May looked as pleased as Amos and Ann when the rhyme was finished.
“It’s every word true,” she said. “And here’s some more news that the little bird told—if you’d like to hear it:—
“Miss Butterfly sent word one day to all the garden people
That she would give a social tea beneath the hollyhock.
A robin read the message from a slender pine-tree steeple—
A note that begged them sweetly to be there by six o’clock.
They came a-wing, they came a-foot, they came from flower and thicket;
Miss Hummingbird was present in a coat and bonnet gay,
And portly Mr. Bumblebee and cheerful Mr. Cricket,
And tiny Mrs. Ladybug in polka-dot array.
There were seats for four-and-twenty, and the guest of honor there
Was a gray Granddaddy-long-legs in a little mushroom chair.
“The table was a toadstool with a spider-woven cover;
The fare was served in rose-leaf plates and bluebell cups a-ring—
Sweet honey from the latest bloom, and last night’s dew left over,
And a crumb of mortal cake for which an ant went pilfering.
A mockingbird within the hedge sang loudly for their revel;
A lily swayed above them, slow, to keep the moths away;
So they laughed and buzzed and chattered till the shadows lengthened level,
And Miss Katydid said sadly that she must no longer stay.
Then all arose and shook their wings, and curtsied, every one,
‘Good-night, good-bye, Miss Butterfly, we never had such fun.’”
Little Ann looked wistful when she heard all the butterfly tale.
“I do wish I might go to a party like that,” she said.
Amos reflected. “I don’t know but what I’d be afraid of stepping on the guests,” he remarked.
“That’s true,” Ann agreed. “Just think how it would seem to have Miss Butterfly say to you, ‘Oh, you’ve crushed Mrs. Ant,’ or ‘Excuse me, but you seem to be sitting on Colonel Grasshopper, Sir.’”
“Tell you what I wish,” Amos went on. “I wish—Oh, there goes a clock—I wish—I wish—
“I wish, when summer’s drawing near about the end of May,
With bees and birds and other things, that teacher’d teach this way: