To everybody's surprise, Mrs. Ladybug appeared to want to keep the site of her house a secret from all her friends. When they asked her, point-blank, where her house was, she always pretended not to hear the question and left them. Or she would begin to ask questions of her own choosing, without answering theirs.

"Humph!" said some people. "Mrs. Ladybug likes to pry into our affairs.

She wants to know all about our business. And when she learns anything about anybody else she can't rest until she has told it to the whole neighborhood."

The more Mrs. Ladybug's friends thought about her house, the harder they tried to discover its whereabouts. Sometimes they even mentioned _fire_ to her and then tried to follow her when she hurried off. But she always managed to give them the slip before she had gone far.

Now and then somebody or other thought he had found Mrs. Ladybug's house. But in the end somebody else was sure to prove that he was mistaken.

Once Freddie Firefly announced with great pride that at last he knew where Mrs. Ladybug was rearing her family.

"Her house," he explained, "is in a hole in the ground, in the meadow."

And that night he led Miss Mehitable Moth to the spot, lighting the way with his flickering gleams.

She soon pointed out his mistake. He had led her to the doorway of the b.u.mblebee family, who were all sound asleep inside their crowded house.

After that Freddie Firefly had to listen to a good many t.i.tters from his friends.

"The idea!" they would say. "Mrs. Ladybug must have a much bigger house than the b.u.mblebee family's. She couldn't squeeze her children into such small quarters as theirs. Why, she has more children than she can count."

XIX

THE DINNER BELL

THERE was great excitement in Farmer Green's orchard. The neighbors came a-flying and a-running and a-crawling from all directions. And little Mrs. Ladybug was the cause of the hurly-burly. She had appeared with a strange, flaring object hanging by a cord from her waist--if she could be said to have a waist. The queer, dangling thing had a handle at its upper end. And when Mrs. Ladybug moved a jingling, jangling sound might have been heard.

In no time at all a crowd had gathered around her. And some of the more curious and ill-bred pointed at whatever it was that puzzled them.

"What's that?" they asked Mrs. Ladybug.

Strange to say, she seemed pleased with the stir that she had made.

"It's a dinner bell," she explained.

They gazed at it in wonder, until at last somebody spoke up and demanded, "What's it for?"

"To give the alarm with!" she replied.

"What alarm?" chimed a chorus of voices, high and low.

Mrs. Ladybug smiled an odd sort of smile as she answered, "The fire alarm, of course! Everybody's always talking _fire_ to me. It makes me frightfully uneasy. There's so little one can do alone in case of fire.

But now--" she added--"now when anyone says 'Fire!' I'm going to ring this bell with all my might."

Well, people didn't know what to say--then. Later, however, they gathered about in groups and talked a good deal about Mrs. Ladybug and her dinner bell.

Miss Moth said that she feared Mrs. Ladybug would disturb her rest if she rang the bell in the daytime, when Miss Moth was accustomed to sleep. Buster b.u.mblebee hoped Mrs. Ladybug wouldn't ring it at night, because he had a short enough night's sleep as it was, with the family trumpeter waking everybody in the house about dawn. And Freddie Firefly exclaimed that it would be very annoying to him if Mrs. Ladybug gave the alarm of fire whenever she saw his flickering gleams on pleasant evenings in the meadow.

If others were troubled, Mrs. Ladybug herself was much pleased by her dinner bell. She liked to hear it tinkle as she worked. She said it was a cheerful sound and so long as she wore it she never needed to worry about being lost. It was as good as a cowbell for letting the world know one's whereabouts.

There was only one thing that annoyed her. Since she hung the bell from her waist n.o.body had mentioned _fire_ to her. n.o.body had said a word about her children's burning. It seemed as if none of her neighbors wanted her to sound a fire alarm. And if there was anything that would have given her joy, it would have been to seize the handle of her bell and ring it madly.

There were even some people that complained of the tinkle it made among the apple trees.

Peppery Polly b.u.mblebee laughed at them.

"You've brought this trouble upon yourselves," she told them. "How can you expect Mrs. Ladybug to keep the tongue of the bell still? She can't even keep her own tongue from wagging!"

No doubt Peppery Polly knew what she was talking about. She had a very sharp tongue, herself.

XX

FIRE! FIRE!

THE whole countryside was dry. It hadn't rained for weeks. The gra.s.s was turning brown. The water in the river was low. And Broad Brook was no more than a narrow trickle. Every morning the sun rose streaming hot, to beat down upon Pleasant Valley all day long until it sank--a round, red ball--behind Blue Mountain each night.

At last, one afternoon, Farmer Green and the hired man started for the woods on a run. They had seen a wisp of smoke curling up from the tree tops. And they knew that the woods were on fire.

There was a high wind that day. And if they hadn't worked lively there's no telling how far the fire would have spread. As it was, glowing bits came sailing down from the hill and settled in the valley. But luckily they did no damage. At least, no other fire had started anywhere when the men came home from the woods and said that all was safe again.

Some of the small folk that lived in the fields knew what was going on.

But Mrs. Ladybug never guessed that there had been a fire. She was so busy, working among the apple trees, that she hadn't noticed any unusual stir. And no one took the trouble to tell her about it.

Everyone had put thoughts of fire out of his mind when along toward evening a loud clanging rang out upon the air.

"What's that?" people asked one another.

And all at once somebody shouted, "It's Mrs. Ladybug's dinner bell!"

Far and wide through orchard, garden and meadow the neighbors took up the cry. "Fire! Fire! Mrs. Ladybug's ringing the alarm! Her house is on fire!"

Back and forth they hurried, trying to find Mrs. Ladybug.

"At last--" they told one another--"at last we're going to find out where her house is."

And they did. At least, they soon discovered Mrs. Ladybug standing beside a blazing dwelling near the pasture fence. With all her hands (and she had several!) she was ringing her bell furiously.

"We'll help you!" her friends all cried. "Don't worry, Mrs. Ladybug!

We'll have the fire out soon. Be calm!"

But there was nothing they could do. The fire raged so fiercely that they couldn't get near enough to it to fight it. And before long it had burned itself out. There was nothing left of the house but ashes.