with black-velvet
rings dotted with orange at even distances along his body. He lay at
full length on a fennel-stalk, and seemed to be asleep; but when Charlie
touched him with a little stick, instantly there shot out of his head a
pair of orange-colored horns, and the air was full of the pungent odor
of fennel.

"'It smells like prayer-meeting,' said Charlie, and ran off to play; but
I wanted further information.

"'Mr. Rhodes,' said I, 'how do you know this kind of worm makes
butterflies?'

"'Because I've seen 'em do it, child. If you should put that fellow now
in a box with some holes in the top, so as he could breathe, and give
him plenty of fresh fennel to eat, in a week (or less time if he's full
grown) he'll wind himself up, and after a spell he'll hatch out a
butterfly--a pretty one, too, I tell you,'

"'I mean to try it,' I said; and I ran to the house and Aunt Susan gave
me an old ribbon-box, and Mr. Rhodes punched a few holes in the cover
with his pocket-knife; and after a little hesitation I picked the
fennel-stalk with the worm on it, and laid it carefully in the box,
making sure that the cover was tight. The box was then taken to the
house and deposited on a bench in the porch, for Aunt Susan objected to
entertaining this new boarder indoors.

"I gave my worm his breakfast the next morning before I had my own, and,
forgetting my aversion, sat by the open box and watched him eat, as his
strong jaws made clean work with leaf and stem.

"'He isn't so ugly, after all, Charlie,' I said; 'he is almost handsome
for a worm, with all those bright colors on him,'

"Then Charlie caught a little of my enthusiasm, and said _he_ meant to
keep a worm too. So he searched the fennel-bush and found three, and
tumbled them unceremoniously into the box.

"'Now they'll have good times together,' said he; 'that fellow was awful
lonesome shut up by himself,'

"At Aunt Susan's suggestion I improved my worm-house by removing the top
of the box and stretching mosquito-netting across, fastening it securely
along the edges lest my prisoners should escape. And it was well I took
this precaution; for, though for several days they made no attempt to
get away, and seemed to do nothing but eat and sleep, one morning I
found my largest and handsomest worm in a very disturbed and restless
condition. He was making frantic efforts to escape. Up and down, round
and round, over and under his companions, who were still quietly
feedin