bright and he flew up out of that-hole in the ground, straight up into the sky, so high I couldn’t even see him any more.” He began to climb the hill again, and Rufus worked hard again to stay abreast of him. “Don’t you think that’s wonderful, Rufus?” he said, again looking straight and despairingly before him.
“Yes,” Rufus said, now that his uncle really was asking him. “Yes,” he was sure was not enough, but it was all he could say.
“If there are any such things as miracles,” his uncle said, as if someone were arguing with him, “then that’s surely miraculous.”
Miraculous. Magnificent. He was sure he had better not ask what they were. He saw a giant butterfly clearly, and how he moved his wings so quietly and grandly, and the colors of the wings, and how he sprang straight up into the sky and how the colors all took fire in the sunshine, and he felt that he probably had a fair idea what “magnificent” meant. But “miraculous.” He still saw the butterfly, which was resting there again, waving his great wings. Maybe “miraculous” was the way the colors were streaks and spots in patterns on the wings, or the bright flickering way they worked in the light when he flew fast, straight upwards. Miraculous. Magnificent.
He could see it very clearly, because his uncle saw it so clearly when he told about it, and what he saw made him feel that a special and good thing was happening. He felt that it was good for his father and that lying there in the darkness did not matter so much. He did not know what this good thing was, but because his uncle felt that it was good, and felt so strongly about it, it must be even more of a good thing than he himself could comprehend. His uncle even spoke of believing in God, or anyway, if anything could ever make him believe in God, and he had never before heard his uncle
