An impromptu science lesson taught students and teacher alike important lessons about the metamorphosis of life
The air quality in our old school built in 1922 was not the least enhanced by the fact that all the farm boys did chores in the same big boots they wore to school.
It would have taken a strong air freshener indeed to neutralize the smell of stale farmers’ gold mingled with sweaty socks.
Combining a diet rich in cabbage and beans with boys having no social inhibitions was just another complicating factor.
There were days the teacher had no choice but to throw open the windows for fresh air. And that’s how the butterfly escaped.
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Miss Heaman — strict but sensitive Miss Heaman, who wept while reading sad stories, who agonized over every stuttering little student, who sang hauntingly beautiful solos — Miss Heaman had recoiled in horror when Larry came in one recess with a great, fat, colourful caterpillar he had found crawling along a leaf.
“Do you think it might spin one of them there cocoons?”
Miss Heaman shuddered, as much from the poor grammar as from the sight of that thick black and yellow caterpillar crawling along her desk.
“You mean ‘one of those cocoons,’ don’t you?”
“Ya, one of them there cocoons you was talkin’ about in science class the other day.”
Miss Heaman managed a weak smile.
“It just might spin a cocoon if we put it in a jar on the windowsill, Larry.”
“Good! You git the jar, teacher, and I’ll go find some more leaves so it’ll have some grub.”
Larry was soon back, his pockets stuffed with greenery. He shoved a few leaves into the jar Miss Heaman had found and then lowered the colourful caterpillar into it.
“But ain’t it gonna crawl out? And if ya put the lid on, it’ll die, and stink even!”
I had a hunch he was talking from experience.
“No, Larry, it won’t die if you get the caretaker to punch some holes in the lid.”
But Larry was not entirely convinced. He kept close watch on the jar just in case, and then one day in the middle of arithmetic class he shouted, “It’s spittin’ a cocoon! The worm! It’s makin’ one of them there cocoons.”
“You mean ‘spinning a cocoon,’ don’t you, Larry?”
Everyone in the class rushed to the windowsill to watch, jostling each other for a look.
Nobody seemed more pleased than Miss Heaman, not even Larry, who at the end of the day took the lid off the jar to get a better view of the pale green chrysalis hanging from a leaf near the top of the jar.
And then we forgot all about it.
Days later in the midst of a history lesson, Miss Heaman suddenly stopped talking, pointed to the vicinity of the jar and exclaimed, “Look, class, look.”
We were just in time to see a bright orange and black butterfly escape through the open window.
For a moment, there was an astonished silence, and then a spontaneous cheer arose as we watched the monarch wing its way to freedom.
Predictably, Miss Heaman cried.
Racing over to the windowsill and peering into the open jar, a broad grin spread across Larry’s mischievous face.
“Man. Did you see that thing take off? And I was sure as shootin’ that ole’ worm would die.”
The dumfounded delight dancing across Larry’s expressive face springs to mind still when I read about that metamorphosis, our future, when each of us flies away from this cocooned earth, “changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” as the Good Book puts it.
