class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 10]"/>

"I can't help it," he replied heartily.

"Everybody's not like you," Betsy Butterfly told him.

"Then you've been hearing about Mrs. Ladybug!" he cried. "Somebody has been tattling."

"It doesn't matter," Betsy Butterfly assured him. "Perhaps it's good for me to know that everyone doesn't admire me."

Buster Bumblebee didn't agree with her.

"I'll have to speak to Mrs. Ladybug," he declared.

"Oh, don't!" Betsy Butterfly begged him; for she was as gentle as she was beautiful and never wanted people to quarrel on her account.

But Buster Bumblebee had made up his mind and nothing could change it.

III
HIDDEN WINGS

The next day Buster Bumblebee set out for the orchard to find Mrs. Ladybug. He wanted to warn her to stop talking about Betsy Butterfly. But Buster hadn't realized that it was not an easy matter to say anything to Mrs. Ladybug. Mrs. Ladybug always liked to do most of the talking herself. She preferred to let others listen.

He found her hard at work destroying insects on an old apple tree. And when she caught sight of him Mrs. Ladybug paused in her labors.

"Well, young man!" she exclaimed, looking at Buster severely. "Are you idling this lovely day away? You don't seem to be making any honey."

Buster wished that he had spoken first. He certainly had had no intention of discussing such matters as honey making.

"I don't need to make honey," he told Mrs. Ladybug. "The workers in our hive provide honey enough. Maybe you didn't know that I'm of royal blood. I'm the Queen's son. I don't have to work," he declared somewhat hotly.

"Rubbish!" cried Mrs. Ladybug, regarding him with a frown. "Go get yourself some working clothes! Take off your black velvet and gold! And save that suit for best!"

"You don't understand," Buster tried to explain. "Being a Queen's son, I'm expected to wear my court costume every day."

"Nonsense!" Mrs. Ladybug retorted. "The sooner you get such silly notions out of your head, the better off you'll be. Everybody ought to work. Too much play is bad for folks."

Buster Bumblebee could feel himself flushing. The neighbors were not expected to address a Queen's son in that fashion.

"That's exactly the way you talk about Betsy Butterfly!" he exploded.

"Huh!" Mrs. Ladybug sniffed. "You are a worthless pair. Betsy Butterfly's wings—"

At this point Buster managed to interrupt her.

"Don't talk about wings, please!" he cried. "Who are you, to talk about wings?—when you haven't any yourself."

Mrs. Ladybug started; and she gave him a queer look. "What's that?" she inquired. "What's that? Say that again!"

"You haven't any wings."

"Ho!" she laughed. "You're mistaken. I have wings."

"Then you've left them at home," he insisted.

Mrs. Ladybug smiled a very knowing sort of smile. When he saw it Buster Bumblebee couldn't help feeling uncomfortable. Somehow he knew that he had blundered. But just where he had erred he was unable to decide.

"Watch sharp, young sir!" Mrs. Ladybug bade him. "Watch sharp and perhaps you'll be able to learn something."

Then Buster Bumblebee received the surprise of his life. As he watched, little Mrs. Ladybug opened her shell-like, black-dotted, red back and spread a pair of delicate brown wings.

"See these?" she said to Buster Bumblebee, who gasped at her blankly. "I've really two pairs of wings, because my polka dot wing covers are actually wings too—only folks don't usually call them by that name."

Having spread her wings, Mrs. Ladybug decided to take a short flight. And with Buster gazing dully after her she flitted off.

"I'll have to tell my mother, the Queen, about this," he muttered.

IV
RUSTY WREN HELPS

Rusty Wren's wife was getting very impatient. She was at home with her fast-growing family of youngsters, at home in the cherry tree near Farmer Green's chamber window.

"Dear me!" Mrs. Wren exclaimed. "I don't see what's keeping Rusty. It's at least a quarter of an hour since he brought any food to these children."

Mrs. Wren soon grew tired of waiting.

"I'll go and find him!" she said under her breath. And telling her nestlings that she would be back in a few minutes, she hurried off towards the orchard.

"I thought so!" Mrs. Wren muttered soon afterward, as she caught sight of her husband. He was talking with Jolly Robin, in the old apple tree where the Robin family lived. "I thought so!"

"Have you forgotten your duty as a parent?" Mrs. Wren asked her husband in a tart voice, dropping down on a branch right behind him.

Rusty Wren jumped.

"I've been here only a second or two," he faltered. "Mr. Robin and I had a little business together."

"So I see," said Mrs. Wren. "So I see. And now, if your business is finished, allow me to remind you that you have six hungry sons and daughters at home." Then Mrs. Wren twitched herself off her perch and flew back to the cherry tree and her family.

"I declare," Rusty Wren remarked to his friend Jolly Robin, "I must have stayed here, talking with you, longer than I thought. Those children have enormous appetites. I'll have to work more spryly than ever to get them fed before sunset."

"I know how that is," said Jolly Robin with a chuckle. Somehow he seemed much more cheerful than his companion. "I was actually glad when our last nestlings were big enough to leave home and hustle for themselves. But, of course," he added, "I still keep an eye on them."

Rusty Wren had already begun to hunt for tidbits. Almost immediately he found an ant, which he snatched up and carried away. Back and forth he flew, making dozens of trips between his house and the orchard. Grubs and caterpillars, grasshoppers and spiders—he seized them wherever he could spy them and took them home to his famishing children.

Though he worked his hardest, Mrs. Wren hadn't a smile for him. And when she said anything in his hearing, it was some such remark as this: "You poor, hungry dears! It's a pity you can't have all you need to eat. I only hope your scanty meals won't stunt your growth."

Naturally such speeches didn't make her husband feel any more at his ease.

"I'll have to bring home something special, to please her," he thought. "I wish I could find some dainty that would put her in better humor."

So he looked all around to see what he could discover that was different from the food he had been gathering. And it wasn't long before he gave a chirp of delight. "Here's a pretty beetle!" he cried. "I know it will make Mrs. Wren smile when I show it to her."

Thereupon Rusty Wren pounced upon Mrs. Ladybug and bore her away, struggling, in his bill.

V
A HARD SHELL

Rusty Wren hurried home, carrying Mrs. Ladybug despite her frantic efforts to escape. She wriggled all her six legs at the same time.

"She'll be pleased with this one," Rusty murmured, as he watched Mrs. Ladybug's struggles. "Mrs. Wren will certainly thank me when I give her this morsel."

And she did.

"How