Followed a great hand-clapping, shrill whistles, the stamping of feet. And there he was, with Westmoreland and Laurence behind him as if to keep him from bolting. His face expressed a horrified astonishment. Twice, thrice, he opened his lips, and no words came. Then: "_I?_" in a high and agonized falsetto. "You!" Appleboro County settled back with rustles of satisfaction. "Speech! Speech!" From a corn-club man, joyfully. "Oh, marmar, look! It's the Butterfly Man, marmar!" squealed a child. "A-a-h! Talk weeth us, Meester Fleent!" For the first time a "hand" felt that he might speak out openly in Appleboro. John Flint stood there staring owlishly at all these people who ought to know very well that he hadn't anything to say: what should he have to say? He was embarrassed; he was also most horribly frightened. But then, after all, they weren't anything but people, just folks like himself! When he remembered that his panic subsided. For a moment he reflected; as if satisfied, he nodded slightly and thrust his hand into his breast pocket. "Instead of having to listen to me you'd better just look at this," said the Butterfly Man. "Because this can talk louder and say more in a minute than I could between now and Judgment." And he held out Louisa's dear fair whimsy of a curl; the sort of curl mothers tuck behind a rosy ear of nights, and fathers lean to and kiss. "_I_ haven't got anything to say," said the Butterfly Man. "The best I can do is just to wish for the children all that Louisa pretended to pull out of her wishin' curl--and never got. I wish on it that all the kids get a square deal--their chance to grow and play and be healthy and happy and make good. And I wish again," said the Butterfly Man, looking at his hearers with his steady eyes, "I wish that you folks, every God-blessed one of you, will help to make that wish come true, so far as lies in your power, from now until you die!" His funny, twisty smile flashed out. He put the fairy tress back into his breast pocket, made a casual gesture to imply that he had concluded his wishes for the present; and walked off in the midst of the deepest silence that had ever fallen upon an Appleboro audience. But however willing we might be, we discovered that we could not do things as quickly or as well as might be wished. People who wanted to help blundered tactlessly. People who wanted to be helped had to be investigated. People who ought to be helped were suspicious and resentful, couldn't always understand or appreciate this sudden interest in their affairs, were inclined to slam doors, or, when cornered, to lie stolidly, with wooden faces and expressionless eyes.