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Updated: June 19, 2025
I deplore the necessity, but I will be pardoned if I pause here to become somewhat personal, to explain who and what I am and how I came to be a pastor in Appleboro.
Eustis expostulating with her daughter, the news of Mary Virginia's unannounced engagement had sifted pretty thoroughly throughout the length and breadth of Appleboro; a town where an unfledged and callow rumor will start out of a morning and come home to roost at night with talons and tailfeathers. That Mary Virginia had all James Eustis's own quiet will-power, everybody knew.
And the Butterfly Man accepted them quite as simply, with no faintest trace of embarrassment. If Appleboro had cherished the legend that this was a prodigal well on his way home, that afternoon settled it for them into a positive fact. His manner was perfect. It was as if one saw the fine and beautiful grain of a piece of rare wood come out as the varnish that disfigured it was removed.
It's the Butterfly Man, marmar!" squealed a child. "A-a-h! Talk weeth us, Meester Fleent!" For the first time a "hand" felt that he might speak out openly in Appleboro. John Flint stood there staring owlishly at all these people who ought to know very well that he hadn't anything to say: what should he have to say? He was embarrassed; he was also most horribly frightened.
The men might smile at many things, but fathers couldn't smile when mothers of lost children wanted to know why Appleboro hadn't better milk and sanitation. And there, under their eyes bulked the huge red mills, and every day from the bosom of this Moloch went up the smoke of sacrifice. Behind all this gathering of forces stood an almost unguessed figure.
I picked up and fairly ran away from everything and everybody, because the longing for home grew upon me intolerably. When I was in Europe, and I used to think that three thousand miles of water lay between me and Appleboro, I used to cry at nights. I hope John Flint's butterflies told him what I told them to tell him for me, when they came by! How beautiful the old place looks!
And we went, and wondered, afterwards, what particularly tender guardian angels kept close company with our Butterfly Man. Then occurred the great event which put Meester Fleent in a place apart in the estimation of all Appleboro, forever settled his status among the mill-hands and the "hickeys," and incidentally settled a tormenting doubt of himself in his own mind.
Mary Virginia looked from one to the other, thrust the package upon me, walked swiftly up to him, and, laying her hands upon his arms stared with passionate earnestness into his face: the kind, wise, lovable face that every child in Appleboro County adores, every woman trusts, every man respects.
Here was no veneer to scratch and crack at a touch, but the solid, rare thing itself. My mother had been right, as always. John Flint stepped into his proper place. Appleboro was acknowledging it officially. The garden was full of laughter and chatter and perfumes, and women in pretty clothes, and young girls dainty as flowers, and the smiling faces of men. But I am no longer of the party age.
It was a very happy and important day for the judge and his immediate 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; we literally have lawyers to burn. So we aren't too enthusiastic over our fledglings; we wait for them to show us which is good for them, and sometimes better for us.
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