The Tale of Betsy Butterfly | Page 7

Farmer Green's wife is stingy."
Mrs. Ladybug hoped that Johnnie Green's mother would hear her remark. But she didn't. And in the end Mrs. Ladybug had to fly away with her longing for butter still unsatisfied.
Meanwhile Betsy Butterfly had been amusing herself in the meadow to her heart's content. To tell the truth, it was rather a relief to be rid of Mrs. Ladybug's society for so long a time. And Betsy hoped that Mrs. Ladybug's errand to the farmhouse would keep that busybody engaged for the rest of the day.
Now, after she left the farmhouse Mrs. Ladybug set out to find Betsy Butterfly again. But meeting Daddy Longlegs near the stone wall, she stopped to gossip with him, telling him how she had learned that she liked butter, and explaining that she had not yet tasted any.
"So you looked into a buttercup to find out, eh?" said Daddy Longlegs. "I'll have to do that, myself. Maybe I've always liked butter, too, without knowing that I do."
"You can't tell till you try," Mrs. Ladybug remarked. "But you mustn't be too sure. You may be disappointed. There's Betsy Butterfly! She doesn't care for butter at all."
"Are you sure about that?" Daddy Longlegs inquired. "Really, I think you must be mistaken, for I saw her with her face just buried in butter this very day."
At first Mrs. Ladybug looked at him in amazement. And then she grew very angry.
"Betsy Butterfly deceived me!" she cried in a shrill voice. "She was afraid that if I knew she ate butter she would have to share it with me.... I'd like to know where she gets her butter," Mrs. Ladybug mused.
"She was standing on some of Farmer Green's, when I saw her," Daddy Longlegs explained.
"Did she ask him for it?" Mrs. Ladybug demanded.
"I don't believe she did," he admitted. "I think she just took it."
A wicked gleam came into Mrs. Ladybug's eyes when she learned that. And she threw up her hands, exclaiming, "She steals! Betsy Butterfly steals butter! When the field people hear the news they won't think she's so fine." And then Mrs. Ladybug turned to Daddy Longlegs once more and demanded whether he knew of anything else that Betsy Butterfly was in the habit of taking from Farmer Green.
"Eggs!" he replied promptly.
"Eggs!" Mrs. Ladybug repeated after him. "Betsy Butterfly steals butter and eggs!"
And before Daddy Longlegs could stop her she had hurried away to spread the news far and wide.

X
THE NIGHT WATCH
LITTLE Mrs. Ladybug stopped everybody she met in the meadow and related how Betsy Butterfly was taking Farmer Green's butter--and his eggs, too--without asking his permission.
"She's going to get some of us into trouble," Mrs. Ladybug informed her neighbors. "Just as likely as not Farmer Green and his wife will think others are stealing from them. Why, I went to the farmhouse to-day and asked for a bit of butter. And what do you think? Mrs. Green pretended not to hear me! I thought it was queer, at the time. But now I know that she's angry with me. She must have missed some of her butter; and she thinks I'm the guilty party." Mrs. Ladybug shook her finger at her neighbors. "We'll have to do something to put a stop to Betsy Butterfly's thieving," she declared.
Jealous Mrs. Ladybug's story amazed all the field people. They could scarcely believe that anyone so beautiful and dainty as Betsy Butterfly would bemean herself by robbing Farmer Green--or anybody else. But Mrs. Ladybug said that Daddy Longlegs had seen Betsy with her face buried in Farmer Green's butter. And no one could doubt the word of so respectable a person as Daddy Longlegs.
"What steps do you think we ought to take to prevent Betsy from eating any more butter and eggs that don't belong to her?" asked the queen of the Bumblebee family.
"I think we ought to set a careful watch on her," said Mrs. Ladybug. "I'm sure I don't see when she gets her stolen goods, because I've watched her very closely myself for some time. And I've seen her dine on nothing but flowers."
"Perhaps she goes to the farmhouse at night," Jennie Junebug suggested.
"That's a happy thought!" said Mrs. Ladybug approvingly. "We'll have to get Freddie Firefly to follow her about after dark."
So Mrs. Ladybug and her neighbors made arrangements with Freddie Firefly to have Betsy Butterfly spied upon that very night.
"I'll watch her till sunset," Mrs. Ladybug agreed. "And then you must relieve me," she told Freddie. "Don't let her out of your sight until sunrise!" she warned him.
Freddie Firefly promised that he would be faithful to his trust. And later that afternoon, when the sun began to drop behind the mountains, he relieved Mrs. Ladybug, who had been spying upon Betsy ever since their talk earlier in the day.
"She's behaved herself