by Jane Belk Moncure
Illustrated by Linda Hogag
~~~
A little girl found a caterpillar in a field one day. It was all alone, "Hi," said the little girl.
She put her hand down near the caterpillar. It climbed up one finger and down another.
"I will take you home with me," said the little girl. and she did.
Her father made a cage for the caterpillar out of two pie pans and some screen wire.
The little girl put leaves and a stick in the cage.
She put the cage in a sunny window and there it stayed.
Every day the caterpillar ate leaves, and every day it grew bigger.
One day it wiggled out of its skin. Its new skin fit just right.
Each time the caterpillar wiggled out of its old skin, it was bigger. Then one day it climbed up on the stick and made a tiny button of silk.
The caterpillar hung upside down from the silk and...wiggled out of its skin for the last time. But this time, there was a green shell underneath the old skin.
"When your caterpillar comes out of its shell, it will not be a caterpillar at all," said the girl's mother.
What will it be?" asked the girl.
"It will be a surprise," said her mother. "Wait and see."
So the little girl waited....
and looked for the surprise.
The little girl wished she could see what was happening inside the shell. But she could not. Still she waited and watched.
Finally, one day, she peeked in the cage and saw...a beautiful butterfly! What a surprise!
So that was what had been happening inside the shell. The caterpillar was changing into a butterfly.
"How pretty," said the little girl. Then she looked outside and saw another surprise. Snow!
This could be trouble, said her father. "The early snow is covering the flowers. The butterfly must drink nectar from the flowers or it will die."
"What can we do?" asked the little girl.
"I know where flowers grow in the wintertime," said her father. "In California."
Guess what he did? He called a friend who was an airplane pilot.
"Yes," said the pilot. "I am flying to California today. I will take the butterfly with me."
The pilot took the butterfly with him all the way to California.
There he opened the box. Away flew the butterfly...across the fields to drink from the California flowers.
What a lucky butterfly!
