Friday, November 10, 2006

Yellow butterflies (and orange ones)

Yellow Butterflies, by Mary Shipman Raymond Andrews, has been reprinted. Many people visit my entry on this subject. The book must now be out of copyright. I guess I must buy it before it goes out of print again, just to see what it's really like. There was a local radio announcer who either read it or declaimed it from memory on certain patriotic holidays (Armistice Day and Decoration Day, I think). He used an old-fashioned sentimental, even maudlin, delivery. By the end, he'd be close to outright weeping and the story certainly lodged itself in my mind, so it must be powerful in that vein so seldom tapped in these days of irony and sarcasm. In the yard at suppertime yesterday were yellow clouded sulphur butterflies, hundreds of gulf fritillaries, and at least a dozen monarchs, all drawn by the lantanas, whose berries are being picked clean by the birds, and whose burgeoning blossoms in this cycle are a magnet for butterflies and honeybees.

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