BOOTS AND BUTTERFLIES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 14

BOOTS AND BUTTERFLIES

Christopher Caterpillar was cleaning his boots. "Oh, dear!" he sighed, "that's only the sixth pair—l shall he late for school, as usual. I don't think it's fair that I should have so many legs. •I don't get along any quicker. Why,. Professor Snail goes nearly as tfast as I do, and he has his house to carry!" : "Besides," he grumbled, "there's always at least one pair of boots ihat want mending, and then Dad gets'cross, but I can't help it." "Late again!" said Professor Snail, when Christopher got to school. "Please, sir, I couldn't help it," said Christopher. . "Nonsense," snapped the Professor.. ".You should start earlier. Look at me, I always start for everything at least two days early." ' When Christopher came out of school that afternoon he said to himself, "I've had enough of this. I shall go and see the Wumple Doodle . about it." The Wumple Doodle is a wise and wonderful creature. He is so big, really, that he is sniply everywhere at once, but if you want his help you have only to call out "Wumple Doodle," three times, and there he is beside you, exactly the same size as'yourself. . . Christopher climbed up to the top of the highest molehill he could find. : "Wumple Doodle! Wumple Doodle! Wumple Doodle!" he shouted. "Wellj what do you want?" answered a voice beside him, and there was the Wuinple Doodle, sitting on a dock leaf. "If you please," said Christopher, "it's about my legs. "What's the matter with them?" "There are so many," explained Christopher—"and yet I'm always late for school. If you could help me—:—-" "Wait!" said the Wumple Doodle. ■ / . ) . . . So they both sat very still and quiet for a long time. L At last the Wumple Doddle said; "Wings!" " ■ ■ : '-'' "Wings?" repeated Christopher. •".' "Yes," said the Wumple • Doodle," climbing off the dock leaf. •'Wings." . ! ' ■ ■ "But I don't understand," cried Christopher . "That's all," said the Wumple Doodle, beginning to get.as big as everything again. . , ' "Oh, please, please," cried Christopher, "please do explain!" "Wings!" came the Wumple Doodle's voice, from everywhere at once... ; - ■ „ .' , Well, Christopher thought about 'it, and thought about it, But he could not understand what the Wumple Doodle.meant. ..At last he.said: i "I shall go away all by myself, and Lwon't do .anything hut think, and I won't come back until I do understand." So he found a quiet place to hide, and because it was cold he made himself a coat with a hood that covered him all, over. .Then,, to be • quite sure, he wriggled himself right into the ground. "Now," he said, "I'm going to think. Let me see. Wings. Yesr- . great, big, beautiful wings. With spots? Or not with spots? Anyhow »wings, w " and then he fell asleep. _. -When he woke up he felt very funny. . •. • „ ■ «' T H jW 5 tight this coat is >" he said > and he began to struggle out of r --} U _I don't feel the same," he said, doubtfully, 1 when at last he got out. !;; He felt so strange that he peeped into a raindrop lying in a leaf to >: see what he looked like.' ■• , : ' • • ■Si "Oh, gracious!" he cried. "Oh, gracious goodness! It feels like .■me. It must be me. But how can it be me? I've got wings! I've got S great, big, beautiful wings,'bigger than myself!. Oh, I must go and tell smother!. .-■.:..

- Away he flew home but it was a long time before even his mother | and father knew him. When at last they did, they thought it was such =, a splendid idea to get wings instead of all those legs that they and all £ the other caterpillars began to do it. i And that was the beginning of buttterflies. -■