Miss Elliots Girls | Page 7

temper."
CHAPTER IV.
A SWALLOW-TAILED BUTTERFLY.
"If I can't have the seat I want, I won't have any; and I think you are real mean, Mollie Elliot! I ain't coming here any more."
These were the words Miss Ruth heard spoken in loud angry tones as she opened the door connecting her bedroom with the parlor, where the little girls were assembled, and caught a glimpse of an energetic figure in pink gingham running across the lawn that separated the minister's house from his next door neighbor.
"Now, Auntie," said Mollie, in answer to Miss Ruth's look of inquiry, "I am not in the least to blame. I'll leave it to the girls if I am. Fan Eldridge is so touchy! She came in a minute ago and Nellie Tyler happened to be sitting by me, and Fan marched up to her and says, 'I'll take my seat if you please'; and I said, 'It's no more your seat than it is Nellie's,' We don't have any particular seats, you know we don't, Auntie, but sit just as it happens. Well, she declared it was her seat because she had had it the last two afternoons, and I told Nellie not to give up to her because she acted so hateful about it, and then she went off mad. I'm sure I don't care; if she chooses to stay away she can."
"You don't quite mean that, Mollie," her aunt said gravely. "The Patchwork Society can't afford to lose one of its members, certainly not for so small a difference as the choice of a seat. We must have Fanny back, if I give up my seat to her. But come into this room, girls. I have something pretty to show you. Softly! or you will frighten him away."
There was a honeysuckle vine trained close to the window, in full bloom, and darting in and out among the flowers, taking a sip now and then from a honey-cup, or resting on a leaf or twig, was a large butterfly with black-velvet wings and spots and bands of blue and red and yellow.
"O you beauty!" said Miss Ruth. "Do you know, girls, of all the moths and butterflies I have raised from the larv?,--and I have had Painted Ladies, and Luna Moths, and one lovely Cecropia which was the admiration of all beholders,--my favorite has always been the Swallow-tailed? Perhaps it was because he was my first love. I was no older than you, Nellie, when, half curious and half disgusted, I held at arm's length on a bit of fennel-stalk, and dropped in an old ribbon-box Aunt Susan provided for the purpose, the great green worm that, after various stages of insect life, turned into just such a beautiful creature as you see flying about among the flowers. Since then I have raised dozens of them."
"I don't see how you could have any thing to do with worms," said Eliza Jones. "I hate them--the horrid, squirming things!"
"So did I, Eliza, till I studied into their ways and learned what wonderful things they can do; and now, I assure you, I have a high respect and admiration for them."
"Will you tell us about it?" Florence asked. "I've always wanted to know just how worms turned into butterflies,"
"And I should like nothing better than to tell you," she answered. "'Making butterflies,' as a dear little boy once defined my favorite occupation, and telling those who are interested in such things how they are made, is very delightful to me,"
"Come, then, girls, hurry!" said Nellie: "the sooner we get to work the sooner the story will begin. Good-by, Mr. Swallow-tail,--I wonder what they call you so for,--we are going to hear all about you,"
But when they returned to the other room they found Sammy Ray and Roy Tyler on the piazza, close to the open door. Roy beckoned to his sister, and they held a whispered conference during which the words, "You ask her," energetically spoken by Roy, could be plainly heard by those inside.
Nellie turned presently, half laughing, but a little embarrassed.
"The boys want to know if they can't come in," she said. "I tell them it's ridiculous for boys to attend a sewing society, but they won't go away till I've asked."
Here the boys stepped forward and took off their hats. Their faces shone with the scrubbing with soap and water they had given them, and both had on clean collars. Sammy dived in his trowsers pocket and brought out a couple of big brass thimbles and some needles stuck in a bit of flannel.
"We are willing to help sew," said the boy, and bravely stood his ground, though all the girls laughed, and even Miss Ruth looked amused at the sight of these huge implements.
"If we let you in at all, boys," she said, "it must