"Great Heavens! She's screechin' about
breakin' a butterfly, and not her poor fut, at all!" Then I
looked down and discovered that I had stubbed my toe in falling,
and had left a bloody trail behind me. "Of course I am! " I
sobbed indignantly. "Couldn't I wash off a little blood in the
creek, and tie up my toe with a dock leaf and some grass? I've
killed the most beautiful butterfly, and I know I won't be
forgiven!"
I opened my tightly clenched hand and showed it to prove my
words. The sight was so terrible to me that I jerked my foot from
the cook, and thrust my hand into the water, screaming, "Wash it!
Wash it! Wash the velvet from my hand! Oh! make it white
again!" Before the cook bathed and bandaged my foot, she
washed and dried my hand; and my mother whispered, "God knows
you never meant to do it, and He is sorry as mother is." So my
mother and the cook comforted me. The remainder scattered suddenly.
It was years before I knew why, and I was a Shakespearean student
before I caught the point to their frequently calling me `Little Lady
Macbeth!' After such an experience, it was not probable that I
would risk crushing a butterfly to tie a bonnet on my head.
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