“Now, ‘gee’ means ‘turn to the right,’ and the tall lady’s face looked over her right shoulder; and, when Barnabas woke up, he was lying on his right side, with his eyes, nose, and mouth in the pillows: all of which is something to think of.
“Then there was my pet niece Susie dreamed she was her own kitten, trying to catch her own canary-bird, and that she understood every thing the bird said in his flutterings, and just what his feelings were. The poor child cried herself awake, and no wonder.
“But among the strangest of the strange ones in this collection,” said uncle Joe, opening his dream-book, “is that of Jimmy, my little nephew. He dreamed he was a fly, and that he talked with a sorrowful butterfly (which died in the dream), and with a bluebird, and also with a curious being who wore five tall black-and-white plumes,—one in his hat, and two on each shoulder. The curious being also wore a cow’s horn, standing in front of his hat; for which reason he was called the ‘Great Head-Horner.’
“He had ten ‘helpers.’ These helpers had each one plume, but no horn. Their plumes stood up straight, in the middle of the crowns of their tall hats. You will hear about them presently; for I have the whole dream written down here, just as Jimmy told it to me, dialogue-fashion.
“It happened in this way: One summer afternoon Jimmy had been doing something naughty (you will find out what it was by and by); and his mother, after talking with him, read to him a story about a boy who had done the same thing, and other things somewhat like it. She also told some true stories of cruel men whom she had known, and read several short pieces of poetry on the same subject.
“Now that I have spoken the word ‘cruel,’ I may as well say that Jimmy had been tormenting insects in ways which it would give me pain to tell, and give you pain to hear, and that the men of whom his mother spoke had been cruel to dumb animals.
“While she was talking, three or four officers in uniform passed by. I mention these things in order that you may the better account for Jimmy’s curious dream.
“Jimmy fell asleep during the reading of the verses, and dreamed of being in a strange place, where he saw close beside him a large golden-spotted butterfly. He dreamed that it was a moaning, sighing, sorrowing butterfly, and—what seemed more strange—that it spoke to him, and called him a fly; and, stranger yet, that he thought, for a time, he was a fly, though he felt like himself all the while. Even this, however, is not so strange as the rest.
“In the dream-dialogue I call Jimmy by his true name, because, as he said, he felt like himself. You will observe that the sorrowful butterfly begins.”
Butterfly.—Speak to him; ask him not to do it, dear, pretty fly!