Chapter 5 - Page 2

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."