Chapter 19

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 Bumblebee 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 nobody had mentioned fire to her. Nobody 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 Bumblebee laughed at them.

"You've brought this