Back in the summer, my 6-year-old daughter Neva caught a caterpillar. She found it in our vegetable garden and gave it a new home in a plastic magarine tub. She poked holes in the top and added fresh leaves every now and then.
Not long after the caterpillar spun itself a cocoon. It had attached itself to an old dried up leaf that had curled up into a tube. And every day Neva would check to see if it had turned into a butterfly.
As weeks passed it became clear to everyone but Neva that the magical transformation wasn't going to happen. She wasn't letting the simple passage of time dampen her enthusiasm. She checked almost daily, hoping and waiting.
Last week something mysterious did indeed happen. The cocoon disappeared and a moth took its place. I know that little elves had something to do with it; they told me they had made the switch, a moth in place of the cocoon.
What I imagine is that some day, maybe years from now, Neva will be reading this and say: "Hey, I remember that". And the elves and I will have been found out. Neva will then finally know that neither of the elves, nor me can tell the difference between a butterfly and a moth.
Happy sweeping,
Bob Gunther
Webmaster, ContestHound.com
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