MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST 



colour, and more brilliancy could he found on one butter- 

 fly wing than on many flower faces. I liked to slip along 

 the bloom-bordered walks of that garden and stand spell- 

 bound, watching a black velvet butterfly, with trailed 

 wings painted in white, red, and green, as it clambered 

 over a clump of sweet-williams, and indeed, the flowers 

 appeared plain compared with it! Butterflies have 

 changed their habits since then. They fly so high! 

 They are all among the treetops now. They used 

 to flit around the cinnamon pinks, larkspur, ragged- 

 robins and tiger lilies, within easy reach of little fingers, 

 every day. I called them "flying flowers," and it 

 was a pretty conceit, for they really were more delicate 

 in texture and brighter in colouring than the garden 

 blooms. 



Having been taught that God created the heavens, 

 earth and all things therein, I understood it to mean a 

 literal creation of each separate thing and creature, as 

 when my father cut down a tree and hewed it into a beam. 

 I would spend hours sitting so immovably among the 

 flowers of our garden that the butterflies would mistake 

 me for a plant and ahglit on my head and hands, while I 

 strove to conceive the greatness of a Being who could 

 devise and colour all those different butterfly wings. I 

 would try to decide whether He created the birds, flowers, 

 or butterflies first; ultimately coming to the conclusion 

 that He put His most exquisite material into the but- 



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