After the tiny worm had wriggled itself realistically into a cocoon it went to sleep; and after a moment of dramatic silence, the little one chosen for the butterfly would separate herself from the still cocoon and fly about the circle, sipping mimic honey from the child-flowers.

To see Carlotty Griggs “being a butterfly,” with utter intensity of joy and singleness of purpose, was a sight to be remembered.  For Carlotty was a pickaninny four years old, and blacker than the Ace of Spades!  Her purple calico dress, pink apron, and twenty little woolly braids tied with bits of yellow ribbon made her the most tropical of butterflies; and the children, having a strong sense of color and hardly any sense of humor, were always entirely carried away by her antics.

[Illustration:  CARLOTTY GRIGGS “BEING A BUTTERFLY.”]

Carlotty had huge feet,—­indeed, Carlotty “toed in,” for that matter; but her face shone with delight; her eyes glistened, and so did her teeth; and when she waved her ebony hands and flitted among the children, she did it as airily as any real butterfly that ever danced over a field of clover blossoms.

And if Patsy’s joy was great in the play, it was greater still in the work that came afterward.  When Helen gave him a scarlet and gold mat to weave, his fingers trembled with eagerness; and the expression of his face caused that impulsive young person to fly to my side and whisper, “Oh, why should one ever ‘want to be an angel’ when one can be a Kindergartner!”

* * * * *

From this time on, Patsy was the first to come in the morning and the last to leave at night.  He took the whole institution under his guardianship, and had a watchful eye for everybody and everything belonging to it.

He soon learned the family history of every child in the school, and those family histories, I assure you, were of an exciting nature; but so great were Patsy’s prudence and his idea of the proprieties that he never divulged his knowledge till we were alone.  Then his tongue would be loosed, and he would break into his half-childlike, half-ancient and reflective conversation.

He had a stormy temper, which, however, he was fast learning to control, and he was not always kind and gentle with his little playfellows; for he had been raised in a hard school, and the giving and taking of blows was a natural matter, to him the only feasible manner of settling a misunderstanding.

His conduct to me, however, was touching in its devotion and perfect obedience; and from the first hour he was my poor little knight sans peur et sans reproche.

Meanwhile, though not perfect, he was greatly changed for the better.  We had given him a neat little coat and trousers, his hair was short and smooth, and his great dark eyes shone with unutterable content.  He was never joyous; born under a cloud, he had lived in its shadow, and sorrow too early borne had left its indelible impress, to be removed only by that “undisturbed vision of the Father’s face, which is joy unutterable;” but for the first time in his life he was at peace.