Yellow Butterflies

by Charles Scribner's Sons, Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, Scribner Press

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

90 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1922

Reviews

[Judy Davidson]

This is an everyman story, of a boy growing up and going to war, and never coming home. This widens the personal story of a mother and her son Dick, who goes off to fight in WWI. She tries “[i]n wartime to live on the surface, [not to]go feeling any more than [she] can help.” So we feel the emotions of the mother, who this is about, as played out against the ceremonial burial at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. She wants desperately to believe he died to bring peace—it was the war to end all wars, after all—but searches for a sign. For her in this context, Dick is a symbol of America. So each ritual of the burial service is described in measured cadence as she tries to feel that it is her own son entombed, and no longer missing in action. By the time taps is played, I was deeply moved. The motif of the yellow butterflies has grown and rounded out from the first page of the story to the last.

Here is a poem she includes about patriotism:
To every man a different meaning
Faith to the thing that set him at his best,
Something above the blood and dirt and sweat,
Something apart, may G-d forget the rest.

Through hope and fear: Inside of her an odd mental-moral-spiritual-physical arrangement which is called a heart lay quite defenseless, and that shortly a dagger was to be struck into it.

[Gabriella]

Simple yet beautiful writing, although somewhat repetetive.