"The whole world to work for, and a whole lifetime to do it in!" said the voice of America, exultant. "Lord God, that's a man-sized job, but You just give me hands and eyes and time, and I'll do the best I can. You've done Your part by me—stand by, and I'll do mine by You!"
Are those curious coincidences, those circumstances which occur at such opportune moments that they leave one with a sense of a guiding finger behind the affairs of men—are they, after all, only fortuitous accidents, or have they a deeper and a diviner significance?
There stood the long worktable, with orderly piles of work on it; the microscope in its place; the books he had opened and pushed aside last night; and some half-dozen small card-board boxes in a row, containing the chrysalids he had been experimenting with, trying the effect of cold upon color. The cover of one box had been partially pushed off, possibly when he had moved the books. And while we had been paying attention to other things, one of these chrysalids had been paying strict attention to its own business, the beautiful and important business of becoming a butterfly. Flint discovered it first, and gave a pleased exclamation.
"Look! Look! A Turnus, father! The first Turnus of the year!"
The insect had been out for an hour or two, but was not yet quite ready to fly. It had crawled out of the half-opened box, dragged its wormy length across the table, over intervening obstacles, seeking some place to climb up and cling to.
Now the Butterfly Man had left the Bible open, merely shoving it aside without shutting it, when he had found no comfort for himself last night in what John had to say. Protected by piled-up books and propped almost upright by the large inkstand, it gave the holding-place the insect desired. The butterfly had walked up the page and now clung to the top.
There she rested, her black-and-yellow body quivering like a tiny live dynamo from the strong force of circulation, that was sending vital fluids upward into the wings to give them power and expansion. We had seen the same thing a thousand and one times before, we should see it a thousand and one times again. But I do not think either of us could ever forego the delight of watching a butterfly's wings shaping themselves for flight, and growing into something of beauty and of wonder. The lovely miracle is ever new to us.
She was a big butterfly, big even for the greatest of Carolina swallow-tails; not the dark dimorphic form, but the true Tiger Turnus itself, her barred yellow upper wings edged with black enamel indented with red gold, her tailed lower wings bordered with a wider band of black, and this not only set with lunettes of gold but with purple amethysts, and a ruby on the upper and lower edges. Her wings moved rhythmically; a constant quivering agitated her, and her antennæ with their flattened clubs seemed to be sending and receiving wireless messages from the shining world outside.
And as the wings had dried and grown firmer in the mild warm current of air and the bright sunlight, she moved them with a wider and bolder sweep. The heavy, unwieldy body, thinned by the expulsion of those currents driven upward to give flying-power to the wings, had taken on a slim and tapering grace. She had reached her fairy perfection. She was ready now for flight and light and love and freedom and the uncharted pathways of the air, ready to carry out the design of the Creator who had fashioned her so wondrously and so beautiful, and had sent ahead of her the flowers for that marvelous tongue of hers to sip.
Waiting still, opening and closing her exquisite wings, trying them, spreading them flat, the splendid swallow-tail clung to the page of the book open at the Gospel of John. And I, idly enough, leaned forward, and saw between the opening and the closing wings, words. The which John Flint, bending forward beside me, likewise saw. "Work," flashed out. And on a lower line, "while it is day."