Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man Part 14

He snorted. "Catch me running away like a fool when a six-inch off-color swallow-tail flirts herself under my nose and dares me to catch her! You'd better believe I didn't go!"

And then I knew with a great uprush of joy that Slippy McGee himself had gone instead, and the three-o'clock express was bearing him away, forever and forever, beyond recall or return. Slippy McGee had gone into the past; he was dead and done with. But John Flint the naturalist was vibrantly and vitally alive, built upon the living rock, a house not to be washed away by any wave of pa.s.sion.

This reaction from the black and bitter hour through which I had just pa.s.sed, this turbulent joy and relief, overcame me. My knees shook and gave way; I tottered, and sank helplessly into the seat built around our great magnolia. And shaken out of all self-control I wept as I had not been permitted to weep over my own dead, my own overthrown hopes.

Head to foot I was shaken as with some rending sickness. The sobs were torn out of my throat with gasps.

He stood stone still. He went white, and his nostrils grew pinched, and in his set face only his eyes seemed alive and suffering. They blinked at me, as if a light had shone too strongly upon them. A sort of inarticulate whimper came from him. Then with extreme care he laid the handkerchief-covered hat upon the ground, and down upon his knees he went beside me, his arms about my knees. He, too, was trembling.

"Father! ... _Father!_"

"My son ... I was afraid ... you were lost ... gone ... into a far country.... It would have broken my heart!"

He said never a word; but hung his head upon his breast, and clung to my knees. When he raised his eyes to mine, their look was so piteous that I had to put my hand upon him, as one rea.s.sures one's child. So for a healing time we two remained thus, both silent. The garden was exquisitely still and calm and peaceful. We were shut in and canopied by walls and roof of waving green, lighted with great cream-colored flowers with hearts of gold, and dappled with sun and shadow. Through it came the vireo's fairy flute.

G.o.d knows what thoughts went through John Flint's mind; but for me, a great peace stole upon me, mixed with a greater, reverent awe and wonder. Oh, heart of little faith! I had been afraid; I had doubted and despaired and been unutterably wretched; I had thought him lost whom the Powers of Darkness swooped upon, conquered, and led astray.

And G.o.d had needed nothing stronger than a b.u.t.terfly's fragile wing to bear a living soul across the abyss!

We went together, after a while, to his rooms, and when he had submitted to Kerry's welcome, we carefully examined the beautiful insect he had captured. As he had said, she had not lost a scale; and she was by far the most astonishing aberrant I have ever seen, before or since. The Turnus is perhaps the most beautiful of our b.u.t.terflies, and this off-color was larger than the normal, and more irregularly and oddly and brilliantly colored. Their natural coloring is gorgeous enough; but hers was like a seraph's head-jewels.

I have her yet, with the date of her capture written under her. She is the only one of all our b.u.t.terflies I claim personally. The gold has never been minted that could buy that Turnus.

"I had the station agent wire for my grip," said Flint casually. "And I gave the darky I knocked down fifty cents to soothe his feelings. He offered to let me do it again for a quarter." His eyes roved over the pleasant workroom with its books and cabinets, its air of homely comfort; through the open door one glimpsed the smaller bedroom, the crucifix on the white wall. He dropped his hand on Kerry's head, close against his knee, and drew a sharp breath.

"Father," said he, quietly, and looked at me with steady eyes, "you don't need to be afraid for me any more as you had to be to-day.

To-day's the last of my--my dumfoolishness." After a moment he added:

"Remember what that little girl said when she gave me her dog? Well, I reckon she was right. I reckon I'm here for keeps. I reckon, father, that you and I do belong."

"Yes," said I; and looked over the cases of our b.u.t.terflies, and the books we had gathered, and the table where we worked and studied together. "Yes; you and I belong." And I left him with Kerry's head on his knees, and Kerry's eyes adoring him, and went over to the Parish House to tell Madame that John Flint had changed his mind and wouldn't go North just now, because an aberrant Turnus had beguiled him.

For a moment my mother looked profoundly disappointed.

"Are you sure," she asked, "that this doesn't mean a loss to him, Armand?"

"Yes, I am sure."

She watched my eyes, and of a sudden she reached out, caught my hand, and squeezed it. Her face softened with sympathetic and tolerant understanding, but she asked no questions, made no comment. If Solomon had been lucky enough to marry my mother, I am sure he would never have plagued himself with the nine hundred and ninety-nine. But then, neither would he have written Proverbs.

Neither the b.u.t.terfly Man nor I have ever referred to that morning's incident; the witness of it we cherish; otherwise it pleases us to ignore it as if it had never happened. It had, of course, its results, for with a desperate intensity of purpose he plunged back into study and research; and as the work was broadening, and called for all his skill and patience, the pendulum swung him far forward again.

I had been so fascinated, watching that transformation, even mere wonderful than any b.u.t.terfly's, going on before my eyes; I was so enmeshed in the web of endless duties spun for me by my big poor parish that I did not have time to miss Mary Virginia as poignantly as I must otherwise have done, although my heart longed for her.

My mother never ceased to mourn her absence; something went away from us with Mary Virginia, which could only come back to us with her. But it so happened that the ensuing summers failed to bring her back. The little girl spent her vacations with girl friends of whose standing her mother approved, or with relatives she thought it wise the child should cultivate. For the time being, Mary Virginia had vanished out of our lives.

Laurence, however, spent all his vacations at home; and of Laurence we were immensely proud. Most of his holidays were spent, not with younger companions, but oddly enough with John Flint. That old friendship, renewed after every parting, seemed to have grown stronger with the boy's growth; the pa.s.sing years deepened it.

"My boy's forever boasting of your b.u.t.terfly Man," said the judge, falling into step with me one morning on the street. "He tells me Flint's been made a member of several learned societies; and that he's gotten out a book of sorts, telling all there is to tell about some crawling plague or other. And it seems this isn't all the wonderful Mr. Flint is capable of: Laurence insists that biologists will have to look Flintward pretty soon, on account of observations on what he calls insect allies--whatever _they_ are."

"Well, you see, his work on insect allies is really unique and thorough, and it opens a door to even more valuable research," said I, as modestly as I could. "Flint is one of its great pioneers, and he's blazing the way. Some day when the real naturalist comes into his own, he will rank far, far above tricky senators and mutable governors!"

The judge smiled. "Spoken like a true bughunter," said he. "As a matter of fact, this fellow is a remarkable man. Does he intend to remain here for good?"

"Yes," said I, "I think he intends to remain here--for good." I could not keep the pride out of my voice and eyes. Let me again admit my grave fault: I am a vain and proud old man, G.o.d forgive me!

"Your goose turned out a b.u.t.terfly," said the judge. "One may well be pardoned a little natural vanity when one has engineered a feat like that! Common tramp, too, wasn't he?"

"No, he wasn't. He was a most uncommon one."

"I could envy the man his spontaneity and originality," admitted the judge, rubbing _his_ nose. "Well, father, I'm perfectly satisfied, so far, to have my only son tramp with him."

"So is my mother," said I.

At that the judge lifted his hat with a fine old-fashioned courtesy good to see in this age when a youth walks beside a maid and blows cigarette smoke in her face upon the public streets.

"When such a lady approves of any man," said he, gallantly, "it confers upon him letters patent of n.o.bility."

"We shall have to consider John Flint knighted, then," said my mother merrily, when I repeated the conversation. "Let's see," she continued gaily. "We'll put on his shield three b.u.t.terflies, or, rampant on a field, azure; in the lower corner a net, argent. Motto, '_In Hoc Signo Vinces_.' There'll be no sign of the cyanide jar. I'll have nothing sinister shadowing; the b.u.t.terfly Man's escutcheon!"

She knew nothing about the trust St. Stanislaus kept; she had never met Slippy McGee.

CHAPTER IX

NESTS

Laurence at last hung out that shingle which was to tingle Appleboro into step with the Time-spirit. It was a very happy and important day for the judge and his immediate friends, though Appleboro at large looked on with but apathetic interest. One more little legal light flickering "in our midst" didn't make much difference; we literally have lawyers to burn. So we aren't too enthusiastic over our fledglings; we wait for them to show us--which is good for them, and sometimes better for us.

This fledgling, however, was of the stuff which endures. Laurence was one of those dynamic and dangerous people who not only think independently themselves, but have the power to make other people think. No one who came in contact with him escaped this; it seemed to crackle electrically in the air around him; he was a sort of human thought-conductor, and he shocked many a smug and self-satisfied citizen into horrific life before he had done with him.

If this young man had not been one of the irreproachable Maynes Appleboro might have set him down as a pestilent and radical theorist and visionary. But fortunately for us and himself he was a Mayne; and the Maynes have been from the dawn of things Carolinian "a good family."

I don't think I have ever seen two people so mutually delight in each other's powers as did John Flint and Laurence Mayne. The b.u.t.terfly Man was immensely proud of Laurence's handsome person and his grace of speech and manner; he had even a more profound respect for his more solid attainments, for his own struggle upward had deepened his regard for higher education. As for Laurence, he thought his friend marvelous; what he had overcome and become made him in the younger man's eyes an incarnate proof of the power of will and of patience.

The originality and breadth of his views fired the boy's imagination and broadened his personality. The two complemented each other.

The b.u.t.terfly Man's workroom had a fascination for others than Laurence. It was a sort of Open Question Club. Here Westmoreland came to air his views with a free tongue and to ride his hobbies with a gallant zest; here the major, tugging at his goatee, his gla.s.ses far down on his nose, narrated in spicy chapters the Secret Social History of Appleboro. Here the judge--for he, too, had fallen into the habit of strolling over of an evening--sunk in the old Morris chair, his cigar gone cold in his fingers, reviewed great cases. And sometimes Eustis stopped by, spoke in his modest fashion of his experiments, and left us all the better for his quiet strength. And Flint, with his eyes alive and watchful behind his gla.s.ses, listened with that air which made one like to tell him things. Laurence declared that he got his post-graduate course in John Flint's workroom, and that the b.u.t.terfly Man wasn't the least of his teachers.

I should dearly like to say that the Awakening of Appleboro began in that workroom; and in a way it did. But it really had its inception in a bird's nest John Flint had discovered and watched with great interest and pleasure. The tiny mother had learned to accept his approach, without fear; he said she knew him personally. She allowed him to approach close enough to touch her; she even took food out of his fingers. He had worked toward that friendliness with great skill and patience, and his success gave him infinite pleasure. He had a great tenderness for the little brown lady, and he looked forward to her babies with an almost grandfatherly eagerness. The nest was over in a corner of our garden, in a thick evergreen bush big enough to be called a young tree.

Now on a sunny morning Laurence and I and the b.u.t.terfly Man walked in our garden. Laurence had gotten his first brief, and we two older fellows were somewhat like two old birds fluttering over an adventurous fledgling. I think we saw the boy sitting on the Supreme Court bench, that morning!

As we neared the evergreen tree the b.u.t.terfly Man raised his hand to caution us to be silent. He wanted us to see his wee friend's reception of him, and so he went on a bit ahead, to let her know she needn't be afraid--we, too, were merely big friends come a-calling.

And just then we heard shrill cries of distress, and above it the louder, raucous scream of the bluejay.

The bluejay was entirely occupied with his own business of breaking into another bird's nest and eating the eggs. He scolded violently between mouthfuls; he had finished three eggs and begun on the fourth and last when we came upon the scene. He had no fear of us; he had seen us before, and he knew very well indeed that the red-bearded creature with the cane was a particular and peculiar friend of feathered folks. So he c.o.c.ked a knowing head, with a cruel beak full of egg, and flirted a splendid tail at his friend; then swallowed the last morsel and rowed viciously with Laurence and me; for the bluejay is wholly addicted to billingsgate. He paid no attention to the distraught mother-bird, fluttering and crying on a limb nearby.

"Gosh, pal, I've sure had some meal!" said the bluejay to John Flint.