Part 20

"And, speaking of the butterfly," he went on, "it's not time to turn in yet, it's too dark to fish or explore, so let me tell you a little more about the butterfly, and if you don't like it you can just imagine it is a hot-cake butterfly."

The children thought this was a great joke. But Peter, who had eaten so much he was almost asleep, didn't hear what Ben Gile said.

"Well," the old man continued, just as if he were beginning where he had left off in the afternoon--"well, the caterpillar eats so much--it eats almost as much as Peter does"--at this Peter opened his eyes good-naturedly--"it eats so much that very soon it grows too big for its skin, so the old skin splits for the growing body, and out comes young caterpillar in a clean, new dress--a very easy way for Mrs. Butterfly to have her babies get new clothes. Don't you think it is, Mrs. Reece?--no hems to stitch, no buttons to sew on, no darning. The only things their mothers ever do for them is to start them with the food they like.

"And such a butterfly this mother is that little she cares whether her children are considered pests or not, because they eat everything green that they like, and eat before they are invited. A long sigh of relief the gardener or farmer draws when the caterpillars lie quiet to pupate. They lie very, very quiet, with wings, antennae, and legs folded under the body."

"What does pupate mean?" asked Betty, who was poking the fire and listening hard to every word the old man spoke.

"It means just that--to lie quiet and change. They do it in different ways. Some crawl down into the ground and some pull out their silky hairs, and with these and the silk they can spin they make a soft, silken cocoon. Some make over their last skin into a hard covering. The monarch butterfly does this.

"And there is a troublesome creature called the clothes moth--Mrs. Reece can tell you about that--who lays its eggs on anything woollen it can find. After a while a baby clothes moth, a whitish worm, hatches out. Then this little fellow eats the fibres of the wool, and finally spins a cocoon out of these fibres and its own silk.

"Some caterpillars are leaf-rollers--that is, when they pupate they roll over the corners of a leaf, make themselves a neat hammock, and there lie quite still in a cool and comfortable place to sleep."

Poor Peter had tumbled over, his head on Mrs. Reece's lap. Betty and Hope, wide awake, were thinking just as much of the wonderful tent in which they were to sleep as of the butterflies and moths. They were wide awake enough to point their fingers at sleepy Peter.

"I think there is one kind of moth," said Mrs. Reece, stroking Peter's silky hair, "that spins something almost as soft as this."

"Softer," affirmed Ben Gile; "and that is the silk-worm."

"Does the caterpillar make the silk our dresses are made from?" asked Betty.

"Yes, indeed. The mother moth is a creamy-white. She lays several hundred eggs; from each of these eggs comes a little worm. These little worms have been cared for so long by men that they don't know how to take care of themselves any more.

"They like to eat the leaves of the mulberry-tree. If these leaves are not to be found they will sometimes eat lettuce. For forty-five days they eat as fast as they can, which is a good deal faster than greedy children can eat.

"Every ten days or so they cast aside their old skin and come out in a new one. After the last moulting of the skin the worm begins to spin a cocoon about itself. At first the cocoon is not very smooth, but in a while the worm gets well started and spins the rest of it with one long, silky thread."

"Isn't that wonderful!" exclaimed one of the guides. "I suppose that silk is finer than the finest trout-line."

"A hundred times finer," answered Ben. "Usually it is three hundred yards long. Before the pupa has a chance to make its way out, and so destroy the long, silken thread, the man who has taken such care of the worm drops the cocoon into boiling water, which kills the pupa at once. Then the precious silk thread is carefully unwound on to little spools, and is ready to be made into thread or spun into silk.

"And now, children, it's time for you to spin your dreams. Shake up Peter, and we'll get ready for the night. Too bad to leave this fire, but we can have one as often as we want."

The boys slept like tops, but there were two little girls who lay rather wide awake most of the night, listening to the strangest grunting sounds in the world.

XIII

STORM-BOUND

After two glorious days of exploring--"exploricating," the guides called it--the children went to bed early, expecting to make an early start to hunt partridge. They were so tired from their good times that for two or three hours they slept like tops.

But in front of the cabin Ben Gile and Mrs. Reece and the other guides were looking at the night sky anxiously. The lightning flashed more and more vividly, black clouds were coming nearer and nearer. What was a distant rumble soon became a near-by, long undertow of ominous sound. Nearer and nearer it came, until every flash was followed by a sound like ripping.

Mrs. Reece was very uneasy, for she did not like to have the children in the tents alone. But soon Betty and Hope came scampering through the dark to the cabin. They were surprised to see the older people up. Before long the boys also came to the cabin rubbing their eyes, yawning, and pretending not to care whether there was to be a cyclone or a cloud-burst.

For a while all sat waiting for the storm to break. When it did break, what torrents of rain and wind descended! How the trees groaned and cracked! How the rain roared upon the shingled roof, and how the wind howled through the mountain valley!

"Well," said Ben Gile, "let's have a fire in the fireplace, then we can have a crackle of our own." He had noticed how nervous Mrs. Reece grew, and that the little girls were watching her. He could not help thinking that it was foolish, even wicked, to waste strength in fear of something which no one of them could stop. "Build a fire, boys." And build a fire they did--a royal good blaze. "Now throw on some of those pine-cones you children gathered." There was a flare in the cabin almost as bright as the incessant flare of the lightning outside. "I'll tell you what we'll do," he continued, "we will have a midnight spread. We will have some of Tom's famous flapjacks. Mrs. Reece, don't you want to make molasses candy, and then the children can pull it."

The storm was forgotten by the children as, with many squeals of glee, they rushed into this midnight frolic.

"And now, Ben," said Tom, the guide, "I've just found something; I have it in my hand. I propose, Ben, while the rest of us work, that you make one of your stories out of it, and tell us all about it."