Years ago when I was a new teacher and given to doing crazy things to excite the learners in my classroom, I did a terrible thing and I knew I would have to work hard to get my students to forgive me. I was teaching art to grades one through twelve and each day was a dead run from class to class and from one school to another. I got to see my grade school kids once each week for forty minutes so I had a very short time to capture their interest and keep them excited about art. Because I didn’t have the kids in my class every day, I struggled to build the sense of community that I wanted them to have while they were in my room. I started thinking that a mascot of some kind would help my students feel connected to my classroom. I didn’t know what would be best, a rabbit, a mouse, a lizard or some other pet but I was spending a lot of time thinking about it. As it turned out, fate would come to lend a hand in the near future.

I very much savored the time I got to spend with my wife and our pet dog and cat and in the evening we would walk together and talk about the day’s events. We were an odd family and it must have been funny to see my wife and I walking along, followed by a small poodle and a gray cat. One fall evening as we walked along, I noticed a dead butterfly and picked it up. As we looked at this still beautiful insect, we noted a small tatter on one wing. We wondered why it had died and after some discussion I couldn’t bring myself to put it back on the ground. Eventually we decided to take it home. It’s not easy being married to an artist as we take a lot of strange things home and rarely discard anything once it’s there. I placed the butterfly in a box on the matle when we got home before I washed my hands for dinner.

As many teachers do, I worked a second job on weekends to earn extra money and that Saturday, I found myself scraping and painting a house twenty miles from home. As I worked in the chilly morning air I saw what might have been a solution to my mascot question. There on a nearby twig, was a beautiful caterpillar. It was striped in bright colors and happily eating a leaf. I thought this creature might just make a nice mascot and my kids could learn about insect life-cycles by watching it eventually emerge from it’s chrysalis. I collected it and took it home with me at the end of the day. When I got home, I introduced the insect, I now called Harvey to my wife who approved of my plan. I found a jar and placed Harvey inside with a few leaves and a twig.

That next Monday my students were excited to meet Harvey and were quick to become interested in the future transformations of this exotically-colored creature. I set him on a shelf, taking the opportunity to tell all of my classes about him as they visited. In a short time, Harvey attached himself to the twig and made his chrysalis. This was a very exciting happening at the time but once he was inside, he receded into the environment, giving way to the exciting paintings, drawings and ceramics that we created daily. I didn’t know what kind of creature I had in the jar. Would he be a moth or a butterfly? We didn’t care, it was clear that the kids would love him no matter what he looked like. I wondered how we would release him back into nature and thought that some sort of; good-luck-Harvey ceremony might be appropriate.


The days passed and one morning when I arrived at school and checked Harvey’s jar, I noticed some very big had happened. Harvey was a butterfly and we had missed the whole event. Looking at the beautiful butterfly, I noticed a problem, a big problem. Harvey was too big for the jar. His wings had extended as far as they could and hardened but they were still partially curled up. As the kids looked on, we took him out and it was clear that his wings were going to be shaped oddly for his entire life span. We were sad and kids asked what would happen to him. I told them I would take him home and see what we could do.

My wife too was sad when she saw Harvey, who now rode on my shirt, free of his jar. What will we do? she asked. I don’t know, I said. I looked Harvey up in a book and found that he was a swallowtail. I felt guilty, looking at the pictures of perfect butterflies in the book. He was different and would always be and he didn’t even know or seem to care. I began to worry about him though for I knew he had to eat and that he wouldn’t be flying from flower to flower, drinking nectar. I thought about this for a long time and eventually decided to try to make him some home made butterfly food. I mixed sugar and water and put it in a spoon. I then held him above the spoon and watched.

From the books I had learned that Harvey had a proboscis that he could use to insert into flowers and drink nectar. It was long and coiled up but he extended it to probe and taste objects nearby in a short time he extended it into the waiting spoon. He loved the sugar water and drank for some time. My wife and I were delighted to know that we had a butterfly that we could feed and that night he joined us on our walk. Two people, a dog, a cat and a funny looking butterfly. We were an odd family indeed.

I updated my students and they were happy to know that Harvey was doing well. He lived in my house and I fed him and left nectar dishes where he could reach them when I was gone. From the books I learned that Harvey would have a short life of about thirty days and I intended to make sure that his would be as happy as possible. I was doing a lot of guessing about how to care for a butterfly but I like to think he enjoyed his walks with us and his time being a part of our family.

Then it happened, I had a thought, a crazy thought. It wouldn’t work, it couldn’t work, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The dead Monarch butterfly has wings, almost perfect wings and Harvey didn’t. I asked my wife one evening, what would happen if I tried to attach these wings onto Harvey? You’re crazy, she said, you can’t do that, how will you attach them? I thought about this for a while and said, superglue! What!, she said, good grief you’ll kill him! No I said, I’ll use a needle to apply a very small amount, exactly where the wings attach. You’re on your own, she said, I don’t want to see the creation of a butterfly Frankenstein.

I was nervous! Was this a mistake? Was I crazy? How do you attach new wings to a butterfly? I thought about the procedure and how it might work. I would cut off Harvey’s wings but leave enough of the old wings to attach to new ones to. I’d have to keep him very still during the operation but once the wings were on, Harvey might fly for the first time in his short life.

I gathered the implements, super glue in a small lid, tweasers, a needle, scissors and the Monarch. I carefully clipped each Monarch wing off, being careful to damage them as little as possible. There was the issue of that small tatter in one wing but I felt that this set of wings was much, much better than the wings Harvey wore. With everything in place, I began to operate.

I couldn’t immobilize Harvey, he was moving about and I realized that such a precise set of maneuvers was going to be a challenge with a moving patient. I snipped off Harvey’s curled up wings one at a time, being careful to leave enough of a base to glue the new wings onto. Once his four wings were removed, he looked a bit like a walking-worm. He was doing fine so far. Carefully I lined up the first of the Monarch wings. I dabbed the end of it will a bit of superglue on the needle tip and placed it on what was left of Harvey’s wing nub. I blew on it gently and it stayed in place. I then did the opposite wing in an effort to keep harvey balanced. After this wing was affixed, I started his lower two wings. In a few minutes, Harvey was the proud owner-wearer of upgraded Monarch wings and what’s more, he was moving them. Up and down they moved as he tried them out. I gave him a few minutes and with my wife looking at him with a mix of disbelief and startled amazement, Harvey jumped.

He flew about fifteen feet, to the other end of the living room before landing. I can’t believe that the Wright Brothers were any happier that day in Kittyhawk than I was with Harvey’s flight. We took him outside and let him practice but none of his flights were longer. I didn’t know if this was due to the tatter in one of the wings or the operation in general but he never flew well enough for us to let him go.

We kept Harvey in our home, occasionally taking him outside and to school where amazed students looked him over in wonder at the Swallowtail who now now wore Monarch wings. In his short life Harvey endured a lot. He was good natured, loved sugar water and seemed proud of his wings. He was a Monarch, a king to my kids, my wife and me. I have been working on a children’s book based on this experience, parts of it are on this network. It is called: The Monarch of Castleton.