Obeying instructions, he fastened the paper tightly in the fork of the clothes-pin, and spread it out on either side. The corners were cut and pulled into the semblance of wings, and black circles were painted here and there. Iris herself added the finishing touch—two bits of the ostrich feather glued to the top of the head for antennæ.
“Oh,” cried Lynn, in pleased surprise, “a butterfly!”
“How hideous!” said Margaret, pausing in the doorway. “I trust it’s not meant for me.”
“It’s for the Fräulein,” answered Iris, gathering up her paints and sweeping aside the litter. “Lynn has made it all by himself.”
“I wonder how he stands it,” mused Irving, critically inspecting the butterfly.
“I asked him once,” said Iris, “if he liked all the queer things in his house, and he shrugged his shoulders. ‘What good is mine art to me,’ he asked, ‘if it makes me so I cannot live with mine sister? Fredrika likes the gay colours, such as one sees in the fields, but they hurt mine eyes. Still because the tidies and the crazy jug swear to me, it is no reason for me to hurt mine sister’s feelings. We have a large house. Fredrika has the upstairs and I have the downstairs. When I can no longer stand the bright lights, I can turn mine back and look out of the window, or I can go down in the shop with mine violins. Down there I see no colours and I can put mine feet on all chairs.’”
Lynn laughed, but Margaret, who was listening intently, only smiled sadly.
That afternoon, when the boy went up the hill, with the butterfly dangling from his hand by a string, he was greeted with childish cries of delight on either side. Hoping for equal success at the Master’s, he rang the bell, and the Fräulein came to the door. When she saw who it was, her face instantly became hard and forbidding.
“Mine brudder is not home,” she said, frostily.
“I know,” answered Lynn, with a winning smile, “but I came to see you. See, I made this for you.”