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So there he sat in his workroom, and cast filaments here and there, and spun a web which gradually netted all Appleboro. There was, for instance, the Clarion. We had had but that one newspaper in our town from time immemorial. I suppose it might have been a fairly good county paper once, but for some years it had spluttered so feebly that one wondered how it survived at all.
On the following Sunday the Baptist minister chose for his text that verse of Matthew which bids us take heed that we despise not one of these little ones because in heaven their angels do always behold the face of our Father. And then he told his people of that little one who had pretended to love dry bread when she couldn't get any butter in Appleboro.
"She turns heads now, instead of bumping them," said my mother. "Oh, she's not the only head-turner Appleboro can boast of!" said the young man grandly. "We've always been long on good-lookers in Carolina, whatever else we may lack. They're like berries in their season."
"Well, then," said Laurence, smiling, "before we adjourn, is there anybody in particular that Appleboro County here assembled wants to hear?" And at that came a sort of stir, a murmur, as of an immense multitude of bees: "The Butterfly Man!" And louder: "The Butterfly Man!" Followed a great hand-clapping, shrill whistles, the stamping of feet.
"You got the straight tip from Miss Sally Ruth, father," he said, coming out of a brown study. "What do you suppose that piker's trying to crawl out of his cocoon for? He never wanted to caper around Appleboro women before, did he? No. And here he's been muldooning to get some hog-fat off and some wind and waistline back. Now, why? To please himself?
No one who came in contact with him escaped this; it seemed to crackle electrically in the air around him; he was a sort of human thought-conductor, and he shocked many a smug and self-satisfied citizen into horrific life before he had done with him. If this young man had not been one of the irreproachable Maynes Appleboro might have set him down as a pestilent and radical theorist and visionary.
I left Flint with Madame and Miss Sally Ruth, who had run over after the neighborly Appleboro wont with a plate of fresh sponge-cake and a bowl of fragrant custard. Miss Sally Ruth is nothing if not generous, but there are times when one could wish upon her the affliction of dumbness.
Morning and afternoon Appleboro called, and left tribute of fruit and flowers. "Gad, suh, he behaved like one of Stonewall Jackson's men!" said Major Cartwright, pridefully. "No yellow in him; he's one of us!"
Her mother had other plans, which failed to include little Appleboro. Why should a girl with such connections and opportunities be buried in a little town when great cities waited for just such with open and welcoming arms? The best we got then was a photograph of our girl in her graduation frock slim wistful Mary Virginia, with much of her dear angular youthfulness still clinging to her.
He said gruffly that Appleboro had dumped its whole duty in this respect upon the frail shoulders of one old priest, and that the Guest Rooms were overworked. Didn't the town want to do its share now? The town voted, unanimously, that it did. There was a pause. Laurence asked if anybody else had anything to say? Apparently, anybody else hadn't.
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