“No, George,” replied his mother. “He would more probably say,—‘George, my dear boy, I am grieved that you have crushed, and soiled, and hurt this pretty creature. See, how the beautiful colours have already faded from its wings! See, how it droops in my hand, unable to fly as it did a little while ago from flower to flower, a gay and happy thing. You were wrong, my dear boy, to have touched so delicate a creature, born only for the sunshine and the flowers, and too fragile to be handled by anything ruder than a summer breeze.’”
“But I won’t hurt it, mother.”
“You could not possibly touch it, my dear, without hurting the delicate thing. Your little fingers, that to my hands are soft and smooth, would be so rough to the wings of a butterfly, as to rasp off the rich painting that adorns them, and even to crush their delicate frame-work. And I am sure my boy would not wish to hurt any of God’s creatures.”
“Oh, no, mother! I wouldn’t hurt that butterfly for the world. But see, it has risen up from the flower, and now away it goes, floating along like a pretty blossom with wings. And there goes Fido, barking after it. Foolish dog! You can’t catch the pretty butterfly.”
“See, mother, here is a bee, right in the middle of this large flower,” said George, looking up into his mother’s face with a glow of pleasure upon his own. “He is getting honey, is he not?”
“Yes, dear. The bee is a very industrious little creature, and when the blossoms are out he is up with the sun, and works all through the day, busily engaged in procuring honey for his winter’s store. You never find him asleep after the sun is risen, as my little boy was this morning.”
“But then, mother,” said George, as they all walked on, and left the bee and the sweet-briar bush, “I don’t have to gather honey as the bee does. I am a little boy, and don’t have to work to lay up bread in the winter.”
“Can’t you teach your brother a better lesson than that, Emily?” said Mrs. Hope, turning to her little girl. “Don’t you remember the talk we had yesterday about the use of learning, and how necessary it was for us, like the bee in spring and summer, to lay up a store of knowledge in our minds, against the winter of old age?”