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Let me hire you
as a nurse for my poor children," said a butterfly to a quiet
caterpillar, who was strolling along a cabbage leaf in her old
lumbering way. "See these little eggs," continued the butterfly, "I
don't know how long it will be before they come to life, but 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? They cannot, of course, live on your rough food; you
must mind what you give them to eat, caterpillar. You must give them
early dew, and honey from the flowers; and you must let them fly
about, only a little way at first, for of course one can't expect
them to use their wings all at once. Dear me! it is a sad pity you
cannot fly yourself. But I have no time to look for another nurse
now, so you will do your best, I hope. I cannot think what made me
come and lay my eggs on a cabbage leaf! What a place for young
butterflies to be born upon! Still, you will be kind, will you not,
to the poor little ones? Here, take this gold dust from my wings, as
a reward. Oh! how dizzy I am! Caterpillar, you will remember about
the food?"
With these words the butterfly closed her eyes and died; and the
green caterpillar, who had not had the opportunity of even saying
"yes" or "no" to the request, was left standing alone by the side of
the butterfly's eggs. "A pretty nurse she has chosen, indeed, poor
lady!" exclaimed she; "and a pretty business I have on hand! Why,
her senses must have left her, or she never would have asked a poor,
crawling creature like me to bring up her dainty little ones! Much
they'll mind me, truly, when they feel the gay wings on their backs,
and can fly away out of my sight whenever they choose! Oh! how silly
some people are, in spite of their painted clothes and the gold dust
on their wings!"
However, the poor butterfly was dead, and there lay the eggs on the
cabbage leaf, and the green caterpillar had a kind heart, so she
resolved to do her best. But she got no sleep that night—she was so
very uneasy. She made her back quite ache with walking all night
Iong, round her young charges, for fear some harm should happen to
them. In the morning she said to herself, "Two heads are better than
one; I will consult some wise animal upon the matter, and get
advice. How should a poor, crawling creature like me, know what to
do without asking my betters?" But still there was a dithculty. Whom
should the caterpillar consult? There was the shaggy dog, who
sometimes came into the garden, but he was so rough, he would most
likely whisk all the eggs off the cabbage leaf, with one brush of
his tail, if she should call him near to talk to her, and then she
should never forgive herself. There was the Tom cat, to be sure, who
would sometimes sit at the foot of the apple-tree, basking himself
and warming his fur in the sunshine, but he was so selfish and
indifferent, there was no hope of him giving himself the trouble to
think about butterflies' eggs! "I wonder which is the wisest of all
animals I know?" sighed the caterpillar, in great distress, and then
she thought and thought, till at last she thought of the lark; she
fancied because he was up so high, and nobody knew where he went to,
that he must be very clever and know a great deal; for to go up very
high (which she could never do) was the caterpillar's idea of
perfect glory. Now, in the neighboring cornfield there lived a lark,
and the caterpillar sent a message to him, to beg him to come and
talk to her. Then she told him all her difficulties, and asked him
what she was to do, to feed and rear the little creatures, so
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 farther. Soon afterwards, however, he
went singing upward into the bright blue sky. By degrees, his voice
died away in the distance, till the green caterpillar could not hear
a sound. It is nothing to say she could not see him, for, poor
thing, she never could see far at any time, and had a difficulty in
looking upward at all, even when she reared herself most carefully,
which she did now; but it was of no use, so she dropped upon her
legs again, and resumed her walk round the butterfly's eggs,
nibbling a bit of the cabbage leaf now and then, as she moved along.
"What a time the lark has been gone!" she cried at last. "I wonder
where he is just now? I would give all my legs to know! He must have
flown up higher than usual this time, I do think! How I should like
to know where he goes to, and what he hears in that curious blue
sky! He always sings in going up, and. coming down, but he never
lets any secret out."
Then the green caterpillar took another turn, around the butterfly's
eggs. At last, the lark's voice began to be heard again. The
caterpillar almost jumped for joy, and it was not long before she
saw her friend descend, with hushed note, to the cabbage bed.
"News! news! glorious news! friend caterpillar," sang the lark; "but
the worst of it is, you won't believe me!"
"I believe everything I am told," observed the caterpillar, hastily.
"Well, then, first of all, I will tell you what these little
creatures are to eat;" and the lark nodded towards the eggs. "What
do you think it is to be? Guess."
"Dew and the honey out of flowers," sighed the caterpillar.
"No such thing, old lady. Something simpler than that; something
that you can get at, quite easily."
"I can get at nothing, quite easily, but cabbage leaves," murmured
the caterpillar in distress.
"Excellent! my good friend, 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 the matter," persisted the
lark. "But why do you ask me, if you will not believe what I say?"
"Oh, I believe everything you say," said the caterpillar.
"No, you do not," replied the lark; "you won't even believe about
the food, and yet that is but a beginning of what I have to tell
you. Why, caterpillar, what do you think those little eggs will turn
out to be?"
"Butterflies, to be sure," said the caterpillar.
"Caterpillars!" sang the lark, "and you'll find it out in time."
Then the lark flew away, for he did not want to stay, and contest
the point with his friend.
"I thought the lark had been kind," observed the mild green
caterpillar, once more beginning to walk around the eggs, "but I
find, he is foolish and unkind. Perhaps he went up too high, this
time. Ah! it's a pity, when people who soar so high are silly and
rude, nevertheless. Dear! I still wonder whom he sees, and what he
does up yonder."
"I would tell you, if you would believe me," sang the lark,
descending 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 untold—you will one day be a butterfly yourself!"
"Wretched bird!" exclaimed the caterpillar; "you jest with my
inferiority. Now you are cruel, as well as foolish. Go away! I will
ask your advice no more."
"I told you that you would not believe me," cried the lark, nettled
in his turn.
"I believe everything I am told," persisted the caterpillar; "that
is," and she hesitated, "everything that is reasonable to believe.
But to tell me butterflies' eggs are caterpillars, and that
caterpillars leave off crawling and get wings and become
butterflies! Lark, you are too wise to believe such nonsense
yourself, for you know it is impossible."
"I know no such thing," said the lark, warmly. "Whether I hover over
the cornfields of earth, or go up into the sky, I see so many
wonderful things, I know no reason why that should not be true. Oh!
caterpillar, it is because you crawl, because you never get beyond
your cabbage leaf, that you call everything impossible."
Just at that moment, the caterpillar felt something at her side. She
looked around. Eight or ten little green caterpillars were moving
about, and had already made a show of a hole in the cabbage leaf.
They had broken from the butterfly's eggs. Shame and amazement
filled our green friend's heart, but joy soon followed, for as the
first wonder was possible, the second one might be so, too. "Teach
me your lesson, lark," she would say, and the lark sang to her of
the wonders of the earth below, and of the heavens above. The
caterpillar talked all the rest of her life to her relatives, of the
time, when she should be a butterfly. But none of them believed her.
She, however, had learned to believe, and when she was going into
her chrysalis, she said, "I know I shall be a butterfly some day."
The Lark and the Caterpillar
A Fictional Short Story by
Agnes Taylor Ketchum & Ida M. Jorgensen
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