Read Ebook: The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug by Bailey Arthur Scott Smith Harry L Illustrator

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Ebook has 478 lines and 69945 words, and 10 pages

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.

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.

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.

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 lovely!" Mrs. Wren exclaimed when Rusty gave her his captive.

And he was so glad that he hastened away to try to find another just like that one. But he hadn't gone far before he said, "Ugh! I hope I haven't made a mistake. I don't like the taste of that beetle." And he dropped down upon the ground and carefully wiped his bill upon the grass.

He couldn't help feeling somewhat worried.

"I don't believe the children will notice anything wrong," he muttered. "So far, they've never refused anything that was offered them. But if Mrs. Wren tried to eat that beetle herself, I fear there'll be trouble."

And there was. Rusty knew it a few minutes later, when little Mr. Chippy's son, Chippy, Jr., came flitting up and peeped in his childish voice, "Please, sir, Mrs. Wren wants you at once."

There was nothing to do except to go home. And Rusty went.

He found Mrs. Wren much upset.

"Are you trying to poison us?" she demanded.

"No, indeed--my love!" Rusty Wren replied meekly.

"Well, you made a terrible mistake, then," she declared.

Meanwhile Rusty Wren was looking all around. Yet he couldn't see the pretty beetle anywhere. "Somebody must have swallowed it, anyhow," he thought.

"You must be more careful," his wife told him severely. "That was a horrid-tasting beetle that you brought home. It's lucky I discovered that it was a queer one. The children--poor dears!--are so hungry that any one of them would have bolted it had I offered it to him."

"Then you ate it yourself," Rusty Wren faltered.

"Oh, no, I didn't," said his wife. "I dropped it upon the ground. And no doubt I'd have thrown it away, anyhow, no matter how it tasted."

"Why?" he asked her. "I thought it was a pretty beetle."

"It was pretty enough--I dare say," Mrs. Wren replied. "But it had a very hard shell. It wouldn't have been safe to feed it to the children. Nor should I have cared to eat it myself."

"I thought it was a pretty beetle," Rusty said again. "It was such a gay color--bright red, you know. It seemed to me it would please the children, and you, too."

Mrs. Wren still seemed to be somewhat out of patience.

"When you gather food for the youngsters, never mind about the color of it!" she exclaimed. "If you want to bring them playthings, that's another matter. But don't fetch home any more pretty red beetles for them to eat."

"Very well--my love!" said Rusty Wren. And then he slipped away to hunt for food, because the children were still clamoring for more.

Mrs. Wren talked a good deal, afterward, about her terrible experience. Yet she never stopped to think about the pretty beetle--about little Mrs. Ladybug. For Mrs. Ladybug had had a dreadful fright. Luckily she wasn't hurt. But it was a long time before she was her usual busy, able self again. And later, when she told her friends about her adventure, she said that she couldn't understand how Rusty came to make such a mistake.

"I supposed," Mrs. Ladybug declared, "that every bird in Pleasant Valley knew I wasn't good to eat."

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