“Be careful!  Don’t step on that caterpillar,” said Mother.

“Why not?” asked Johnnie Jones.  “It’s such an ugly caterpillar.”

“It can’t help being ugly,” Mother answered, “and besides some day it will be a beautiful butterfly.”

“Really?” Johnnie Jones asked, much surprised.  Then Mother told him a story about a caterpillar and a butterfly.

Once upon a time, a little caterpillar was crawling slowly up a tree.  “Oh! dear,” he said to himself, “I wish I had wings like the birds, and could fly away to the top of a tree, instead of having to crawl slowly about.”

A beautiful butterfly was resting a moment near by and heard what the little caterpillar said, “How would you like to be a beautiful butterfly such as I am,” she asked him, “and go flying about all day, sipping honey from the flowers?”

“I should like it very much indeed,” he answered, “but you see I am only an ugly little caterpillar who can do nothing but crawl, and I have to be very careful to avoid being stepped upon.”

  “I’ll tell you a lovely secret,”
    Whispered the butterfly. 
  “Next summer you will surely be
    As beautiful as I,

  “Because my gauzy wings you see,
    Are very, very new. 
  A caterpillar once was I
    And crawled about like you.”

The ugly little caterpillar did not believe the beautiful butterfly.  He just laughed.

  “Oh!” said the lovely butterfly,
    “All that I say is true. 
  But you can’t stay there very long,
    There’s work for you to do.

  “To the very top of this big tree
    You must begin to go,
  Because all little crawling things,
    They are so very slow.

  “There you must even change your skin
    Till it becomes dark brown. 
  And you must spin a rope of silk
    To tie you tightly down.

  “You will sleep through the long cold winter,
    When the icy winds do blow. 
  You will sleep through the long cold winter,
    When everywhere there’s snow.

  “But by and by, in the spring-time,
    How happy you will be! 
  For you will wake and find yourself
    A butterfly like me!

  “Then work on, crawling little thing,”
    Whispered the butterfly,
  “For winter’s coming very fast,
    And so good-by, good-by.”

The little caterpillar thought:  “How could I possibly turn into a butterfly?  I have seen other caterpillars tie themselves to twigs, but they always seemed very foolish to me.”

However, that little caterpillar wanted more than anything else in the world to become a butterfly, so he decided to try.  He crawled slowly up the tree until he found a branch that suited him exactly.  Then he selected a twig and spun about it a soft resting place of silk.  He spun a soft silken loop, too, with which he tied himself to the twig.

Very soon he lost all his bright color, and became as brown as the twig itself.  If you had seen him, you would probably have thought he was nothing but a small brown leaf.  When the cold, snowy days came, the little caterpillar knew nothing whatever about them, for he was fast asleep.