccasins came a red mist; and
out of the mist would frightful shapes, with long, sharp claws, or long,
sharp horns and fiery eyes, come stealing forth, one after one. They
scared Sprigg almost to death, and would have torn him to pieces; but
ever, just as they would be making to spring upon him, would the red
moccasins dart in between--kick them in their ugly eyes and drive them
back into the mist.
"By and by Sprigg was moving swiftly through the dark forest--borne
onward, he knew not how; and ever before him a great ball of dim, white
light. The ball of light sank into the earth, growing brighter and
brighter. Sprigg sank with it, deeper, deeper, till far down there he
found himself in a world where there was no sun, no moon, and yet was it
very bright. Thousands and thousands of little people, all going one
way, went gliding swiftly by; so swiftly that they seemed to be on
wings. Some of them were very funny to look at; some wild, some savage;
but all were beautiful, and all were terrible. Sprigg was desperately
afraid of the little people--'Manitous,' they called themselves. Though
he need not have feared them; for, let them look as they might, they had
no thought for him but love and to do him kindness. I told Sprigg the
Manitous were loving him all the time, but he would not believe me. He
was too bad to trust them or anybody else.
"Sprigg was a liar--with a lie in his mouth had he sneaked off from
home--sneaked off 'like a spit-thief dog.' The Manitous said so; I heard
them say it.
"And the Manitous told me how it had happened that Sprigg was such a bad
boy; it was because his father and mother had loved him unwisely; and,
as they had loved him, so had they trained him. They had made a fool of
their boy by making a pet of him, as if he were a pretty little animal,
and not a little human creature. They had humored his every whim,
excused his every fault, until they had made him so vain, selfish and
false that his heart must be made to bleed to bring him to his better
self. Yes; and their hearts, too--all must be made to bleed before they
could look for happy days again.
"And there on the ground were the shadows of men and women, boys and
girls--standing, walking or flitting about, or, all on a sudden, melting
away into nothing--and never a human creature to be seen dead or alive.
Sprigg's shadow was among them--and a spotted thing it was; so, indeed,
were they all. How could such shadows be cast? Sprigg looked up. I tell
you, he jumped! What was it he saw? Up there in the sky, where the sun
ought to be, there he saw an eye--a great and terrible eye--that looked
directly down on him--through him--for, though his body cast a shadow,
it was no more in the light of that eye than the clearest glass. Not
only through his body, but such a light it was, it shone through his
very soul, and showed what a spotted thing it was--spotted all over with
lies. To see that eye was to feel that it had been upon you all the days
of your life. Yet, terrible as was its glance, love was in it, as well
as light--love even for such as Sprigg; but that made him fear it all
the more. I told Sprigg to trust the eye; and that he could not do so
was because he was too bad a boy to put his trust anywhere. We are all
afraid of the love which, without telling us, shows us how wicked we
are.
"Sprigg tried to hide from the eye, but he could put nothing between it
and himself, which it could not pierce and make no more of than air.
Then, in greater terror than ever, he ran from the eye--ran from the
Manitous--ran, ran and ran; and now the red moccasins were again on his
feet. He could turn them neither this way nor that, nor stop them, nor
pull them off; they did with him as they chose. They fled, with the
setting sun before them, and with frightful monsters following close
behind. The monsters ran more swiftly than the moccasins; they chased
Sprigg up into the sky--to the very edge of sunset--and there the
moccasins leaped with him from a horrible brink, down, down into the
shadows of death. Sprigg was dying, almost dead, when came old Pow-wow
and barked over him for joy--licked his bloody face--licked his bleeding
wounds. But Sprigg heard not the glad barking, though I did. And I heard
something else that Sprigg did not--a tender and beautiful voice close
beside him, that said: 'Bleed no more, poor heart! Bleed no more!' Then
Sprigg died--passed away into nothing--chased by the Manitous out of the
world. That is the way they do. You shall never see your old Sprigg
again. Never! Never!! Never!!!"
Here follows an interval of sleep-like silence, longer than any before.
In silent wonderment, not unmixed with awe, they stood around him gazing
upon his face, which, while so oblivious of outward things, was yet so
brightly expressive of a purer, higher intelligence awaking within. It
has been remarked that he was, in every way, a handsome boy, even when
his face was wont to be more expressive of evil than of good. But with
the great inward changes his whole nature had undergone, an outward
change had taken place, which amounted almost to transfiguration--so
spiritually beautiful now was his appearance. His words, however
fantastic and incoherent they may have seemed to the others present,
came burdened with a deep significance to his father, and to his mother,
also; for, by this time, Jervis had told Elster of his singular
interview with Nick of the Woods. A significance the deeper, since every
word struck home to hearts, conscience-stricken and full of
self-upbraiding.
Long before the period of our first acquaintance with them had Jervis
and Elster begun to feel and acknowledge to each other the grievous
mistake they had made in the training of their son, bestowing upon him
their abundant affection, untempered by that judicious and habitual
exercise of controlling will, without which, parental love but
forestalls the very ends it has nearest at heart--the good and the
happiness of the offspring. Gold can not be too rich, where only
ornament is the object in view; but it needs to be alloyed with silver
to be made firm and consistent enough to meet the ends of uses. Their
love, from very richness, had been of too soft and yielding a nature to
fashion the character of their child into the thing of beauty for which
its maker had designed it. Now, had he returned, as it were, from the
dead, to upbraid them with the wrong they had done him. All unwittingly
had he ministered the rebuke; perhaps, on being restored to his normal
self, should never remember what he had done. Yet, for that very reason,
all the more bitter was the reflection, since it showed how deep the
wrong was, if his innermost soul could be cognizant of it and speak out
in his vindication, while his more external nature was as yet incapable
of knowing or comprehending it. What remorse they felt at the thought of
the sore affliction, which, by their folly, they had brought upon his
young life; what good resolutions they formed, looking to atonement and
recompense; what prayers they offered up for forgiveness of the past,
and for guidance in the future--must be left to the heart and conscience
of every judicious parent to conceive.
After some minutes the boy resumed, still with his eyes closed, the
windows of the tenement shut, but the light from within shining through
the translucent walls.
"Some one is here, who goes and comes as goes and comes none else. Her
step is light, her touch soft, her voice gentle and low. I love to have
her near me. Where she is can come no evil thing. Wild dreams stand at
the door, waiting for her to go away, when they come slipping in to
dance around me, to laugh at me, to point the mocking finger at
me--sometimes, to scowl and frown upon me. They are after Sprigg, to vex
and frighten him, and think that I am he. But the moment she comes back,
out they go skipping by another door--make all the haste they can to get
away. They are afraid of her, as is every evil thing, because she is as
God, in the beginning, made her--all love and truth.
"Sometimes she comes, bringing with her the pleasant smell of the
woods--the fresh, green, beautiful woods I love so much. She seems to
bring with her the sky, too, so sunny her presence makes all around me;
and once more I am happy--so full of rest and sleep. That smell of the
woods--it never comes, but I feel as if Meg of the Hills must be near,
with her crown of crimson flowers; so wonderful--it is bliss to see
their beauty, life to breathe their sweetness. Surely she who goes and
comes must have found these flowers and brought them to me! Else I had
never been here where I am, this what I am. I think she must be near me
now. I will see."
So saying, and before he had fairly reopened his eyes, our Manitou
butterfly, now nearly ready to spurn the chrysalis, raised himself again
to his elbow and took another dreamy survey of the room. His eyes,
however, seemed to find no object to rest on, until they met a pair as
dreamy as themselves--the innocent, blue ones, there at the foot of his
bed, through which a soul was looking so directly into his own that he
could no longer but be cognizant of a fellow creature's presence.
"Yes, there she is. But she looks like Bertha, and Bertha is not a
little angel, like the one who goes and comes. Though, if she is not, it
must be because the good angels have not yet taken her to themselves;
for, now that I see her better, she looks enough like an angel to be the
one who goes and comes. Can it be that Meg of the Hills has sent Bertha
to me with these flowers, but for which--the life that is in them--I
must have died. Yes, that's the reason why; at least, I think it is.
"But, who are these?" Beginning at last to have some dim perception of
his actual surroundings. "These are they who have kissed me, embraced
me, wept over me, as though I were going to die. Will they do so still?
I think not; for they mean it for Sprigg, and Sprigg is dead
already--passed away into nothing. They shall never see their old Sprigg
again--never, never, never! But they may call me Sprigg if they like.
And this pretty woman here, who is laughing and crying both at once, I
will call her mother. And this big man, who looks glad enough to laugh
and sorry enough to cry, and can't do either, I will call him father."
Sprigg never called them "pap" and "mam" again, the longest day he
lived. Neither did Jervis and Elster ever again, the longest day they
lived, say "my dear son," without putting in the fond words as much
silver for will, as gold for love.
"Yes, and that is just the way it really is, after all! Father, mother;
yes, and grandpap, too, and grandmam, and others whose names I ought to
know, but do not. All are here--none missing. No, not all, either; I do
not see dear old Pow-wow. And I must see him. He will make me laugh, and
I must laugh, or I may die yet. I thought I heard him bark but now."