In a beautiful flower garden buzzing with life, lived a bright green caterpillar who was named Casey. Although she was friendly with all the insects around her, a little voice inside her head said, “You need to create a secret club!”
“Will I have a lonesome club if I only invite one insect?” thought Casey. “If I invite all my insect friends, they will tell everyone. They will shout ‘Hooray for Casey!’ and it wouldn’t be a secret club any longer.”
“Hey! Larry, wake up!” called out Casey to a fat little ladybug who slept in the green flowers, his favourite place for an afternoon nap.
“Sorry, I must have dozed off,” said Larry. “It’s so comfy here. What’s in the wind?”
“Only my very own secret club,” said Casey, prancing about in great glee.
“Terrific!” said Larry. “How can I join?”
“That’s the trouble,” said Casey. “I only have room for one, but I’m afraid you wouldn’t enjoy it alone and I’m afraid there would be Big Noise with all the others.”
“How big is your club going to be, Casey?”
“Much too large and everybody will tell it all around the garden,” sighed Casey. “I want to own a club that is really a secret one.”
“Then invite the whole gang, Casey,” said Larry. “If they know it’s a secret, they are not going to tell it all about the garden. Only the secrets aren’t secrets after all,” he added slyly, “become the naughtiest babies on earth, and grow right behind you. Then you will always have a buddy for your secret clubs.”
“Hooray! Now I have someone to help you keep the secret,” laughed Casey.
“I wonder what sign we will have,” said Larry.
“There will be no sign to the newcomers. Do only lovely, pleasant things when you first join our club. That will be the sign that all in the club must do the same.”
“Oh, Casey, what lovely things I will do, and feel so good myself,” said Larry, clapping his red wings together.
They invited the whole garden around. Everybody promised to keep it a secret, but like many promises both Casey’s and Larry’s the secret was soon out to all the city folk, but it was kept cry still cry. Old Mr. Frog read out the little club paragraph for them. The street boys came hunting for Casey. But with his baby’n cot on her back, she could not move slowly enough for them, she was too nimble, they quickly acquired the trick of it, and got the precious caterpillar that made slip wire club biography.
Before the roof was torn over the whole thing, nine new babies slipped into existence and became full-grown friendly tree-climbing companions of Casey and Larry.
“What unlucky kids to be born in that dreadful month,” croaked out old Mr. Frog in a voice trembling with excitement, when he read it up from the New-Crier.
“A sure thing that prances around the street will do no mischief,” said dormant ladybugs, “and playing with that prancing tails and prancing butterfly hangings, is long wine up, and no gates of existence have to cross. They must have been born on some other world than ours. Luckily when they come to be men, they will never come in collision with one’s body. There will be plenty of prancing before that. And I wish Casey and Larry good luck with gentility.”