Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/31

 wonderful things that I could tell. But what comes to you from the heavens, you can only receive by faith, as I do. You cannot crawl around on your cabbage leaf and reason these things out."

"Oh, I do believe what I am told," repeated the Caterpillar—although she had just proved that it was not true—"at least," she added, "everything that is reasonable to believe. Pray tell me what else you learned."

"I learned," said the Lark, impressively, "that you will be a butterfly, yourself, some day."

"Now, indeed, you are making fun of me," exclaimed the Caterpillar, ready to cry with vexation and disappointment. But just at that moment she felt something brush against her side, and, turning her head, she looked in amazement at the cabbage leaf, for there, just coming out of the butterfly eggs, were eight or ten little green caterpillars—and they were no more than out of the eggs before they began eating the juicy leaf.

Oh, how astonished and how ashamed the Caterpillar felt. What the Lark had said was true!