nusually vicious rap sent him spinning a
foot in air, and his "PTSEET" came with a squall of utter panic.

The wires were ringing with a story the birds could not translate, and
Freckles was quite as ignorant of the trouble as they.

A peculiar movement beneath a small walnut tree caught his attention.
He stopped to investigate. There was an unusually large Luna cocoon, and
the moth was bursting the upper end in its struggles to reach light and
air. Freckles stood and stared.

"There's something in there trying to get out," he muttered. "Wonder if
I could help it? Guess I best not be trying. If I hadn't happened along,
there wouldn't have been anyone to do anything, and maybe I'd only be
hurting it. It's--it's----Oh, skaggany! It's just being born!"

Freckles gasped with surprise. The moth cleared the opening, and with
many wabblings and contortions climbed up the tree. He stared speechless
with amazement as the moth crept around a limb and clung to the under
side. There was a big pursy body, almost as large as his thumb, and of
the very snowiest white that Freckles ever had seen. There was a band
of delicate lavender across its forehead, and its feet were of the same
colour; there were antlers, like tiny, straw-colored ferns, on its head,
and from its shoulders hung the crumpled wet wings. As Freckles gazed,
tense with astonishment, he saw that these were expanding, drooping,
taking on color, and small, oval markings were beginning to show.

The minutes passed. Freckles' steady gaze never wavered. Without
realizing it, he was trembling with eagerness and anxiety. As he saw
what was taking place, "It's going to fly," he breathed in hushed
wonder. The morning sun fell on the moth and dried its velvet down,
while the warm air made it fluffy. The rapidly growing wings began to
show the most delicate green, with lavender fore-ribs, transparent,
eye-shaped markings, edged with lines of red, tan, and black, and long,
crisp trailers.

Freckles was whispering to himself for fear of disturbing the moth. It
began a systematic exercise of raising and lowering its exquisite wings
to dry them and to establish circulation. The boy realized that soon it
would be able to spread them and sail away. His long-coming soul sent up
its first shivering cry.

"I don't know what it is! Oh, I wish I knew! How I wish I knew! It must
be something grand! It can't be a butterfly! It's away too big. Oh, I
wish there was someone to tell me what