"I think," interrupted John, "that I 

 will bring in a bill against the 'cocoon 

 firm' for the cost of that knife." 



"John," said Alice, severely, "it is im- 

 polite to interrupt a person who is read- 

 ing, especially" — and she smiled as she 

 said it — "when a person is reading mat- 

 ter of the greatest importance, by mak- 

 ing unimportant remarks," and she con- 

 tinued to read: 



"The most dreadful thing about the 

 business of silk culture is that when the 

 poor little creatures voluntarily build 

 themselves a prison-house which is for 

 our profit, we are obliged to stifle them 

 to death in it, because if we do not, the 

 little prisoners who disappear from our 

 sight as worms will reappear as moths> 

 and, in making their way out of the 

 prison-house, will break some of the 

 threads of the cocoon, which will render 

 it unfit for reeling, and therefore un- 

 marketable. 



''The moth does not cut the threads, 

 but he finds the thinnest place in the 

 cocoon, and moistens it with an alkaline 

 secretion with which he is furnished, 

 and which makes the cocoon moist 

 enough for him to push aside the threads 

 and come out of the opening; but, in 

 making the passage, he is sure to break 

 some threads. Therefore it is necessary 

 that all cocoons intended for market 

 must be heated sufficiently to kill the 

 moths within them." 



"To this 'slaughter of the innocents,' 

 we children strongly objected, so to sat- 

 isfy us Aunt Jane said we might save the 

 cocoons made by 'O' Kin,' 'Kewi' and 

 'O Clo,' together with several dozen of 

 the others, in order that we might see the 

 whole process, and have some eggs of 

 our own raising for another start, 

 'though it is best,' she said, 'not to de- 

 pend upon the eggs which are from 

 worms raised by amateurs in the busi- 

 ness.' 



"The cocoonery was lovely while the 

 worms were spinning. We made little 

 cornucopias of pink, yellow and white 

 paper for the lazy worms to use who 

 would not mount the branches we had 

 arranged for them, nor the broom-corn 

 arches. The noise of the spinning was 

 quite distinct. So many little heads went 



back and forth, back and forth, in a side- 

 wise motion, making a sort of figure 8 

 loop. 



"We were surprised to find that the 

 cocoons when fin.shed were smaller than 

 the worms, so we knew they must have 

 bent themselves about in order to be en- 

 closed. The cocoons were just the shape 

 of peanuts, only larger, and were either 

 white or yellow. We were sorry there 

 were no green ones, as sometimes hap- 

 pens. The worms were busy for nearly 

 a week before all were done spinning. 

 We put the cocoons of 'Kewi,' 'O Clo' 

 and 'O Kin' and the others, the moths of 

 which were intended to be allowed to 

 emerge from the cocoons, in a darkened 

 room. In about two weeks the moths 

 came out with damp, crimpled wings. 

 They were cream-colored, with brownish 

 markings and curious little antennae. 



"Poor 'Kewi' proved to be a cripple 

 without wings, and so feeble that we had 

 to help him out of his cocoon. We 

 opened his prison-house and found in one 

 end of it his last larval skin, a dry, wrin- 

 kled wad. Edith said it was his old dress 

 hung away in his closet, because it had 

 gone out of fashion. As 'Kewi' was a 

 cripple, we could not determine by his 

 greater activity whether we had done 

 right or not by giving him a masculine 

 name, but Miss Butterfly and Miss Gold 

 proved to be correctly named. In a short 

 time the female moths had laid three or 

 four hundred eggs apiece, and then Aunt 

 Jane carried all the moths, both the liv- 

 ing and the dead, downstairs and gave 

 them to the turkeys — except 'O Clo,' who 

 had gotten out of the room and was 

 found sliding gracefully down the stair 

 railing. We rescued her, but, as she 

 seemed to have no jaws for eating, she 

 soon died a natural death, and we hur- 

 ried her beside the lamented 'Hokusai,' 

 and this concludes the history of 'Our 

 Japanese Pets.' " 



"You made cornucopias for, and treat- 

 ed the lazy worms enough sight better 

 than you did the lazy boy," cried How- 

 ard from his ambush in the tree-top, as 

 he b'ent down the limb and sprang 

 through the open window into the midst 

 of "The Cocoon Firm." 



There was a shriek of surprise. 



Belle Paxson Drury. 



176 



