Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man Part 7

To cla.s.sify correctly is not something one learns in a day, be he never so willing and eager; as one may discover who cares to take half a dozen plain, obscurely-colored small moths, and attempts to put them in their proper places.

Mr. Flint tried it--and those wretched creatures _wouldn't_ stay put.

It seemed to him that every time he looked at them they ought to be somewhere else; always there was something--a bar, a stripe, a small distinctive spot, a wing of peculiar shape, antennae, or palpi, or spur, to differentiate them.

"Where the Sam Hill," he blazed, "do all these footy little devils come from, anyhow? Where am I to put a beast of a bug when the next one that's exactly like it is entirely different the next time you look at it? There's too much beginning and no end at all to this game!"

For all that, he followed them up. I saw with pure joy that he refused to dismiss anything carelessly, while he scorned to split hairs. He had a regular course of procedure when he was puzzled. First he turned the new insect over and over and glared at it from every possible angle; then he rumpled his hair, gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders and hurled himself into work.

There was, for instance, the common Dione Vanillae, that splendid Gulf Fritillary which haunts all the highways of the South. She's a long-wing, but she's not a Heliconian; she's a silver-spot, but she's not an Argynnis. She bears a striking family likeness to her fine relations, but she has certain structural peculiarities which differentiate her. Whose word should he take for this, and why?

Wherein lay those differences? He began, patiently, with her cylinder-shaped yellow-brown, orange-spotted caterpillar, on the purple pa.s.sion flowers in our garden; he watched it change into a dark-brown chrysalis marked with a few pale spots; he saw emerge from this the red-robed lady herself, with her long fulvous forewings, and her shorter hind wings smocked with black velvet, and her under-frock flushed with pinkish orange and spangled with silver. And yet, in spite of her long marvelous tongue--he was beginning to find out that no tool he had ever seen, and but few that G.o.d Himself makes, is so wonderful as a b.u.t.terfly's tongue--she hadn't been able to tell him that about herself which he most wished to find out. _That_ called for a deeper knowledge than he as yet possessed.

But he knew that other men knew. And he had to know. He meant to know.

For the work gripped him as it does those marked and foreordained for its service. That marvelous world in which the Little People dwell--a world so absolutely different from ours that it might well be upon another planet--began to open, slowly, slowly, one of its many mysterious doors, allowing him just glimpse enough of what magic lay beyond to fire his heart and to whet his appet.i.te. And he couldn't break into that world with a jimmy. It was burglar-proof. That portal was so impervious to even the facile fingers of Slippy McGee, that John Flint must pay the inevitable and appropriate toll to enter!

Westmoreland had replaced his crutches with a wooden leg, and you might see him stumping about our grounds, minutely examining the underside of shrubs and bushes, the bark of trees, poking into corners and crannies, or sc.r.a.ping in the mold under the fallen leaves by the fences, for things which no longer filled him with aversion and disgust, but with the student's interest and pleasure.

"Think of me being in the same world with 'em all these years and not knowing a thing about 'em when there's so much to know, and under my skin stark crazy to learn it, only I didn't know I even wanted to know what I really want to know more than anything else, until I had to get dumped down here to find it out! I get the funniest sort of a feeling, parson, that all along there's been a Me tucked away inside my hide that's been loving these things ever since I was born. Not just to catch and handle 'em, and stretch out their little wings, and remember the names some bughouse high-brow wished on 'em, though all that's in the feeling, too; it's something else, if I could make you understand what I mean."

I laughed. "I think I do understand," said I. "I have a Me like that tucked away in mine, too, you know."

He looked at me gravely. "Parson," said he, earnestly, "there's times I wish you had a dozen kids, and every one of 'em twins! It's a shame to think of some poor orphans swindled out of such a daddy as you'd have made!"

"Why," said I, smiling, "_You_ are one of my twins."

"Me?" He reflected. "Maybe half of me might be, parson," he agreed, "but it's not safe for a skypilot to be caught owning a twin like the other half."

"I'm pinning my faith to _my_ half," said I, serenely.

"Now, why?" he asked, with sudden fierceness. "I turn it over and over and over: it looks white on the outside, but I can't to save me figure out _why_ you're doing it. Parson, _what_ have you got up your sleeve?"

"Nothing but my arm. What should you think?"

"I don't know what to think, and that's the straight of it. What's your game, anyhow? What in the name of G.o.d are you after?"

"Why, I think," said I, "that in the name of G.o.d I'm after--that other You that's been tucked away all these years, and couldn't get born until a Me inside mine, just like himself, called him to come out and be alive."

He pondered this in silence. Then:

"I'll take your word for it," said he. "Though if anybody'd ever told me I'd be eating out of a parson's hand, I'd have pushed his face in for him. Yep, I'm Fido! _Me!_"

"At least you growl enough," said I, tartly.

He eyed me askance.

"Have I got to lick hands?" he snarled.

I walked away, without a reply; through my shoulder-blades I could feel him glaring after me. He followed, hobbling:

"Parson!"

"Well?"

"If I'm not the sort that licks hands I'm not the sort that bites 'em, neither. I'll tell you--it's this way: I--sort of get to chewing on that infernal log of wood that's where my good leg used to grow and--and splinters get into my temper--and I've _got_ to snarl or burst wide open! You'd growl like the devil yourself, if you had to try holding down my job for awhile, skypilot or no skypilot!"

"Why--I dare say I should," said I, contritely. "But," I added, after a pause, "I shouldn't be any the better for it, should you think?"

"Not so you could notice," shortly. And after a moment he added, in an altered voice: "Rule 1: Can the Squeal!"

I think he most honestly tried to. It was no easy task, and I have seen the sweat start upon his forehead and his face go pale, when in his eagerness he forgot for a moment the cruel fact that he could no longer move as lightly as of old--and the crippled body, betraying him, reminded him all too swiftly of his mistake.

The work saved him. For it is the heaven-sent sort of work, to those ordained for it, that fills one's hours and leaves one eager for further tasks. It called for all his oldtime ingenuity. His tools, for instance--at times their limitations irked him, and he made others more satisfactory to himself; tools adjusted to an insect's frail body, not to a time-lock. Before that summer ended he could handle even the frailest and tiniest specimen with such nice care that it was delightful to watch him at work. The time was to come when he could mend a torn wing or fix a broken antennas with such exquisite fidelity to detail that even the most expert eye might well be deceived.

I had only looked for a little temporary help, such as any intelligent amateur might be able to furnish. But I was not long unaware that this was more than a mere amateur. To quote himself, he had the goods, and I realized with a mounting heart that I had made a find, if I could only hold on to it. For the first time in years I could exchange specimens. My cabinets began to fill out--with such perfect insects, too! We added several rare ones, a circ.u.mstance to make any entomologist look upon the world through rosy spectacles. Why, even the scarce shy Cossus Centerensis came to our very doors, apparently to fill a s.p.a.ce awaiting him. Perhaps he was a Buddhist insect undergoing reincarnation, and was anxious to acquire merit by self-immolation. Anyhow, we acquired him, and I hope he acquired merit.

We had scores of insects in the drying ovens. We had more and ever more in the breeding cages,--in our case simple home-made affairs of a keg or a box with a fine wire-netting over the food plant; or a lamp-chimney slipped over a potted plant with a bit of mosquito-netting tied over the top, for the smaller forms.

These cages were a never-failing source of delight and interest to the children, and at their hands heaven rained caterpillars upon us that season. Even my mother grew interested in the work, though Clelie never ceased to look upon it as a horrid madness peculiar to white people.

"All Buckrahs is funny in dey haids," Daddy January consoled her when she complained to him about it. "Dey gets all kind o' fool notions 'bout all kind o' fool t'ings. You ain't got to feel so bad--de Jedge is lots wuss'n yo' boss is. Yo' boss kin see de bugs he run atter, but my boss talk 'bout some kind o' bug he call Germ. I ax um what kind o'

bug is dat; an' he 'low you can't see um wid yo' eye. I ain't say so to de Jedge, but _I_ 'low when you see bug you can't see wid yo' eye, you best not seem um 'tall--case he must be some kind o' spook, an'

Gawd knows I ain't want to see no spook. Ef de bug ain't no spook, den he mus' be eenside yo' haid, 'stead o' outside um, an' to hab bug on de eenside o' yo' haid is de wuss kind o' bad luck. Anyhow, n.o.body but Buckrah talk an' ack like dat, n.i.g.g.e.rs is got mo' sense."

We found, presently, a ready and a steady sale for our extra stock. We could supply caterpillars, b.u.t.terflies and moths, or chrysalids and coc.o.o.ns; we had some rather scarce ones; and then, our unmounted specimens were so perfect, and our mounted ones so exquisitely done, that we had but little trouble in disposing of them. Under the hand of John Flint these last were really works of art. Not for nothing had he boasted that he was handy with his fingers.

The pretty common forms, framed hovering lifelike over delicately pressed ferns and flowers, found even a readier market, for they were really beautiful. Money had begun to come in--not largely, it is true, but still steadily and surely. You must know how to handle your stock, and you must be in touch with your market--scientists, students, collectors,--and this, of course, takes time. We could supply the larger dealers, too, although they pay less, and we had a modest advertis.e.m.e.nt in one or two papers published for the profession, which brought us orders. But let no one imagine that it is an easy task to handle these frail bodies, these gossamer wings, so that naturalists and collectors are glad to get them. Once or twice we lost valuable s.h.i.+pments.

Long since--in the late spring, to be exact, John Flint had moved out of the Guest Room, needed for other occupants, into a two-roomed outbuilding across the garden. Some former pastor had had it built for an oratory and retreat, but now, covered with vines, it had stood for many years unused, save as a sort of lumber room.

When the troublesome question of where we might properly house him had arisen, my mother hit upon these unused rooms as by direct inspiration. She had them cleaned, repainted, scoured, and turned into a pleasant well-lighted, airy workroom and living-room combined, and a smaller and rather austere bedroom, with an inexpensive but very good head of Christ over the mantel, and an old, old carved crucifix on the wall beside the white iron bed. Laurence took from his own room a Morris chair, whose somewhat frayed cus.h.i.+ons my mother neatly re-covered. Mary Virginia contributed a rug, as well as dressing-gown and slippers. Miss Sally Ruth gave him outright a brand-new Bible, and loaned him an old cedar-wood wardrobe which had been her great-grandmother's, and which still smelt delicately of generations of rose-leaved and lavendered linen.

"All I ask," said Miss Sally Ruth sharply, "is that you'll read Paul with your eyes open and your mouth shut, and that you'll keep your clothes in that wardrobe and your moths out of it. If it was intended for anybody to teach you anything, then Paul will teach you; but it _wasn't_ intended for a cedar-wood wardrobe to hold moths, and I hope you won't forget it!"

Major Cartwright sent over a fis.h.i.+ng-rod, a large jar of tobacco, and a framed picture of General Lee.

"Because no man, suh, could live under the same roof with even his pictured semblance, and not be the bettah fo' it," said the major earnestly. "I know. I've got to live with him myself. When I'm fair to middlin' he's in the dinin' room. When I've skidded off the straight an' narrow path I lock him up in the parlor, an' at such times I sleep out on the po'ch. But when I'm at peace with man an' G.o.d I take him into my bedroom an' look at him befo' retirin'. He's about as easy to live with as the Angel Gabriel, but he's mighty bracin', Ma.r.s.e Robert is: mighty bracin'!"

Thus equipped, John Flint settled himself in his own house. It had been a wise move, for he had the sense of proprietors.h.i.+p, privacy, and freedom. He could come and go as he pleased, with no one to question.

He could work undisturbed, save for the children who brought him such things as they could find. He put his breeding cages out on the vine-covered piazzas surrounding two-sides of his house, arranged the cabinets and boxes which had been removed from my study to his own, nailed up a few shelves to suit himself, and set up housekeeping.

My mother had been frankly delighted to have my creeping friends moved out of the Parish House, and Clelie abated in her dislike of the one-legged man because he had, in a way, removed from her a heretofore never-absent fear of waking up some night and finding a caterpillar under her bed. More yet, he entailed no extra work, for he flatly refused to have her set foot in his rooms for the purpose of cleaning them. He attended to that himself. The man was a marvel of neatness and order. Mesdames, permit me to here remark that when a man is neat and orderly no woman of Eve's daughters can compare with him. John Flint's rooms would arouse the rabid envy of the cleanest and most scourful she in Holland itself.

Now as the months wore away there had sprung up between him, and Mary Virginia and Laurence, one of those odd comradely friends.h.i.+ps which sometime unite the totally unlike with bonds hard to break. His spotless workroom had a fascination for the youngsters. They were always in and out, now with a coc.o.o.n, now an imago, now a larva, and then again to see how those they had already brought were getting along.

The lame man was an unrivaled listener--a circ.u.mstance which endeared him to youthful Laurence, in whom thoughts and the urge to express these thoughts in words rose like sap. This fresh and untainted confidence, poured out so navely, taught John Flint more than any words or prayers of mine could have done. It opened to him a world into which, his eyes had not heretofore been permitted to look; and the result was all the more sure and certain, in that the children had no faintest idea of the effect they were producing. They had no end to gain, no ax to grind; they merely spoke the truth as they knew it, and this unselfish and hopeful truthfulness aroused his interest and curiosity; it even compelled his admiration. He couldn't dismiss _this_ as "hot air"!

I was more than glad to have him thus taught. It was a salutary lesson, tending to temper his overweening confidence and to humble his contemptuous pride. In his own world he had been supreme, a figure of sinister importance. Brash had been crook or cop who had taught or caught Slippy McGee! But in this new atmosphere, in which he breathed with difficulty, the young had been given him for guides. They led him, where a grownup had failed.

Mary Virginia was particularly fond of him. He had as little to say to her as to Laurence, but he looked at her with interested eyes that never lost a movement; she knew he never missed a word, either; his silence was friendly, and the little girl had a pleasant fas.h.i.+on of taking folk for granted. Hers was one of those large natures which give lavishly, shares itself freely, but does not demand much in return. She gave with an open hand to her quiet listener--her books, her music, her amusing and innocent views, her frank comments, her truthfulness, her sweet brave gaiety; and he absorbed it like a sponge. It delighted her to find and bring the proper food-plants for his cages. And she being one of those who sing while they work, you might hear her caroling like a lark, flitting about the old garden with her red setter Kerry at her heels.