Yellow Butterflies

Chapter 2: NOTE

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About This Book

A young mother lovingly recalls her golden-haired son, opening with an idyllic scene of butterflies alighting on his head and tracing the effortless intimacy of their domestic life. Rising patriotic fervor propels the son to enlist as an ordinary soldier, and the narrative follows his training, brief home leaves, and eventual deployment while the mother alternates between pride and foreboding. Lyrical family moments are juxtaposed with quoted press passages about the arrival of the Unknown Soldier, and the story meditates on sacrifice, the symbolism of immortality, and the emotional costs of war.

NOTE

Throughout this story there are sentences and paragraphs quoted, taken bodily from a press account of the coming of the American Unknown Soldier. If other sentences or phrases occur for which proper credit has not been given, it is because the story-teller’s mind was so saturated with the beauty of this account that its wording seemed the inevitable form.

For such borrowed grace the writer offers grateful acknowledgment to the young reporter who, given what is surely the most thrilling episode in all history to write about, has made what has been well-called “the finest bit of newspaper work ever done.” Acknowledgment and thanks to Mr. Kirk Simpson.

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews.