have been an excellent answer, for it seemed to keep
people quiet. And it made some think that perhaps Buster Bumblebee was
not quite so dull as he often appeared.

Once, indeed, he had thought it would be fun to help with the
honey-making. So he stopped one of the workers when she was on her way
home with a load of nectar.

"Let me help you carry that home!" Buster said.

Now, the workers were all a shrewish lot. They were terribly
short-tempered--especially if anybody interfered with their work, which
they loved better than anything else in the world.

"Don't you come near me!" snapped the worker angrily. "Keep away or I'll
sting you!" she threatened.

Naturally, a happy, easy-going person like Buster Bumblebee wasn't
looking for trouble of that sort. So he dodged clumsily out of sight
behind a milkweed; and he made up his mind then that that was the last
time he would ever have anything to do with one of those testy
honey-makers.

Of course it was a bit difficult to avoid them entirely in a family of
two hundred or more, all living together in a medium-sized house. And so
Buster Bumblebee decided at last that he would be far happier in some
place that was not so crowded, and where there was no work going on--and
no workers.

And so, one fine August day, Buster left the family home, never to set
foot inside it again. But he often passed that way and lingered just
outside the door, to listen to the music and the sound of dancing within.

That was the thing that he missed most; for, like all his family, he was
fond of music. And he was forever humming to himself as he sipped nectar
from the clover-tops or the flowers in Farmer Green's garden.

[Illustration: Buster Listened to Mrs. Ladybug's Suggestion. (_Page 56_)]

XII

THE CARPENTER BEE

After Buster Bumblebee left the old house in the meadow, where Mrs. Field
Mouse had once lived, he had no real home. Like that quarrelsome rascal,
Peter Mink, he would crawl into any good place that he happened to find.
Sometimes Buster chose a hole in a fence-rail, and sometimes a crack in
the side of one of the farm-buildings. He really didn't much care where
he spent the night, provided it was not too far from the flower garden or
the clover field.

Not being one of the worrying kind, Buster was quite contented with his
lot. And it would never have occurred to him to live in any different
style had it not been for a remark that little Mrs. Ladybug made to