Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man

ER

at night, a lantern suspended from my neck, a haversack across my shoulders, a bottle-belt about my waist, and armed with a butterfly net, the consensus of opinion was that poor Father De Rancé was stark staring mad. Applebo

moths. Even when it was understood that I wished caterpillars, cocoons, and chrysalids, for the butterflies and moths they would later make, looks of pitying contempt were cast upon me. That a gro

ain't nothin' but wriggles an' hair on the outside an'

uable, and many grow into very beautiful moths

or wear 'em or plant 'em, can you?" A

es. If it suited him an' Eve and God A'mighty to have 'em called that an' nothin' else, looks to me it had oughter suit anybody that's got a grain o'real religion. If you go to call 'em anythin' else it's sinnin' agin the Bible. I've heard all my life you Cath'lics don't take as much stock in the Scripters as you'd

and made no futile attempt to clear the Holy Father of the dark suspicion

seen spreading upon trees with a whitewash brus

ay that I was sugaring for moths; these airy fairy gent

l man. But, suh, there's another side to this question, an' it's this:-a creature that's got six perfectly good legs, not to mention wings, an' still can't carry his liquor without bein' caught, deserves his fate.

that creeps, crawls, and flies. I accepted gifts of bugs and caterpillars that filled my mother with disgust and Clélie with horror; both of them hesitated to come into my study, and I have known Clélie to be afraid to go to bed of a night because the great red-horned "Hickory devil" was downstairs in a box, and she was firmly convinced that this innocen

h, properly pursued, will fill a man's days to the brim. I gathered my specimens as I

maze not unmixed with rage and contempt. Most caterpillars, you understand, feed upon food of their own arbitr

boiled with offended dignity and outraged pride. One could actually see him swell. He had expected something quite different, and this apparently offensive triviality disgusted and

owned and glorious citizens of the air. I had just then a great Cecropia, an able-bodied green gentleman armed with twelve thorn-like, sizable horns, and wearing,

n of horror, backed off on on

the nick of time. The man, with staring eyes, looked from me to th

ntrolled his shudders and breathed easier. The worm became less and less terrifying; no longer appearing, say, the size of the boa constrictor. A few moments of this harmless meandering about Mr. Flint's hand and arm, and of a sudden he wore his true colors of an inoffensive and law-abiding larva, anxious only to attend strictly to his own le

pulled his gun on me. The feeling of a bug's legs on your bare skin is something fierce at first, ain't it? But after him none of '

, microscope, slides, drying-ovens, relaxing-box, cabinets, and above all, the mounted specimens, raised his spi

et to work. And that work had come in what some like to call the psycho

t hence; and that proper mounting, which results in a perfect insect, is a task which requires practice, a sure eye, and an expert, delicate, and dexterous touch. Also, that one must be ceaselessly on guard lest the baleful little ant and other tiny curses evade one's vigilance and render void one's best work. He learned these and other salutary lessons, which tend to tone down an amateur's conceit of his half-knowl

ve to be always asking somebody else "what is this?" And right then and there those inevitable difficulties that confront every earnest

lling and eager; as one may discover who cares to take half a dozen plain, ob

he looked at them they ought to be somewhere else; always there was something-a bar, a stripe, a s

am I to put a beast of a bug when the next one that's exactly like it is entirely differen

it hairs. He had a regular course of procedure when he was puzzled. First he turned the new insect over and over and glared at

? Wherein lay those differences? He began, patiently, with her cylinder-shaped yellow-brown, orange-spotted caterpillar, on the purple passion flowers in our garden; he watched it change into a dark-brown chrysalis marked with a few pale spots; he saw emerge from this the red-robed lady herself, with her long fulvous forewings, and her shorter hind wings smocked with black velvet, and her u

tely different from ours that it might well be upon another planet-began to open, slowly, slowly, one of its many mysterious doors, allowing him just glimpse enough of what magic lay beyond to fire his heart and to whet his a

e underside of shrubs and bushes, the bark of trees, poking into corners and crannies, or scraping in the mold under the fallen l

more than anything else, until I had to get dumped down here to find it out! I get the funniest sort of a feeling, parson, that all along there's been a Me tucked away inside my hide that's been loving these things ever since I was born.

," said I. "I have a Me like that t

ish you had a dozen kids, and every one of 'em twins! It's a shame to thi

miling, "You are

rson," he agreed, "but it's not safe for a skypilo

aith to my half,"

r and over: it looks white on the outside, but I can't to save me fig

y arm. What sh

he straight of it. What's your game, anyh

u that's been tucked away all these years, and couldn't get born until a

this in si

dy'd ever told me I'd be eating out of a parson's hand,

growl enough,"

d me a

o lick hands?

h my shoulder-blades I could feel him

rso

el

ing on that infernal log of wood that's where my good leg used to grow and-and splinters get into my temper-and I've got to snarl

. "But," I added, after a pause, "I shouldn't

nd after a moment he added, in an alt

and his face go pale, when in his eagerness he forgot for a moment the cruel fact that he could no longer

eir limitations irked him, and he made others more satisfactory to himself; tools adjusted to an insect's frail body, not to a time-lock. Before that summer ended he could handle even the frailest and tiniest specimen with su

if I could only hold on to it. For the first time in years I could exchange specimens. My cabinets began to fill out-with such perfect insects, too! We added several rare ones, a circumstance to make any entomologist look upon the world through rosy spectacles. Why,

se simple home-made affairs of a keg or a box with a fine wire-netting over the food plant; or a lamp-ch

hands heaven rained caterpillars upon us that season. Even my mother grew interested in the

but my boss talk 'bout some kind o' bug he call Germ. I ax um what kind o' bug is dat; an' he 'low you can't see um wid yo' eye. I ain't say so to de Jedge, but I 'low when you see bug you can't see wid yo' eye, you best not seem um 'tall-case he must be some kind o' spook

ad some rather scarce ones; and then, our unmounted specimens were so perfect, and our mounted ones so exquisitely done, that we had but little trouble

ow to handle your stock, and you must be in touch with your market-scientists, students, collectors,-and this, of course, takes time. We could supply the larger dealers, too, although they pay less, and we had a modest advertisement in one or two paper

upants, into a two-roomed outbuilding across the garden. Some former pastor had had it built for an oratory

nd rather austere bedroom, with an inexpensive but very good head of Christ over the mantel, and an old, old carved crucifix on the wall beside the white iron bed. Laurence took from his own room a Morris chair, whose somewhat frayed cushions my mother neatly re-covered. Mary Virg

u'll keep your clothes in that wardrobe and your moths out of it. If it was intended for anybody to teach you anything, t

ng-rod, a large jar of tobacco, an

n I'm fair to middlin' he's in the dinin' room. When I've skidded off the straight an' narrow path I lock him up in the parlor, an' at such times I sleep out on the po'ch. But when I'm at pe

, with no one to question. He could work undisturbed, save for the children who brought him such things as they could find. He put his breeding cages out on the vine-covered piazzas

some night and finding a caterpillar under her bed. More yet, he entailed no extra work, for he flatly refused to have her set foot in his rooms for the purpose of cleaning them. He attended to that himself. The man was a marvel of neatne

h sometime unite the totally unlike with bonds hard to break. His spotless workroom had a fascination for the youngsters. They were alwa

ore than any words or prayers of mine could have done. It opened to him a world into which, his eyes had not heretofore been permitted to look; and the result was all the more sure and certain, in that the children had no faintest idea of the effect they

pride. In his own world he had been supreme, a figure of sinister importance. Brash had been crook or cop who had taught or caught Slippy McGee! B

lk for granted. Hers was one of those large natures which give lavishly, shares itself freely, but does not demand much in return. She gave with an open hand to her quiet listener-her books, her music, her amusing and innocent views, her frank comments, her truthfulness, her sweet b

articular study, and these were devoured and pored over, and more begged for. Flint would go without ne

fools he couldn't help hating them. Madame said she liked to have him around, for he was more like some unobtrusive jinnee than a mere mortal. She

y looked upon him as one who shared Father De Rancé's madness, a tramp who was a hunter of bugs. It

ie's little cakes on our broad shady verandah, only glanced casually at the bent head and shoulders visible through the screened window across the garden. They said he was very interesting, of course, b

an askance, watching him as his own

nch long enough to be skeptical of any fixed good or bad type-I've found that the criminal type is any type that goe

," said I,

aith in the intuition of women-some women, understand, and some times. And mark you, I didn't sa

k progressing under the flexible fingers of th

think so, father. But I'd watch

ctly what I

the judge, briefly. Then he launched into an intimate talk of Lau

ictly to his own business, and showed himself so utterly and almost inhumanly uninterested in anybody else's, that he kept

ounding sickeningly-news that at once simplified and yet complicated matters. I hesitated as to whether or not I should tell him, but decided that whatever effect that news mig

was another proof of his daring and dexterity. How he met the dark fate which set him adrift, battered and dreadful, in the East River, was another of those underworld crimes that remain unsolved. Cunning and dangerous, mysterious in his life, baff

A slow grim smile came to his lips, and he took his chin in his hand, mus

st as well be, as buried alive in a jay-dump at the tail-end of all creation!" Once again the Powers of Dar

little legs and feelers-me being what I am, and they being what they are! Say, I've got to quit this, once for all I've got to quit it. I'm not a man any more. I'm a dead one,

ink I'm dead! If I could just make a getaway a

rself behind bars, and stayed there. And there's the drug-danger, too. If you escaped so far, it was because so far you had the strength to let drugs alone. But the drugs get you, sooner or later, do they not? Have you not t

off a stunt that'll make the whole bunch of bulls sit up and bellow for fair-and I can do it, easy as easy. Think I've croaked, do they? And they can all

you are good and plenty alive. Come out into th

llingly, swearing under his breath, he came. We tramped up and down the garden paths, up and down, and back again, his wooden peg ma

one-legged mucker with a beard like a Dutch bomb-thrower's, putte

ttle longer, John

demanded savagely. "To a

dle into your hand because she knew it was good work and trusted your hand to do it. And more

d and sta

"I've been sat on while I was hot, and my number

p, stump, up and d

to please you. You've been white-the lot of you. But look here-if I beat it some night ... with what I can

nd truly want to go, why, take anything I have tha

ehand!" he growled. "I want to take what

take, without anybody's leave! I shall

upon me

and leave you to go without-you're enough to make a man ache to shoot some sense into you with a cannon! And for God's sake, who are you pinching and scraping and going without for? A bunch of hickey factory-shucker

Flint, I'm ashamed of you!" There in the freedom of the Saturday morni

an I brought spins into a cocoon or buries himself in the ground. And then I heard Mr. Flint-and what he said is unkin

f his face. As usual, he

d him," he jerked his head at me, half apologetically, "

er can seem to find it out-and there's the difference! You see?" That was the befuddled manner in which Mary Virginia very often explained things. If God was good to you, you got a little gli

ter. "I want you to help make him understand things it's high tim

out an obedient paw, which the man took mechanically. But meeting the clear hazel eyes, he dropped his hand upon the shining head with

you see how horrid it was to talk the way you talked

Virginia very much as the dog did,

sorry you

you seem to thi

y for a minute, and he met her look without flinching. That had been the one hopeful sign, from the fi

to stay on here with the Padre, haven't you? For a good long whil

could see the st

got to stay on-for awhile. Until he's tired

tiredness with an airy wa

at you and the Padre belong. I think that's why you came. I think you belong right here, in that darling little house, studying butterflies and mounting t

ith horror-Saul might have looked thus at the Witch of Endor when she summoned the shade of

ia nodded,

And he couldn't be left with the servants-somehow he doesn't like the colored people. He always growls at them, and they're afraid of him. And my mother dislikes dogs intensely-she's afraid of them, except those horrible little toy-things that aren't dogs any more." The scorn of the real dog-lover was in h

o the bone, a fine field dog, and the pride of the child's heart. He was what only that most delightful of dogs, a thoroughbred Irish

you're willing to let me ke

y I know that, but I do know it. If you wanted to go away, later on, why, you could turn him over to the Padre, because of course you wouldn't want to have a dog following you about everywhere. They're a lo

g, and back again. Kerry, sensing that something was wro

Flint slowly, "I never had anything-any

ugh her tears. Her smile makes a funny delicious red V of

rth anything," she said. Then she bent over her do

o Mr. Flint now, and I'm sure he needs you, and I know he'll love you almost as much as I do, and he'll be very, very good to you. So you're to stay with him, and-stand by him a

n. I think she would have cried childishly in another moment;

ding him in. His face was still without a vestige of color, and his e

t! Parson ... she's given me her dog .

with a wily tongue: "You can always turn him over to me, you know-if you decide to take to the road and w

. His eyes were troubled,

ing reaching down out of the dark? Something big that you couldn't see and couldn't eve

Something, too. And it is at first a terrif

e wildly. "My God! I'm caught! First It bit off a leg on me, so I couldn't run. Then It wished you and your bugs on me. And now-Yes, sir; I'm