In a leafy garden, amongst the fragrant blossoms and rustling leaves, lived a cheerful little caterpillar named Carly. Carly had bright green skin dotted with yellow spots, which made her look like a tiny jewel hanging from her favorite flower. Every day, Carly ate the soft, luscious petals and chatted with the bees and butterflies that visited her garden home.
“I simply love this life,” Carly would say, stretching her plump body from side to side. “Every day is so delightful and welcoming.”
As time passed, Carly noticed something unusual. Her friends, the butterflies, were flitting gracefully through the air, their colorful wings shimmering in the sunlight. Carly felt a twinge of longing in her heart. “Oh, how I wish I could fly like them!” she sighed, watching the butterflies dance and play above the flowers.
One sunny afternoon, a friendly caterpillar, who was a little older and wiser than Carly, happened to hear her lamentation. He looked at her and smiled, “Do not worry, dear Carly. Soon you will be able to fly as carefree as we do.”
“But I will never be able to fly,” said she, shaking her head sadly. “I will always remain just a little caterpillar.”
This saddened the older caterpillar much and he said again, “You should not be in such a hurry to become a butterfly, my dear. You have wonderful days before you, and many changes will come. Now rest you and be as happy as you can. I shall tell you what will happen so that you won’t be nervous when the time comes. Every one of us in time will arrive at the glorious end awaiting us. And now good night, little one.”
For the next few nights, Carly blossomed into a more beautiful caterpillar. She was delighted that she was getting plumper and more fleecy. But the day came when all the rest of the butterflies hurried off to the woods to form a little box-like mansion where they could sleep as snugly as possible.
“What shall I do? What shall I do?” cried Carly. “Dear Old Mister Caterpillar, I am afraid! What if I become something dreadful instead of a butterfly!”
“Be brave, my dear,” said he; “Don’t try to look at the end, only think of the best. You know the good God will take care of you.” And then he bade her good night once more.
Once more Carly lay down on a lovely big smooth primrose leaf, waved her head softly from side to side, and began to spin around herself very rapidly. She was soon almost too dizzy to think; and never before or since could anyone spin so fast as she. Soon a beautiful soft lacy covering was formed on her back.
“Oh, I feel so happy!” she cried. “How nice and warm it covers me!” And she felt so snug and contented she closed her big, black eyes peacefully and fell fast asleep.
Everybody else being too excited to close their eyes, each one saw just how Carly did it—first she got very much dizzy by spinning round as fast as she could and then she fastened to her back a beautiful lace building done with soft white webs.
The next morning all the butterflies thought nothing had happened to Carly. “What a long sleep the childish thing is having!” they all said. But on the second day they noticed a difference in her look and they whispered to one another, “I’m afraid, dear comrades, we were, alas! too late with our warning. I fear her heart has failed her.”
And as they were all looking at her and shaking their heads, Ermine saw that Carly had a great wish to be eaten, so she suited the action to the word and gobbled Carly down, thick covering and all. But when Ermine came to her supper that day she could not eat anything, for her stomach was full of a very angry little butterfly, who had a great many things to say, and was so angry he could scarcely get his slender sharp tongue in motion.
Ermine did all she could to prevent his saying anything, but however she twisted her body about to ease her discomfort, no sooner was the poor butterfly’s tongue free than the one little word “Help” gushed from it. This was charming, however it did not remedy the trouble, and nothing but “Help” came from it; and so Ermine went to bed peevishly enough.
Seven days passed and then Ermine woke very lively. “However wave my body,” said she, “this angry little butterfly inside of me seems all the better for his journey, for now he acts like a winker and I really can sleep again. I used to like to sleep, I confess, but somehow I was always obliged to listen to all those dull talks the butterflies had with Carly. I hope she soon will be well again.”
So slowly but surely Ermine went to sleep, and slept for another day; so that when she woke again, and winked her sleepy eyes, she was all but sure she was dreaming when she saw near her a most lovely, wide, green, shining thing, fastened to a flower; for she had just opened her eyes wide enough to see that she was far away from her grumpy home, only twenty steps off, and though she could see well enough it was all a dream.
The middle of the bright green thing was the bony cover of a butterfly, and cautiously, so as not to wake him all at once, Ermine crept to the end of the graceful wings, cut carefully through the silk covering at the root (for you see it is only during its sleep in the cocoon that the butterfly is watched over by his own good fairie), cut the floss of a soft silken string, and left the poor little butterfly free.
At first he could see nothing, as he had spent so long in close confinement. Still tired to sleep again, and rubbed gently his bony cover with a wishing broom so as to make it brighter and lighter. Cracking his wings wretchedly, down dripped all the dew drops, as large as diamonds, but alas! just as heavy; they all dropped to the ground on the shining silk cover, and almost choked the lovely bundle beneath them.
“Don’t fear me!” said a soft, low voice; and immediately did the heavy dew-drops vanish. “You shall however as soon as this cabinet of mine has been emptied.”
The butterfly was greatly surprised, and as he cracked and crackled his wings no longer, only stretched them carefully up to the extreme point of the leaves above him, of which I should tell you there were two on each side. “Who are YOU?” he asked. “Are you a new kind of shining butterfly like myself?”
“It is me that gives to the dew-drops their beautiful, glittering, white colours,” she said smiling, “and to all the young things we see day after day!”
And having made him brighten as much as ever he could, away she flew, playing with the wings of the butterfly, and turning them this way and that, so that he might see their beautiful ring-pattern ornament (of which only one wing is usually geometrically worked in; only in the one job you always see) under the field-glass of thousand-covered punchinello prodeal spoons of ecclesiastical imagery.
“Oh my skull!” said the little butterfly, looking at her and helping her to beat various parts of her covering, “so I really am a butterfly instead of being killed off at once! Oh, so happy am I!”
“You may be one,” answered the good fairie, “if you take care of yourself. But keep off from the rain and sun, and above all, please do not listen to skinny animals which hide up their faces so as to frighten you to death.”
And with that the good spirit departed.
The butterfly turned round on both sides, and saw a tiny squirrel looking with wonder at what was most to it about the best days of the butterfly; and the little beast he bent down his eyes, plying them all the time with huge radish leaves as back curtains. But he could behold nothing splendid, hidden as she was in the garden flowers.
“Oh, come out from the cells of the great copper machine!” said Jupiter to the binding-screw. “To day you have to do only the fines of what the wretches of money-bounds cannot compass!”
But though the face of his dear uncle was left over-flogged. Jupiter at last knew her to be the good fairie Lotsy, who told the butterfly all that, full two hours before always to get in better training.
“Good news has also been given to you besides your change of skin,” the butterfly was about to say; but the moment the squirrel lifted his hairy back, whom had pleased ermines to like, the little butterfly disappeared in the wood, only coming out after a long while to be seen by two oppossum-beasts, which licked her, and on one corner of her out-of-doors curled softly under their hairy covers.
Nobody came rubbing their mouths ever after; while before the monsoon was all to start, when all the water in the erectile police workstation is shut off, everything was all to slip away!