What dreadful sounds!—“Juggulp, juggulp, juggulp!” Away, quick! “Juggulp, juggulp.” Oh, dear! oh, dear! Now something just hit me! Again! Some horrid monster!—a bat, perhaps. Cousin Moth said, “Beware of bats; for they will eat you up.” I shall die with fright. I know, I know, I shall die with fright. My wings can scarcely move,—my fine purple wings! Will the dear warm sun never shine again? Cousin Moth told me of so many dangers, and never even mentioned getting lost. Alas! must I die here all alone, breathe my last breath in this terrible place? Better that some boy had caught me in his hat; that I had been choked with a match, stuck on a pin, or put under a glass, than to drop down here in the cold, gasping, quivering, and die all alone.
Who comes? Can I believe my own eyes? Is that a light? Ho! a fly with a lantern! How quick he darts! Stop there, you with a lantern!
It is the very same mean fly I met this morning. Good fly, best creature, charming insect! I pray you light me home. Do you know where the flower-garden is? You do? that is my home. My lodgings are among the damask-rose-leaves. I am a poor belated Butterfly. I lost my way; staid very long with the sweetbrier, and never thought the daylight would go.
You will light me home? That’s a dear fly! Your name is Firefly? What a sweet name! But how fast you go! Please don’t dart so quick, because I cannot follow; for my wings are very, oh! very tired. Slower, slower, that’s a kind firefly! Now we go nicely on.
What will you take for your lamp? Won’t sell? But you will forget, I hope, our morning conversation. Perhaps, though, so little a fly can’t remember so long. You can remember? Then what a kind, forgiving creature you are! I shall certainly speak well of you to my friends. Call on me almost any time,—that is, almost any evening,—and we’ll go out together. We have come a very long way, and should now be near home. Yes, the air is so fragrant here, that I am sure we have nearly reached the flower-garden. I smell the perfume quite plainly. We are passing over mignonette; that is the breath of sweet-pea; now the bed of pinks is beneath us; here must be the honeysuckle-bower; here is balm; here is lavender; and here’s the smell of the damask-rose.
Now thanks and good-by, my friend. I shall need you no longer: the fragrance will guide me to bed. Good-night, little fly!
I do think it is very strange, and say so, now he is out of hearing, that such mean-looking little flies should have lamps to carry, while we Butterflies, who would light up so beautifully, and are so much superior to them, should be obliged to do without.
THE MAPLE-TREE’S CHILDREN.
A maple-tree awoke at spring-time, shivering in the east winds. “O mother Nature!” she said, “I tremble with cold. Behold my limbs ugly and bare! The birds are all coming back from the south, and I would look my best. They will soon be building their nests. Oh, a bird’s nest does make a tree so pleasant! But, alas! they will not come to me, because I have no leaves to hide them.”