The Butterfly House

The Butterfly House

Project Gutenberg's The Butterfly House, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
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Title: The Butterfly House
Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Illustrator: Paul Julian Meylan
Release Date: April 12, 2006 [EBook #18158]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: "You must steal in and not wake anybody"]
The Butterfly House
By

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Author of "A Humble Romance," "A New England Nun," "The
Winning Lady," etc.
With illustrations by Paul Julien Meylan
New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1912
Chapter I
Fairbridge, the little New Jersey village, or rather city (for it had won
municipal government some years before, in spite of the protest of
far-seeing citizens who descried in the distance bonded debts out of
proportion to the tiny shoulders of the place), was a misnomer. Often a
person, being in Fairbridge for the first time, and being driven by way
of entertainment about the rural streets, would inquire, "Why
Fairbridge?"
Bridges there were none, except those over which the trains thundered
to and from New York, and the adjective, except to old inhabitants who
had a curious fierce loyalty for the place, did not seemingly apply.
Fairbridge could hardly, by an unbiassed person who did not dwell in
the little village and view its features through the rosy glamour of home
life, be called "fair." There were a few pretty streets, with well-kept
sidewalks, and ambitious, although small houses, and there were many
lovely bits of views to be obtained, especially in the green flush of
spring, and the red glow of autumn over the softly swelling New Jersey
landscape with its warm red soil to the distant rise of low blue hills; but
it was not fair enough in a general way to justify its name. Yet
Fairbridge it was, without bridge, or natural beauty, and no mortal
knew why. The origin of the name was lost in the petty mist of a petty
past.
Fairbridge was tragically petty, inasmuch as it saw itself great. In
Fairbridge narrowness reigned, nay, tyrannised, and was not recognised
as such. There was something fairly uncanny about Fairbridge's
influence upon people after they had lived there even a few years. The

influence held good, too, in the cases of men who daily went to
business or professions in New York. Even Wall Street was no sinecure.
Back they would come at night, and the terrible, narrow maelstrom of
pettiness sucked them in. All outside interest was as naught.
International affairs seemed insignificant when once one was really in
Fairbridge.
Fairbridge, although rampant when local politics were concerned, had
no regard whatever for those of the nation at large, except as they
involved Fairbridge. Fairbridge, to its own understanding, was a
nucleus, an ultimatum. It was an example of the triumph of the
infinitesimal. It saw itself through a microscope and loomed up
gigantic. Fairbridge was like an insect, born with the conviction that it
was an elephant. There was at once something ludicrous, and
magnificent, and terrible about it. It had the impressiveness of the
abnormal and prehistoric. In one sense, it was prehistoric. It was as a
giant survivor of a degenerate species.
Withal, it was puzzling. People if pinned down could not say why, in
Fairbridge, the little was so monstrous, whether it depended upon local
conditions, upon the general population, or upon a few who had an
undue estimation of themselves and all connected with them. Was
Fairbridge great because of its inhabitants, or were the inhabitants great
because of Fairbridge? Who could say? And why was Fairbridge so
important that its very smallness overwhelmed that which, by the
nature of things, seemed overwhelming? Nobody knew, or rather, so
tremendous was the power of the small in the village, that nobody
inquired.
It is entirely possible that had there been any delicate gauge of
mentality, the actual swelling of the individual in his own estimation as
he neared Fairbridge after a few hours' absence, might have been
apparent. Take a broker on Wall Street, for instance, or a lawyer who
had threaded his painful way to the dim light of understanding through
the intricate mazes of the law all day, as his train neared his loved
village. From an atom that went to make up the motive power of a great
metropolis, he himself became an entirety. He was It with a capital

letter. No wonder that under the circumstances Fairbridge had charms