A STRANGE CHANGE
RECEIVING no answer to his question, Freddie Firefly skipped down fromthe fence and sought the shade of the apple tree, where he found DustyMoth staring fixedly at Betsy Butterfly's picture.
Dusty's face wore a most curious look; he seemed at once angry,sorrowful and amazed. And not till Freddie Firefly asked again whatwas the trouble did Dusty Moth say a word.
Then he pointed scornfully toward the portrait that Jimmy Rabbit hadmade earlier in the summer.
"So that's the charming Betsy Butterfly, eh?" he roared. "That's thebeauty I've heard so much about! I can tell you right now that if I hadany idea she looked like this I never would have lost my appetite overher!"
"You astonish me!" Freddie Firefly exclaimed. "Have you forgotten howanxious you were to meet the lady?"
"Meet her!" Dusty Moth howled. "I promise you I'd never go out of my wayto meet anybody that looked as she does--though I might go a longdistance to avoid her."
Freddie Firefly glanced toward the picture. But it had fallen facedownward upon the ground. And he did not take the trouble to raise it.
"Well, you think Betsy Butterfly is beautiful, don't you?" he asked.
"Indeed I don't! I think she's hideous," Dusty Moth shouted. "Never inall my life have I been so deceived in a person."
"I don't understand how you can say that," Freddie Firefly told him."But I suppose your idea of beauty may be different from mine--and frommany other people's, too. Anyhow, I hope you'll get your appetite backagain."
"I don't know about that," said Dusty Moth. "Just now I don't feel as ifI ever wanted to taste food again." A shudder passed over him. And hecovered his eyes, as if to shut some terrible image from his memory.
"I must leave you now," said Freddie Firefly. "And please don't forgetwhat you promised me. You remember that you said that if I'd show you apicture of Betsy Butterfly you would stop pestering me about her."
"Don't worry about that!" Dusty Moth assured him bitterly. "I shallnever mention Betsy Butterfly's name again. I don't want to think ofher. But I'm afraid I can never, never get her face out of my mind.... Iknow--" he added--"I know I shall see it in my dreams. And just thinkhow terrible it will be to wake at midday, out of a sound sleep, withher dreadful face and form haunting me!"
Freddie Firefly couldn't help feeling sorry for the poor chap. But hecould think of nothing to do, except to show him Betsy's portrait oncemore. So he started to raise the picture from the ground, where it stilllay face downward. And the moment Dusty Moth saw what he was about hegave a frightful scream--and flew off into the night.
"He's a queer one!" Freddie Firefly mused. "Now, I've always thoughtBetsy was a fine-looking----" Just then his eyes fell upon the picturefor the first time. And Freddie Firefly's mouth fell open inastonishment.
So amazed was he by what he saw that he tumbled right over backwards.And then, scrambling to his feet, he wrapped the rhubarb leaf hastilyaround the picture and slung it across his back again.
"Jimmy Rabbit has made a terrible mistake!" he groaned, as he startedfor the duck pond.
* * * * * * *
Back at the meeting place once more, Freddie Firefly rushed up to JimmyRabbit in great excitement.
"Do you know what you did?" he cried. "You brought me the wrong picture.And Dusty Moth has gone shrieking off into the darkness, he was sodisappointed. This is not Betsy Butterfly's picture! It's somedreadful-looking caterpillar. And when I glanced at it just now, overin the orchard, it sent a chill all through me."
For the time being Jimmy Rabbit said nothing. At first he had seemedquite upset. But before Freddie had finished speaking he had begun tosmile. And then he unwrapped the picture once more and leaned it againsta stone, where the moon's rays fell squarely upon it.
"You're mistaken," he informed Freddie then. "This is a picture ofBetsy Butterfly. I painted it myself; and I ought to know. As Iexplained last night, I made it earlier in the summer; and as I said,she has changed somewhat in the meantime. But it's a very good likenessof her as she was once."
"You mean--" gasped Freddie Firefly--"you mean that Betsy Butterfly wasonce an ugly caterpillar?"
"Why, certainly!" said Jimmy Rabbit. "And so was Dusty Moth, for thatmatter. Yes! he was a caterpillar himself, once--and a much uglier onethan Betsy, if only he knew it.
"In fact," said Jimmy, looking at the picture with his head on one side,"as caterpillars go, Betsy Butterfly was a great beauty, even at soearly an age."