When the warm sunlight beckoned every butterfly out of its hiding place, there was one disconsolate little caterpillar (Maggie the Caterpillar) hanging forlornly to a branch many feet above ground hoping most earnestly that a change in her appearance might enable her to join the merrymaking insects who flitted from flower to flower liquidating ever so much nectar.
When the sunbeams first touched her she knew everything was all right as far as the weather went; they made her feel happy even while they were causing her a little discomfort by thawing her out after a midnight frost. But her heart was sorrowful and it was impossible for her to express her feelings in any other way than by unfurling the pretty jewel-like wings that she had so painfully developed.
“I don’t see what’s the use of living on after two of my best friends have perished,” she sighed, “only to starve to death myself. Other caterpillars seem to take life so lightly!”
She had hardly finished speaking when an old friend, a venerable, plumed thing, dropped down at her side. “Don’t fret yourself,” he said. “I have seen some glorious times since you looked as I do now. I had a most horrible life to lead, I assure you, before I became the monarch of these happy people who are surrounding us today, and no doubt I should have almost forgotten my own sad youth had it not been for your two companions whom I sometimes encounted.”
Maggie told him her woes and of her sad bereavement.
“Were they sincere and constant friends?” he asked.
“One of them was pure vanity personified; I could never trust her,” she replied, “but the other, dear soul,——“ she sobbed, “had she lived would have brought me round to your way of thinking.”
“Then have you waited to grow into a bounteous chrysalis on her account?”
But the question was unintelligible to Maggie.
“It is consoling to know, however,” proceeded the butterfly, “that she was true to you even unto death. But tell me, now that it is too late, did she know you had wings?”
“I often hinted at it, but she said she couldn’t understand why I should capture an old matron’s garments when there were many poor underlings without any.”
“I’m afraid that you never listened to her wise remarks,” sighed the butterfly. “Had you done so you would have understood one of the mysteries surrounding our mode of existence. I will not waste time in talking to the others till I hear your answer. You don’t mean to say that caterpillars are so stupid as not to know—is that what you think?”
“I didn’t take it that way,” she said.
“When you deserve one’s confidences it is strange how readily they are given, whether solicited or not. But I must away! I have to see after the arrangements in the Butterfly House and am late now. All are looking to see which wing I shall wear tonight; and if, after all, I am not going to adopt a new style, I defy your chance remark to the Gay Colourist who has just arrived on his way to the next Academy Exhibition and is even now standing close at hand.”
When Maggie did emerge everybody came to see her.
“It is prettier in some respects than the old poor thing,” said all the friends of her antique acquaintance—and so it proved to be.