"What a pity!" said Mrs. Ladybug's neighbors. "It was a fine, big house."

And then some one cried, "What about the children? Where are they?"

n.o.body knew. If Mrs. Ladybug did, she was too overcome to speak.

People looked very solemn. They hoped her children hadn't burned.

And then--then Mr. Meadow Mouse came running up all out of breath.

"Sakes alive!" he screamed. "My house is ruined. I wouldn't have had this happen for anything. But it doesn't matter, for I can easily build another."

Mrs. Ladybug's neighbors crowded about her, all asking the same question.

"Wasn't this your house?"

"No!" she admitted. "No, it wasn't." And then she made an astonishing confession. "I've never owned a house," she said. "I've never had one in all my life. I _can't_ have a house. I couldn't get one that was big enough.

"I have so many children that I don't know what to do," said little Mrs.

Ladybug.

XXI

PLANS FOR WINTER

IT was almost fall. The nights--and some of the days--were chilly. Those that had spent the whole summer out of doors began to think about where they should pa.s.s the winter. Yet everybody was amazed by the news that Mrs. Ladybug spread broadcast. She said that she expected, soon, to go into winter quarters.

"Humph!" cried Daddy Longlegs' wife when she heard what Mrs. Ladybug was saying. "She never had any quarters, so far as anyone knows. Mrs.

Ladybug hasn't been able to tear herself away from the orchard long enough to live anywhere except in the apple trees."

It was plain that Daddy Longlegs' wife didn't believe what Mrs. Ladybug was telling her neighbors. And there were many more folk that agreed with her.

Little Mrs. Ladybug smiled a knowing smile when she heard what her friends thought.

"They'll see! They'll see!" she said. "I'm going to spend the winter in the biggest and finest house on this farm."

That was all she would tell. She wouldn't breathe another word about her plans. And naturally, every one became very curious. There wasn't a soul that wasn't agog to know what Mrs. Ladybug intended to do.

The neighbors asked her, begged her, teased her--some even threatened her. But she declined to answer. She said that if she told where she expected to pa.s.s the cold months everybody would want to go to the same place and maybe there wouldn't be any room left for her.

Perhaps some of her friends _had_ intended to follow her into her winter quarters. Anyhow, many of them looked guilty when she made that remark.

And a few of them looked angry, and declared that Mrs. Ladybug was selfish.

"If the house is as big as she claims it is, it ought to hold a few extra guests without being crowded," they grumbled.

"Guests--" said Mrs. Ladybug--"guests should always wait for an invitation."

"Have you had one?" Buster b.u.mblebee asked her.

Mrs. Ladybug did not answer his question. Most people thought Buster b.u.mblebee a stupid fellow. Many people paid little heed to him. Yet strange to say, he often hit the nail on the head, so to speak. And this time he made Mrs. Ladybug somewhat uncomfortable. She had had no invitation to spend the winter in the fine, big house. But she didn't care to have her neighbors know that.

"There's just one thing to do," Buster b.u.mblebee decided. "I'll ask the Carpenter Bee if he's building a house for her."

So he went to the big poplar by the brook, where the Carpenter Bee lived. And that mild person himself--sawdust-covered as usual--answered Buster's knock at his door.

"Are you building a house for Mrs. Ladybug?" Buster b.u.mblebee inquired.

"No!" said the Carpenter. "We couldn't agree. She wanted me to work twelve hours a day. And I wanted to work twenty-four. I told her I must have _some_ time to rest. But she couldn't see things as I did."

Buster b.u.mblebee was puzzled.

"I don't understand," he said.

The Carpenter kindly made matters clear to him.

"I rest only when I'm working," he explained.

XXII

MRS. LADYBUG LEAVES

THE Carpenter Bee, who lived in the big poplar by the brook, wasn't building a house for Mrs. Ladybug. That skillful woodworker hadn't been able to agree with her--so he told Buster b.u.mblebee. Furthermore, he knew nothing of Mrs. Ladybug's present plans as to where she was going to spend the winter.

Nor did anybody else. It was all a great mystery. And Mrs. Ladybug seemed to enjoy it far more than her neighbors did. She was the only person that could have solved it for them. And she wouldn't.

At the same time she took delight in talking about her winter quarters, as she called the place where she intended to live during cold weather.

"It will be cozy and warm there," she often remarked to her callers, of whom she had huge numbers. For there was scarcely a person in the orchard or the garden that didn't burn with curiosity to know more about the fine, big house into which Mrs. Ladybug expected to move.

"My winter quarters will be wind-proof," Mrs. Ladybug told them. And that speech set them all to guessing again.

Almost everybody said then that she was going to live underground.

"I shall not feel a drop of rain--not even during the January thaw,"

Mrs. Ladybug went on.

And then everybody had to begin guessing all over again; for rain drops were sure to trickle into an underground house during a warm spell.

"You're going to live in a pumpkin!" cried Buster b.u.mblebee.

And all the neighbors--even Mrs. Ladybug--laughed when they heard that.