The wonderful evolution of a caterpillar, or grub, into a beautifully winged creature must inspire admiration in every one. More marvellous still is the growth of the human soul which in many respects resembles the development of the butterfly. It is this thought which has induced the author to attempt to depict the transformation of a careless maiden into noble womanhood.
In this first book, the process has begun. There are heart burnings, and troubles of girlhood. In the second book, the journeyings and adventures with her father, together with her development of character are treated. The third, and final volume, takes up the bursting into glorious womanhood of the girl, glorified by the coming of love.
For the curious facts and superstitions regarding butterflies woven into the story, the author desires to acknowledge her indebtedness to Dr. W. J. Holland's Butterfly Book, which is a compendium of knowledge on the subject. That the story may meet with favor, and inspire young hearts with an appreciation of these beautiful insects is the hope of the author.
L. F. M.
New York City.
It was four o'clock. The little town of Louisiana, Missouri, had slumbered all afternoon in the spring sunshine, but woke suddenly to life as the doors of the big brick school house opened, and the boys and girls poured forth. As the outgoing stream of pupils reached the gate several High School girls left the line, and withdrawing a short distance from the others, formed a little group by themselves, standing with faces turned expectantly toward the door of the building as though they were waiting for some one.
"I wonder why Bee doesn't come!" exclaimed one of the girls impatiently as the line dwindled to two or three pupils, and then ceased altogether. "I don't see why she pokes around that old school house so long?"
"She was going to help Professor Lawrence with some specimens," spoke a tall girl quickly. "You know Bee likes—"
"Bugs," finished the other girl with a shiver. "Oo-ooh! I wouldn't handle the worms, and creepy, crawly things that Bee Raymond does for anything."
"It isn't bugs at all," answered the tall girl with a trace of indignation in her voice. "It's caterpillars and butterflies. Bee's making a special study of them so as to surprise her father when he comes from abroad. He's a Lepidopterist, you know, and she is working to fit herself to be his secretary."
"Is he coming home soon, Edna?" queried one of the others.
"Not for two more years," responded Edna, who seemed to be well informed on the matter. "And just think, girls! Bee hasn't seen him for ten years."
"Fancy not seeing one's own father in all that time," remarked the girl who had first spoken. "Of course, it's just splendid to get letters from abroad, and to have all those lovely things he sends her; but I don't know, I think I'd rather have my father."
"Why, so would Bee," laughed Edna. "She's just crazy for him to come home. She—"
"There she is now," cried one, and with new interest each member of the group turned to look at the girl who at this moment came through the door of the school house.
Beatrice Raymond was a slender girl, tall for her fifteen years, with movements full of unconscious grace; for she had always been much in the open air and was accustomed to perfect freedom in her limbs. She could run as fast and jump as far as many boys who "fancied" themselves as athletes. Her hair was very dark, very straight, and very abundant. Her eyes were large, dark, and expressive; her complexion was dark also and without color. She created the thought in the minds of those observers who looked below the surface that there was intellect—thoughtful, loving, and perhaps unusual intellect. A strap of books was flung over her left shoulder, boy fashion, and her hat was set carelessly on one side of her head. She was laughing as she came to them, and the girls crowded around her eagerly.
"What's the joke, Bee?" cried Edna.
"It's a conundrum," answered Beatrice merrily. "Professor Lawrence just told it to me. See if any of you can answer it: 'Why are caterpillars like buckwheat cakes?'"
"Pooh! that's easy. Because they make the butter fly," answered one of the group. The others shouted with laughter as Bee turned an astonished look upon her.
"How did you know?" she asked. "Professor Lawrence just told it to me."
"Why, Beatrice Raymond, that joke was old before Professor Lawrence was born," said the one called Edna. "It's as old as—as the hills, and may be older for all I know. If you weren't so deep in that old Butterfly book you would have heard it long ago. Here! let me fix that hat. What would your Aunt Annie say if you were to come home with it at an angle of forty-five degrees?"
"Is it so bad as all that, Edna?" asked Bee indifferently. "Someway, I never do get my things on right. Now Adele's are always just so. I do believe that she could dress in the dark, and come out looking as neat as a pin."
"Where is Adele, Bee? Why didn't she come to school this afternoon?"
"She was not feeling well, so Aunt Annie thought it best to keep her home," answered Beatrice. "Aren't you going now, girls? I must hurry."
"Oh, Bee! why?" came from the group in a chorus. "We've been waiting for you ever so long so that you could go with us to Edna's. Do come! It won't be any fun unless you do."
"I can't," replied Bee. "I'd like to ever so much, but I must finish my letter to father. It has to be written today so that it can reach New York in time for Saturday's steamer."
"Will you come tomorrow then?" asked Edna. "You and Adele too."
"Yes, if Aunt Annie doesn't mind. Now I must go. Good-bye, girls."
"Bee," called one as Beatrice started on at a brisk walk.
"Well?" Bee paused good naturedly.
"Edna was telling us how long your father had been away, and I want to ask you if you think he would know you if he were to meet you unexpectedly?"
"Oh, Sue, that's mean!" came from the girls in shocked tones. "Don't answer her, Bee."
"But I don't ask for meanness," went on Sue apologetically as she saw the look that came into Bee's eyes. "I really want to know."
"Why, of course he would know me," uttered Bee hastily. "I'm his daughter."
"Yes; but—" began the irrepressible Sue, when Edna caught her about the waist and pressed one hand firmly over her mouth.
"Go on, Bee," she cried. "I'll attend to her. You'll have to hurry if you get home in time to finish that letter."
Beatrice turned, and slowly went on her way. Her uncle's house, where she lived, was in the western outskirts of the town more than a mile distant from the school. It behooved her to hasten if she were to finish her letter before tea time, but that question of Sue's had set her to thinking.
On the death of her mother, ten years before, her father, overwhelmed with grief at his loss, had accepted an offer to go abroad to complete a collection of lepidoptera for Union University, leaving her in charge of his brother's family. His letters had been frequent, and so tender and loving that the question of recognition had never occurred to her.
The houses became fewer as Beatrice reached the edge of town where the main street became a turnpike with green fields on either side, and a clear view of the distant hills. It was a beautiful April day. At the opening of the month spring had smiled invitingly; then, as though repenting her forwardness, she had retreated for a time, advancing again with coy hesitancy until today all her windows were open toward summer. In the zenith was a blue so soft and dreamy that it drew the soul as well as the eye toward it. A haze of Tyrian hue purpled the hills that encircled the little town, and mellowed the glory of the sunshine. There were splashes of green in the meadows so delicate as to be almost yellow, and along the brooks the willows played their fast greening boughs against a background of gray wood color. The very earth was odorous and the air was like balm, but Beatrice, usually susceptible to the beauties of Nature, was in too abstracted a mood to be conscious of the loveliness about her.
"But of course he would know me," she told herself at length, reassuringly. "Why, I should know him, and I was only five years old when he went away."
And with this she laughed aloud that she should have been so foolish as to consider for even a moment the absurd possibility of her father's not knowing her, and with her customary brightness of spirit restored she quickened her steps, and soon reached her uncle's place.
There were many acres in the estate. Henry Raymond was a well to do lawyer, and the walk to the dwelling lay through a large orchard. As Bee came in sight of the house the door opened, and a girl, about her own age, came out on the piazza, and ran down the steps to meet her. She was an extremely pretty girl. A slim graceful figure was hers, with a proud little head and sunny, shining hair that hung about her face with its beautiful blue eyes like a halo. She seemed rather the personification of loveliness than a flesh and blood maiden.
"What made you so late, Bee?" she cried. "I have been watching for you fully an hour."
"I staid to help Professor Lawrence for one thing; then the girls stopped me to talk with them. They want us to go to Edna's tomorrow afternoon. Will you be well enough to go, Adele?"
"Oh, I'm all right now, Bee. Papa came home early with a box of chocolates, and that seemed to be just what I needed."
Bee laughed.
"You butterfly," she said. "Always feeding on sweets. Did you leave me any?"
"Well—" Adele Raymond hesitated. "Not many, and that's a fact, Bee. You shouldn't have kept me waiting so long. And you haven't even noticed that I have on a new hat."
"But I thought that yours had violets on it," remarked Bee as she glanced at the hat. "That has red roses."
"Well, this one is yours, goosey. You're a funny girl, Bee, not to know your own hat. I have been trying mine on, then I thought I'd wear yours to meet you. And oh, Bee! the pictures have come too."
"What? Our photographs?" exclaimed Bee eagerly.
"Why Aunt Annie thought that we wouldn't have them for a week yet. Where are they, Adele?"
"In the library. I never knew you to be so concerned about your picture before, Bee."
"I am going to send one to father," observed Bee as she hurried into the house. "It's come just in time to go out with the letter."
"But do come up stairs first, Bee, and see my new hat. Wouldn't you like to see it?"
"I'd rather see the pictures," answered Bee making a dash for the library, flinging her hat in one direction and her books in another as she did so.
"Mamma won't like it if she sees your things lying about," observed her cousin following her into the library.
"I'll pick them up just as soon as I see the photographs," said Bee impatiently as she took up the pictures.
"Oh, Adele! how pretty you do look in yours; but mine—Oh, dear! it certainly leaves much to be desired."
"Mamma said that your good looks lay in your expression," remarked her cousin. "That is what makes it so hard to get a good picture of you, Bee. You are not going to send it to Uncle William, are you?"
"Yes," answered Bee with determination. "I never would send one before because I always hoped to get a good one, but tonight Sue Ford asked me if I thought he would know me if he were to meet me unexpectedly, and I am going to make sure of it. Now, if you don't mind, Adele, I'll begin my letter at once."
"Oh, Bee. I have been so lonely and dull," pleaded Adele. "Must you write it this very minute?"
"If I don't he won't hear from me at all this month, and father insists on hearing once a month. It is such a little thing to do for him, and I love to please him. It won't take me long."
"Of course then I must go away, and leave you alone," said her cousin petulantly. "Mamma doesn't want me to bother you when you are writing to him; but please don't be long, Bee."
"I won't," promised Bee, and at last she was left in peace.
An hour later Adele opened the door the merest trifle to peep in: "Mamma wants you to come to her just as soon as you have finished Bee," she said. "Are you through?"
"I have written the letter, but I haven't fixed the envelope for the picture yet," answered Beatrice jumping up from the desk. "If you don't mind doing it for me, Adele, I'll see what Aunt Annie wants."
"I don't mind a bit, Bee." Adele came into the room quickly. "Where is the address?"
"Here!" Bee moved a slip of paper on the desk toward her. "He is to be in Egypt this month."
"Just think of it," commented Adele bending over the desk. "That's a long way off. Shall I put the picture in for you, Bee?"
But Bee had already left the room. Adele directed the envelope in her best hand, then picked up her cousin's photograph, and looked at it critically.
"Poor Bee!" she said aloud. "It isn't very good of her. I'd hate to have my father think I looked like that if he was far away from me. And Bee is much better looking. I suppose Uncle William won't mind though, as she is his daughter. Now if it were my picture—"
She placed her own picture beside that of Bee's, and gazed at it complacently. Suddenly she gave a little ripple of laughter:
"Wouldn't it be fun to send my picture instead of Bee's?" she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "I believe I'll do it. Bee will never know, and hers is really not good enough to send."
With this she slipped Bee's photograph into a drawer of the desk, placed her own in the envelope, and sealed it just as Bee re-entered the room.
"You're a dear!" exclaimed Bee taking it from her, and picking up her letter. "Aunt Annie wants me to go down town for her, and I'll be just in time for the night mail."
"I am so glad that I sent it," exclaimed Beatrice again and again after posting the letter and the photograph. "Father has always wanted my picture, but I waited hoping that sometime I'd get a good one. Still, it will give him an idea of how I look even though it is a poor likeness. I do wonder if he will like it!"
And with a roguish smile Adele would answer: "I think so, Bee."
The days passed. With more than her usual impatience Bee waited for an answer to her letter. If the connections were prompt, if he were not away from civilization on an extended butterfly hunt, if he wrote just as soon as he received it, she ought to hear by the last of May, she told herself; so, having arrived at this conclusion, she tried to rest in patience until that time should come.
At length the timid beauties of April were merged into the exuberance of the leaf and flower of May, and Nature was resplendent in the full glory of the springtide. The last day of the month fell upon a Saturday, and early in the morning of that day Bee dressed herself to go into town for the mail. Seating herself upon the steps of the piazza to wait for Adele who was to accompany her she feasted her eyes upon the beauty of the orchard whose trees seemed like great pink and white bouquets set in the ground. Suddenly a puff of wind stirred the branches, and sent the petals of the apple blossoms flying in every direction.
"Dear me!" exclaimed the girl springing up from the steps in pretended dismay as a shower of the fragrant blooms deluged her. "Snow in May! I told Adele that it would be Christmas before she was ready. Come out, and see the storm, Aunt Annie."
A lady standing just inside a long French window which opened upon the porch came through it to her niece's side.
"What an idea!" she said in a clear musical voice.
"Get the broom, Bee, and sweep off the steps. I shall be glad when the blossoms are gone. They make such a litter."
"Why, Aunt Annie, glad when the blossoms are gone? You can't mean it. Just look at those trees! Did you ever see anything so pretty?"
"They are pretty enough, child," returned Mrs. Raymond carelessly. "There! cease your rhapsodies, and get the broom. When you have seen as many Springs as I have you won't be quite so ecstatic over them."
"I believe that I'll always feel just as I do now," declared Bee as she ran for the broom. "When the trees begin to bud something gets into my being that makes me feel like—like—Oh, like Alexander the Great: that I could conquer the world."
"It's the wine of youth in your blood, Bee." The lady smiled at the girl's enthusiasm. "That's what it is to be young. You are very like your father."
"Am I, auntie?" Beatrice flushed with pleasure.
"Yes. At least you are in regard to your feeling for Nature. He sees beauty in everything; or used to do so. It seems to be a family trait of the Raymonds. I don't notice it so much in Adele; but then she takes after my people."
"Perhaps it is because she is so beautiful herself," remarked Bee meditatively. "I've noticed that people don't prize what they themselves possess."
"Don't say that, Bee. You are far from being homely," spoke Mrs. Raymond graciously, noting a trace of wistfulness in her niece's tone. "Beside, 'Beauty is only skin—'"
"Yes; I know, Aunt Annie. Spare me!" The girl put her hand in laughing protest over her aunt's mouth. "Still, I wouldn't mind having the skin. I just believe that that saying, and the other: 'Handsome is as handsome does,' were invented by some ugly old thing with a skin as yellow as a pumpkin. Oh, here is Adele at last!"
Mrs. Raymond laughed, and turned toward the door through which her daughter came, her face aglow with pride.
"Beatrice has been ready a long time," she chided, the gentleness of her tone softening the reproof. "You should not have kept her waiting, my daughter, when this is the day she is expecting a letter from her father."
"Don't scold her, auntie," pleaded Bee gazing at her cousin with admiring eyes. "Oh, Adele! how do you make yourself look so pretty?"
Adele smiled, well pleased. She was accustomed to being told of her beauty, but she never wearied of the homage it exacted.
"You look nice too, Bee," she said condescendingly with a glance of approval at Beatrice's white robed figure. "Aren't you going to wear any hat?"
"I am going to carry it until we reach the road." Bee caught up a broad brimmed leghorn from a chair, and held it carelessly by the strings. "I don't like to wear one any more than I have to. I'll beat you to the gate, Adele."
"A race?" Adele drew her brows together in a prim little frown. "Such great girls as we are. Why, we are almost young ladies! It would not be proper."
"Bother propriety!" ejaculated her cousin. "There is a whole year before we are sixteen. We don't need to give up running until then. Do we, auntie?"
"No;" answered her aunt indulgently. "Be girls just as long as you can. You will be young ladies soon enough. I wish Adele would take more exercise."
"Just through the orchard then," cried Adele catching up her skirts daintily. "Here goes! Oh, Bee!"
"What's the matter?" asked Bee, surprised.
"No wonder you could be dressed before I was," exclaimed Adele in shocked tones. "There are three buttons of your dress unfastened."
"Are there?" Bee backed up to her unconcernedly. "Do button them, like a dear. I never was good at closing exercises."
Adele giggled appreciatively.
"Professor Lawrence says that closing exercises should be marked by decorum as well as dispatch," she remarked in didatic accents. "I observe the dispatch, Miss Raymond, but I must say—"
"Oh, hurry up," interrupted Bee impatiently. "What's a button more or less on such a glorious day as this? Come on, or I shall run a race with my shadow."
"Catch me then." Adele darted away quickly. "If I beat I shall read your letter first."
"Good-bye, dears," called Mrs. Raymond after them. "Don't let her beat you, Bee."
"I won't, auntie," Beatrice paused long enough to say, and then sped after her cousin.
There were ripples of sunshine all tangled over the bowers of apple blooms, and dancing blithely over the mats of blue violets in the grass. Gold belted honeybees hummed a song of contentment in every flowery cluster. Gauze-winged dragon flies darted hither and thither, while butterflies sailed by on new born wings of bronze, and scarlet and gold. The wind laughed a gleeful accompaniment to the merry maidens who ran gaily down the path o'ershadowed by the trees. Adele's graceful form was in the lead, but Beatrice was gradually gaining upon her. At length, as they were nearing the edge of the orchard, Bee gave an exultant shout and passed her cousin, reaching the gate just ahead of her.
"Weren't you awfully afraid that I'd get to read that letter?" laughed Adele as, flushed and panting, she leaned against the gate. "How fast you do run, Bee! I am all out of breath."
"So am I," admitted Bee. "We will have time to rest for a moment before going on to the office. Take off your hat, and you will soon be cool." She swung her own back and forth by the strings as she spoke.
"I'm afraid of freckles," sighed her cousin.
"Gracious!" ejaculated Bee, quickly putting her hat on her head. "I had forgotten all about freckles. How can you always remember, Adele?"
"Perhaps if you had to take the care of your skin that I do, you would not forget either."
"But don't you ever get tired of it? I should think that you would want to go bareheaded sometimes."
"I would, Bee; but I like to keep my skin nice too. One can't do both."
"Can't one?" asked Bee thoughtfully. "I should think that the skin would need air and sunshine just like the flowers, and the butterflies, and all other pretty growing things."
"Mamma always puts her lillies in the shade, doesn't she?" queried Adele laughing. "It keeps them white, and that's the reason she tells me to keep on my hat. Tan and freckles may be healthful, but they are not pretty. At least she doesn't think so. Do you know the reason that I always give Dolly Madison as my favorite character in history, Bee?"
"No. I have wondered about it. I should think you would prefer Queen Elizabeth, or Joan of Arc, or somebody like them. I like women who do things. Miss Rosa Bonheur, Miss Herschel, or Grace Darling suit me better."
"Well, I like Dolly best because I sympathize with her. When she was a little girl her mother cut holes in her sunbonnet, and tied her hair through them so that she couldn't throw it off. She had a pretty skin too, and her mother didn't want it to get tanned, or sun-burned. I always think of what Dolly had to go through whenever I want to throw off my hat, and it helps me to keep it on. I know just how she felt about that everlasting bonnet. But after a while, you know, she became the mistress of the White House."
Bee laughed outright.
"Is that the reason that you are taking such good care of your complexion?" she asked teasingly. "I never thought it of you, Adele."
"Laugh if you want to," retorted Adele.
"Isn't Professor Lawrence always telling the boys that one of them may be President of the United States some day, and that every one of them is eligible? Now the President has to have a wife, doesn't he? Well, I never could see why a girl mightn't look forward to being the Mistress of the White House as well as a boy might expect to be President."
"If having a perfect complexion is one of the essentials toward becoming the Mistress of the White House you are right in line for the position," said Bee wiping her eyes. "Never mind, Adele! I was just having a little fun. Your skin is lovely, and I expect I would be just as careful as you are if it were mine. I wonder how it would feel to be a beauty!"
"It's a great responsibility," declared Adele with a toss of her head. "There is so much to live up to. If I am the least bit untidy some one is sure to say: 'Such a pretty girl should always be neat and dainty.' Or, 'beauty and dirt don't go together, my dear.' While you—you can be as careless as you wish, and no one thinks anything about it."
"I am not so sure about that." Bee shook her head dubiously. "Aunt Annie is always taking me to task for my untidiness. And there is much demanded of me in other ways. If you are expected to be neat and dainty at all times, I am urged to be industrious."
quoted Adele in a sing-song tone. "Isn't that what the girls are always saying, Bee? I never see you flying about the house helping mamma, or running errands, or pouring over your books that I don't think of the 'Little busy bee.' Now I can't find time to do anything except to dress, and to keep myself looking nice."
"Well, a butterfly is not expected to do anything but to fly in the sun, and be happy," laughed Bee. "And you are like a golden and white butterfly, Adele. Bees must make honey. They are too homely to do anything else, while butterflies—"
"Speaking of butterflies," interrupted Adele quickly. "There is one just about to light on your head."
"What kind is it?" queried Beatrice holding her head very still, and speaking anxiously. "I hope it isn't a cabbage butterfly. I shouldn't like to think that even a butterfly would take my head for a cabbage."
"It's yellow and black, Bee. Is that the cabbage butterfly? I don't know as much about such things as you do."
"The cabbage butterfly is white. Has it settled yet?"
"Yes." Adele watched as a yellow and black Swallow Tail poised gently upon Bee's head for a moment, and then flew away. "There! it's gone."
"That's a good omen," declared Bee turning toward the gate. "Whenever a butterfly lights on your head it means favorable news from a distance. There will be something good in father's letter, I know. Come, Adele! lets hurry so that we can get it."
Adele straightened her hat a little, and then the two girls set off for the postoffice.
"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country."
—Proverbs.
"Suppose there shouldn't be a letter," remarked Adele suggestively as the cousins entered the postoffice. "What would you do?"
"But there will be," answered Bee confidently. "In all the years that he has been away father has not failed to send me a letter once a month. Even though it may not be an answer to my last, I'll get a letter."
She was not disappointed. There was a letter for her, and Adele received one also.
"Let's hurry to the old elm tree so that we can read them," cried Adele. "I wonder who mine's from? I didn't expect a letter."
Beatrice assented readily. The old elm tree stood by the side of the road just outside the town and was a favorite resting place for pedestrians. It did not take the girls long to reach the spot, so eager were they to read their letters. Beatrice threw herself down on the grass without ceremony, and tore open her epistle. Adele sank down with a graceful and effective arrangement of her draperies. Before she had quite completed the adjustment she was startled by an exclamation from her cousin.
"What is it, Bee?" she asked, looking up curiously.
"He is coming home," cried Bee jumping up and dancing about wildly. "Oh, my father is coming home!"
"Is he?" ejaculated Adele excitedly. "What does he say? Do be quiet, Bee? Sit down and read me the letter, or let me read it."
"I'll read it to you," answered Bee, kissing the missive rapturously. "I'll read it in a minute. Oh, oh, oh! I'm so happy I could fly."
She grew quiet presently, however, and seating herself again, began to read:
"Cairo, Egypt,
May 16th, 19—."My dear Little Daughter:—
"When you receive this letter your father will be nearer to you than he has been for many a day. Child, I am coming home. Yes; after all these years I am returning to you. How long I shall remain is problematical, as I have not yet completed my investigation of the Lepidoptera of tropical countries. However, that is a matter that may be left to the future.
"Another two years would have terminated my task, but such a longing has come to me to behold my little daughter who must now be almost a woman that I have dropped everything, and am coming to her as swiftly as steam can carry me.
"No doubt you have often wondered that I should have left you, and the subject has been too painful to me to discuss; but now, you are old enough to understand my reasons. When your mother died she left a void in my life that nothing but the most engrossing occupation could make me forget. Change of scene was an absolute necessity for me; and so, when Union University wished to send an entomologist to study the habits of Moths and Butterflies of other countries, I was glad indeed when it was proposed that I should be the one to go. You were but five years old, and needed a woman's care more than mine, so I left you with your uncle's family. I still think it was the best thing I could have done.