Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man

E

ediate friends, though Appleboro at large looked on with but apathetic interest. One more little legal light flickering "in our midst" didn't make much difference;

lves, but have the power to make other people think. No one who came in contact with him escaped this; it seemed to crackle electrically in the air aro

down as a pestilent and radical theorist and visionary. But fortunately for us and himself

; he had even a more profound respect for his more solid attainments, for his own struggle upward had deepened his regard for higher education. As for Laurence, he thought his friend marvelous; what he had overcome and become

ters the Secret Social History of Appleboro. Here the judge-for he, too, had fallen into the habit of strolling over of an evening-sunk in the old Morris chair, his cigar gone cold in his fingers, reviewed great cases. And sometimes Eustis stopped by, spoke in his modest fashion of his experiments, and left

accept his approach, without fear; he said she knew him personally. She allowed him to approach close enough to touch her; she even took food out of his fingers. He had worked toward that friendliness with great skill and patience, and his success gave hi

tten his first brief, and we two older fellows were somewhat like two old birds fluttering over a

riend's reception of him, and so he went on a bit ahead, to let her know she needn't be afraid-we, too, were merely big fri

had no fear of us; he had seen us before, and he knew very well indeed that the red-bearded creature with the cane was a particular and peculiar friend of feathered folks. So he cocked a knowing head, with a cruel beak full of egg, and flirted

luejay to John Flint. "Chase that skirt, over th

friend to a bluejay-he uttered an

her-thing that knew me, and let me touch her, and feed her, and wasn't afraid of me! Oh, you blue devil! You thief! You murde

turned his attention to us. He screamed at Laurence, thrusting forward his impudent head; while the poor robbed mother, with lamentable cries, watched him from a safe distance. Full of his cannibal meal, Mister B

ur tribe any good. But it wouldn't. It wouldn't bring back the lost eggs nor the spoiled nest, either. Besides, you don't know any better. You're what you are because you were hatched like th

as listened attentively to a bluejay must be deeply grateful that the gift of articulate speech has been wisely withheld from him; he is a

m for a moment in silence; a

ight. There ought to be some way to save the mothers and the nests from your sort-

ected the thief can't get in without getting caught. Build Better Bird Houses, say, and enforce a Law of the Garden-Boom and Food for all, Pillage for None. You'd have to expect some spoiled ne

nd what'd you do with him?" And he j

t-and see that he kept outside," said Laurence. "You see, the idea is

s the chance. But there's the other bird-it looks bad. It is bad. For a thief to come into a little nest like that, that she'd been brooding on, and twittering to, and feeling

d crook who had done the damage. The thing was slight in itself, and more than common-just one of the unrecorded humble tragedies which daily engulf the Little Peoples. But I had see

t's a lifetime job, full of kicks and cuffs and ingratitude and misunderstanding and failure and loneliness, and sometimes even worse things yet. But you do manage to sometimes save the nests and the fledg

swallowed this a

go and make my birds people! I wasn't thinking about people-that is, I wasn't, until you have to go and put the notio

o think of people-of kids, particularly-and their mothers." He turned as he spoke, and stared out over our garden, with its sunny spaces, and its shrubs

leads the children-" He stopped, and the whi

n's eyes followed him smilelessly; then they came back and dwelt for a moment upon the ruined nest and the fluttering mother-bird, still vexing the ear with her shrill lamentable futile protests. From her his eyes went,

e little birds haven't got even the chance to get themselves born, much less grow up and sing! I-Say, you two go on a bit. I feel mighty bad about this. I'd been watching her. She knew me. She let me feed her. If only I'd thought

victim? The bluejay's not a whit the worse for it, remember; in fact, he's all the better off, for his stomach is full and his mischief satisfied, and that's all that ever worries a bluejay. And there isn't any redress for the mother-bird.

hurch teach

ways happening here and now. At least not to the Butterfly Man and me, ... nor y

uded with the vision that beckoned him. As for me, I was wondering

e mill district, good, bad and indifferent, for she was a woman among the women. She had supported wives parting from dying husbands; she had hushed the cries of frightened children, while I gave the last blessings to mothers whose feet were already on the confines of another world; she had taken dead children f

ll it implied, in the scale of the young lawyer's favor. They began their work at the bottom, as all great movements should begin. What struck me with astonishmen

d and keep from under." And when he went on his rounds among the farm houses now it wasn't only the men and children he talked to. There was a message for the overworked women, the wives and daughte

re being taught to ask why the children who filled them hadn't had a fair chance? The men might smile at many things, but fathers couldn't smile when mothers of lost children wanted to

urence, nor outspoken Miss Sally Ruth with a suffrage button on her black basque; but a limping man in gray tweeds with a soft felt hat pulled down over his eyes

iled as the Joshua who was to lead all Appleboro into the promised land of better paving, better lighting, better s

es of a project and make it live. It satisfied that odd sardonic twist in him to stand thus obscurely in the background and pull the strings. I think, too, that there must have been in his mind, since that morning he had watched the bluejay destroy his nest, som

dered how it survived at all. In spite of this, nobody in our county could get himself decently born or married, or buried, without a due and proper notice in the Clarion. To the country folks an obituary notice in its columns

and home-made verses and pasted them in a big black scrapbook. He had a fashion of strolling down to the paper's office and snipping out all such notices and poems from its country exchanges. A

wife and of

Peters who has

we are sure he

e lovely angels on

eav

se a Christian wife and children seven mourned for John Peters who had gone to heaven. The Butterfly Man looked up, meekly.

day sucker to me. Say, don't you reckon they make the people they're written about feel glad they're dead and done for good with

d thee laid in the gl

rmore press your han

I often thought of t

nd some night & ask yo

a sorrowful sadnes

ow can never really kn

ay come when I can rem

e heart at the lovi

resent I can do noth

us it is not good for

I'm married, my poor he

I will wake & weep to th

n-hearted

arted makes 'em a present of his fond heart, parson? Wouldn't it be something fierce if they stepped on it! Gee, I cried in my hat when I fi

xpected each issue to be its last. It wasn't news to Appleboro that it was on its last legs. I was not particularly

larion is ready to bust? It will have to write a death-notice

seemed as ind

's the one county paper. Seems to me," he mused, "that if I were going in head, neck and crop for the sweet little job of reforme

sby got a mor

in the joints not to reach out for the Clarion himself, right now. Maybe he figures it's not worth the price. Maybe he knows this town so well he's

elling me I'd better hustle out and gather in the

on. I'm-I'm addicted to 'em, like some people are to booze. But if you'd promise to keep open the old corner for them, why, I

ttle Johnny

interesting

en

h as I can stand of that,

rt," the Butterfly Man explained and

t, and things like that haven't got any business to have price tags on 'em. So I got to thinking of you. You're young and tender; al

t, and still you're suggesting that I tie a dead old newspaper about my neck and jump overboard? One

Man smiled e

ed to it. It knows by heart how they think and feel and how they want to be told they think and feel. And you ought to know

n't cost you much. Believe me, you'll find it mighty handy-power of the press, all the usual guff, you know! I sha'n't have to worry about obituaries, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts some people will wake up some morning worrying a whole lo

n. They didn't have to go into debt for it, either. They got it for an absurdly low

lacently, "that's the little jimmy that's going to

reviving life. And that Jim Dabney, a college friend from upstate, whom Laurence had induced to accept the rathe

. It made a neat appearance in new black type, and this pleased us. It had, too, a newer, clearer, louder note, which made itself heard over the whole county. The county mer

be answered. It noticed every Mothers' Meeting, Dorcas activity, Ladies' Aid, Altar Guild, temperance gathering; spoke respectfully of the suffragists and hopefully of the "public-spirited women" of the ne

Get Tog

word and tried to ... and thin

Man to me, "is where the

ch less worry their heads over, since the state was a state. So determined were the women to have these questions fairly answered that they presently asked them in cold print, on the front p

ions as to hours, working conditions, wages, sanitation, safety appliance

t they had been able to do was to tabulate such cases, with names and facts and dates, but precious little had been accomplished

dame had to tell. At one meeting, therefore, she took the floor and told them. When

o it were so unassailable, the facts so incontrovertible, that Dabney thought best to print it in full, and later to issue it in pamphle

estness and force. Its plain words were alive. It seemed to me, when I read them that I heard ... a bluejay's ribald scr

report, however, and it went before the Grand Jury intact. The Grand Jury very promptly called Mr. Inglesby before it. They were polite to him, of course, but they did manage to ask him some very unpleasant and rather personal quest

he could understand how it might very well be-that his confidence had been abused. He would look into these things personally hereafter. Why, he was even now busily engag

ed and enraged him more than we guessed, for we hadn't as yet learned the man's ambition. Also, the women kept f

ed for, to show her anything in the mills she wished to see, and to report to headquarters any suggestions as to the-er-younger employees, she might be kind enough to make. If that were not enough she might, he suggested, call on him personally.

er, puckering her brows. "He will do nothing, I know, that he can well avoid. But-he gave me of

ne of his houses on the wages he paid her," said I, "I might re

id she. "The hair of the

isn't much for

en it's gone-if poor Shivers isn't-I shall take the Baptist minister's wife and Mi

er having succumbed to the temptati

ck less pleasant than offering checks for charity. Its two largest adv

t should be nipped in the bud. You've got to go after advertisers like that and make 'em see the thing in the righ

s made wise; and when the wise is instructe

find it. Only you mustn't get rattled and try to make your getaway out the wrong door or the front window-that

h for years had been occupied by the bigger of the

ho Disap

Cleanl

tter

r Kid

n

Deal for

l

ppro

ng in the

cupied by the other a

TUA

thereafter. It was a conspicuous space, and the horn of rural mourning in printer's ink was

esby's instigation been guilty of a tactical blunder of which the men behind the Clarion had taken fiendish and unexpected advantag

ning of his power which al

ng and he looks exactly like he dresses. Honest, he's the original he-god they use to advertise suspenders and collars and neverrips and that sort of thing in the classy magazines. I bet you Inglesby's got t

on the steps, loo

ed in to-day's press. Cease speaking in parable

an hesitated fo

to die. It didn't. He thought it wouldn't pay expenses-well, the sheriff isn't in charge yet. And he knows the paper is growing. He's too wise a guy to let on he's been stung for fair, once in his life, but he don't propose to let himself in for any more body blows than

sight," said La

ut in the open and be IT. He intends to be a big noise in

o, has he?" Laure

ce, and it buzzed about a bit-and that's how I happened to catch it in my net. This Johnny he's just got to help him is the first move.

Laurence, and

with, if you aim straight and pitch hard enough. Go up against him yourself? You're not strong enough, either, young man, whatever you may be later on. You can prod him into firing some poor kids from his mills-but you can

wned. The Butterfly Man watched h

ulders. Leave something to God Almighty-He managed to pull the cocky little brute through worse and tougher situatio

te yourself," said

e button. Why, the very man you need is right in your reach! If you could g

he Butterfly Man s

I've watched the putty-faced, hollow-chested, empty-bellied kids-that don't even have guts enough left to laugh. ... Somebody ought to sock it to that brute, on account of those kids. He ought to be headed off ... make

eman's game any more. You've got to make him see it can be made one. You've got to

mean-for he

an. Jame

, and walked ab

thought of him in that light. Why ...

a teacher, a pioneer, the plainer people all over the state leaned upon his judgment. A sane shrewd man of large affairs, other able men of affairs respected and admired him. The state, knowing what he stood for, what he had accomplished fo

e the notion to make me president, will you stand behind a

ed. "The boy's talking in his sleep:

won

ant on my hands than running states, I'll have you know. Lord, man, I'm getting ready

hand a gray moth. I think he was remembering, too, for his eyes of a sudden melted, as if