Arthur Scott Bailey

The Tale of Betsy Butterfly Arthur Scott Bailey

JOHNNIE GREEN was never quite happy unless he was collecting something. One year he wentabout with a hammer, chipping a piece off almost every rock in Pleasant Valley. And of course hegathered birds' eggs. After he tired of that he began collecting postage stamps. Next he turned his attention to tobaccotags, even hailing travellers who passed the house, to ask them whether they hadn't a "hard one,"meaning by that a tag that was hard to get. When he felt quite sure that he had a sample of every kind of tobacco tag in thep. 7 whole world, Johnnie Green had to think of something else to collect. And since it was summer, and a good timeto find them, he decided to start a collection of butterflies. News spreads fast among the field people; and almost as soon as Johnnie Green had made up hismind about his new collection, the whole Butterfly family knew of it. Old Mr. Crow was the one that first learned of Johnnie's plan. And he was not pleased, either."Butterflies!" he scoffed. "I should think Johnnie Green might better spend his time doingsomething worth while. Butterflies, indeed! Now, if he would only collect Crows there'd be somesense in that!"But that was before old Mr. Crow and his neighbors understood exactly what ap. 8 collection was. And the Butterflies felt quite proud because Johnnie Green was going to busy himself with them. Later, when the field people discovered that collecting Butterflies meant catching them andsticking pins through their heads, the Butterfly family became greatly excited and worried. And asfor old Mr. Crow, he was very glad that Johnnie had not decided to collect him and his relations. Well, if you had been in Pleasant Valley that summer, on almost any fine day you might have seenJohnnie Green running about the fields or the flower garden with a butterfly net in his hand. He had made the net from a barrel hoop and a piece of mosquito netting, to which he nailed anold broomstick for a handle. And for the first few days when he started making his new collectionhe didn't visitp. 9 the swimming hole once. When his father asked him to do a little work for him-such as feeding the chickens, or leading the old horse Ebenezer to water-Johnnie Green was notso pleasant as he might have been. He complained that he was too busy to bother with the farmchores just then