"Well, well, well!" said he to himself, "who would ever dream that the children of that beautiful creature would be mere caterpillars?" Strange as it seemed to him, there was no denying the fact and his duty was to teach them how to crawl about and how to nibble cabbage leaves. "Poor things," he used to say as he moved among them, "you will never know the world of beauty in which your mother lived, you will never be able to soar aloft in the free air, your lives must be spent in creeping about on a cabbage leaf and filling yourselves full of it each day. Poor things! Poor things!" The young caterpillars soon became so expert that they no longer needed his care. Feeling very tired and sleepy, he one day decided to make for himself a bed, or bag and go to sleep, not caring much whether or not he ever awoke. He was soon softly wrapped from head to foot in the curious covering he had made, and then came a long, long sleep of three weeks or more. When at last he awakened, he began to work his head out of his covering. Soon his whole body was free and he began to breathe the fresh air and feel the warm sunshine. He was sure that something had happened to him though he could not tell what. He turned his head this way and that, and at last caught sight of his own sides. What do you think he saw? Wings! Beautiful white wings! And his body was white, too! The long sleep had changed him into a butterfly! He began to slowly stretch his wings. They were so new he could hardly believe that they were part of himself. The more he stretched them the more beautiful they became, and soon they quivered and fluttered as gracefully as did other butterfly wings. Just at this moment a strong, fresh breeze swept over the garden, and before he had time to refuse, the new butterfly was lifted off the cabbage leaf and was dancing through the air, settling down now on a bright flower, and now on a nodding blade of grass, then up and off again. He rejoiced gaily in his freedom for a time, but soon came the longing to try his wings in the upper sunshine. Before attempting the unknown journey, however, he flew back to the round, green cabbage-head on which he had lived so long. There were the twenty, small, green caterpillars, still creeping slowly about and filling themselves with cabbage-leaf. This was all they knew how to do, and this they did faithfully. "Never mind, little caterpillars," said the new butterfly as he hovered over them, "keep on at your work; the cabbage leaf gives you food, and the crawling makes you strong. By and by you, too, shall be butterflies and go forth free and glad into God's great upper world."