Van, the Sleepy Butterfly

Who Was Wakened by a January Thaw

V AN was having a happy time making her New Year's calls.

She had crept out of bed about noon, for there was no cold wind blowing, and the sun had thrown its warm rays against the loose piece of bark under which she was sleeping. These warm rays had wakened her. That was a pleasant way of starting January, to have the sun knock at her door with its own sort of "Happy New Year!"

Other pleasant things happened, too. To begin with, Van was thirsty; and there is much to enjoy in being hungry and thirsty if there is food and drink near by. She had had nothing to eat during November or December, as it had been too cold for two months to do anything but sleep; and she was ready now to enjoy a New Year's dinner.

Van was ready to enjoy a New Year's dinner.

So she must have been glad when she had some invitations to "come and have a feast." Of course these were not written in notes, and put into envelopes, and stamped, and brought her by Uncle Sam's post-man. Nor were they brought her by messenger boys who said in words, "You are invited to dine at Mrs. Appleby's." Those would have been silly ways, for Van was a butterfly, and what did she know about written or spoken invitations or dinner-bells?

But there was a way for all that to let her know the table was spread for her. And after all, what better way, when folk (either boys or butterflies) have been without food until they are hungry, than to be tempted by good smells?

The first invitation that the air brought Van was from an old apple tree that lived near the edge of the woods. My, my! what a good-smelling one it was! The apples had frozen on the ground, and now they had thawed and were soft, and the juice was like cider. Oh, oh! what a feast for a thirsty butterfly!

Other guests had been before her. Brother Rabbit had eaten there more than once. Mr. Fieldmouse had nibbled up half an apple and left a pile of crumbs in its place. And the birds? There was one that very minute pecking with its thick short bill at an apple that had caught in the branches. So bird and beast and butterfly were all made happy by the New Year's gift of the old apple tree.

The second invitation the air brought Van was from a maple tree that lived down the same lane not far away. This was such a good one that Van could hardly get there fast enough. She fluttered her wings in a hurry to get a quick start, and then sailed for a little way. Then she fluttered her wings again as if she wanted to get there before it was too late. And no wonder! For there was a broken branch on the maple and a little icicle where some sap had dripped out and had frozen, and now the icicle was melting. Maple syrup! Oh! oh! oh!

The third invitation that the air brought to Van was—But we shall never know because, just as she was starting to her third feast, a boy and a girl came racing down the lane.

"Oh, see!" they called; "a butterfly! A big beauty! Just think! A butterfly on New Year's Day! Let's take it home to show!"

So they ran after Van, who was spreading her brown wings with yellow borders for a slow sail.

Oho! catch Van? Why they couldn't even see her! What had been a large butterfly, with wide showy wings, a minute before, now looked like a ragged bit of bark on a tree near by. Van had hidden. And she was almost near enough to touch, though perhaps a little too high. She had hidden right in plain sight. And all she had done was sit on the bark of the tree and fold her wings above her back and keep still. Catch Van? Why Van could fool a bird  in a game of hide-and-seek!

Van now looked like a ragged bit of bark.

By the time the children gave up the hunt, the sun was under a cloud and the wind felt chilly. So Van did not have any more feasting that day, or make any more New Year's calls. She was near her shelter of loose bark and crept up under cover out of the wind. She had had a good time. She had had cider and maple-sap enough to last her until the next thaw spell—be it one week or two, or one month, or two, or even three. Time was all alike to her when the weather was cold—short or long, it was the same! She just slept! You may ask the wisest man you know why it did Van no harm when the weather was cold as zero. If he is very wise, indeed, he will tell you, "I do not know why."

But our not knowing why made no difference to Van. She did live through the cold winter in the north, with no shelter but a loose bit of bark, just as her grandmother had lived one winter in a hollow tree, and her great-great-grandmother had lived under the roof of an old empty shed.

As spring came on, Van had invitations from the pussy willow, where she met some pretty flies with stripes on their bodies. She called, too, on the trailing arbutus, where she met Old Bumble more than once; for they both drank from those sweet pink cups and carried pollen from flower to flower.

Some time in May Van found that she could not spend all her time in calling on flowers, however much she liked their nectar, and however much they needed to have their pollen carried for them. So she hunted for a willow tree, and made a little ring around one of its twigs. This ring was set with fifty jewels, the very best she had to offer to the world. Of course, these jewels were her eggs.

In about two weeks they began to hatch, and Sister Essa was the very first of them all to bite around the edge of her egg-shell, until the top lifted like a little lid and out she came, looking much too long to be curled up in the shell she crept out of.

Essa did not go away from her brother and sister caterpillars. When they were all hatched, they crept off together and lay in a row side by side, with their heads at the edge of the leaf. There they had their breakfast, which it took them several days to eat.

And what do you suppose it was? No, their mother did not bring them cider from old soft apples, or syrup from broken maple twigs, or nectar from flowers. She was not like Old Bumble, who fed her babies every day. Van did not bring her fifty children one single thing to eat. Sister Essa was hungry, too; and so were the rest of the family. And here they were left on a willow branch, where there was nothing at all but leaves—food their mother never could have eaten with her long tongue, if she had uncoiled it and tried.

But we needn't worry about those babies. In less than the flick of a minute Sister Essa had nibbled a tiny green bite out of the top of the willow leaf, nodding her little head over it as her jaws opened and shut as if there were nothing better to be had for a breakfast. All her brothers and sisters were nodding their heads just the same way, and while they were about it, they nibbled off the whole top of the leaf just as if it were a green layer cake and they wanted only the shiny frosting. Before breakfast was over, Sister Essa led them to another leaf, where they lay side by side in a row as before, and ate until their skins were too tight to hold another bit of shiny green frosting.

That was a sign that their breakfast was over; so they spun a thin mat with silk which they spilled out of a little tube near their lower lips, and took a nap on the mat.

The first day they rested quietly, but the second day they acted as if they were having bad dreams and tossed their heads a great deal. In fact Sister Essa jerked so hard at last that her little skull came off like an empty shell. By that time she was wide-awake, and crept out of her tight skin through the collar-hole the skull left when it tumbled off. Before she had time to turn around, all her brothers and sisters were jerking their skulls off, too, and creeping out of their skins through the collar-hole.

Something funny had happened to them and they never looked the same again. They now had new heads, with bigger jaws and fine new stretchy skins.

After that nap that had had such a queer end, they were hungry; so they went off to some new leaves (this time one was not big enough to hold them all) and lay in rows and ate their luncheon. It was so good they did not stop for nearly a week. When their luncheon was over at last, they spun another thin silk mat and had another nap. They woke in about two days, jerking their skulls off again, and crept through the collar-hole in their skins just as they had before. They now had still bigger heads, and skins that were stretchier than ever.

Well, that was the way Sister Essa went on doing, until she had had her dinner and another luncheon and her supper. Each meal lasted several days, with a day or two for a nap in between.

Each meal lasted several days.

Every time she wakened, she pushed and jerked inside her old skin, until her skull fell off like an empty nut-shell; and when she crept out of the collar-hole she looked different from the way she looked when she went to sleep.

By the time she was eating her supper, her skin was a soft black color, with little white specks like a "pepper-and-salt" suit. Down the middle of her back was a row of pretty red spots, and growing all over her sides were black spines with pointed branches. She was now two inches long and a fine-looking caterpillar—after one got used to seeing her.

As her brothers and sisters had all had the same sort of time growing that she had had, they were fine-looking, too, and so big that the fifty of them together made the tip of the willow branch hang down. They ate more for this meal than for any other, and they did not nibble just the shiny frosting as they did at breakfast when they were tiny—they gobbled up all the flat green cakes on the branch. This would have been a bad thing for a little tree which needed all its leaves to grow with. Of course, if they had been on a small tree, it would have been better to take them off. But this was a big, big one, forty years old, and it was growing wild near a brook, with no gardener to trim off some of its branches; and what leaves Essa and the others ate could be spared as well as not. Of course, their supper must be a hearty one, for it had to last them until they were butterflies, like Van, with a long tongue to uncoil when calling on the flowers to sip nectar and to carry pollen.

You never would think, to look at Essa, that she would ever fly; for there she sat clinging to the branch with ten of her feet and drawing the edge of the leaf down to her mouth with her other six feet, and she didn't have a sign of wings anywhere on her back.

All, but Essa could do several things you would never think she could! She had never done them before—why should she now? You might not think she could creep head first down the trunk of the tree, and take a walk, as fast as she could hurry, along the ground, until she came to an old fence; and climb the fence, and spin a silk peg on the lower edge of a board, and fasten her hind-legs to the silk peg, and let go with all her other legs, and hang there head-down until her skull split and her skin ripped down the back seam!

You wouldn't know how Essa could do that, would you? And if you ask the wisest man you see how  a caterpillar can do wonderful things like that just once in her life, without learning or without any one to show her about making a silk peg, maybe he will tell you he doesn't know, either.

But our not knowing how she can do it made no difference to Essa. That is just what she did when she had finished her supper; and while she was about it, she changed into a chrysalis, which looked no more like a butterfly than it did like a caterpillar.

There they hung on their silk pegs.

Well, there they hung, Essa and her forty-nine funny brother and sister chrysalids, for about ten days; and none of them knew anything about Lampy's fireworks on the Fourth o' July. Soon after that Essa broke her chrysalis case, and tumbled out head first. She didn't tumble far, for her feet caught hold of the empty case, and she hung there with her soft little wings down, until they grew big and stopped throbbing. She clung with four feet; but you must not think she had no more feet than a cat or a dog, for her first pair were folded against her breast and covered up by her pretty brown fur.

Some people said Essa's wings were purple, and some said they were brown. I don't know what you would think about their color. But all agreed that the border was pale yellow, and that next the yellow on the upper side was a dark band with lovely pale blue spots on it. And everybody who saw her said that she was a very beautiful butterfly when she spread her wings open, and that, when she folded them shut above her back, she looked like a piece of bark.

Essa flew about and made calls on the flowers, for there was flower nectar instead of frozen apple-cider in July. After a time she made a ring about the twig of a tree all set with her egg-jewels. I have forgotten whether she chose a willow or an elm; but it made no difference which, for her daughter Opie, when she hatched, could eat either one. If it had been an oak, Opie would have starved to death; but of course Essa would not have left her eggs on an oak or a pine tree.

Well, Opie and her brother and sister caterpillars ate and napped and grew, and changed into chrysalids and then into butterflies, just as their mother and their uncles and aunts had done.

But by this time it was the fall of the year, and Opie found her life much more like her grandmother's than it was like her mother's; for Essa had been a summer butterfly and Opie, like Van, was a winter one. So she flew about and called on the fall flowers, and when the days grew cold, she found a shelter as her grandmother Van had done, and went to sleep, clinging with four feet to the roof of her winter bedroom and folding the other two close to her breast.

There she rested all the winter long, except when the days were warm enough to thaw her out. For be it one month or three or even four, time was all alike to her when the weather was cold—short or long, it was all the same. Opie just slept!