Читать книгу Birds and Nature Vol. 10 No. 5 [December 1901] - Various - Страница 10

“Oh! Oh! Auntie, please come here, my foot’s caught in this hammock and I can’t get out and there’s a caterpillar going to crawl right on me!” called little Neva Birdsell in an excited tone.

Aunt Doris laid down her sewing and went over to where her little niece was lying with her eyes riveted on a caterpillar which was slowly crawling along quite ignorant that anyone was being alarmed by its presence.

Neva gave a sigh of relief when her aunt picked a leaf from the vine and the caterpillar crawled off on to it.

“Now what shall I do with him?” asked Aunt Doris as the caterpillar curled itself up in a little ball.

“Why, kill it, quick as ever you can,” replied Neva promptly, “I don’t want horrid old caterpillars crawling ’round me.”

Just then a beautiful butterfly lighted on the vine near by and Aunt Doris questioned, “Shall I catch the butterfly and kill that, too?”

“O, auntie, how could you kill a beautiful butterfly?” exclaimed the little girl. “Catch it, though, I’d love to see it close to. But there, now!” she added in a disappointed tone as the butterfly flitted away, “It’s gone; they always fly away from me.”

Aunt Doris went back to her chair carrying the caterpillar in the leaf with her. She seemed to be studying it for a moment and then asked, “Do you know what I have here, Neva?”

“Why, that caterpillar,” answered the little girl in a surprised tone. Then growing curious she left the hammock and went nearer her aunt’s chair.

“Yes,” said her aunt, “you are right, yet if I should keep it long enough it would turn into a butterfly just like the one that flew away a moment ago; but I suppose I had better kill it as you wish me to.”

“O, please don’t,” said Neva quickly as her aunt started from her chair, “I didn’t know ’bout it’s ever being a butterfly. Will it really be like that other one, and could you keep it long enough; and how can you tell what kind of a butterfly it will be?”