huge surprise she fell headlong, while he merely paused in his low
flight.

"Who struck me?" he bawled.

"Jennie Junebug!" said Freddie Firefly.

"Where is she now?" Solomon hooted. "If I find her I'll fix her."

Jennie Junebug heard everything he said. She was lying hidden in the
grass near-by. And she wouldn't have come out for anything.

"I'll keep an eye out for her," Solomon Owl announced. "I come to the
meadow often, a-mousing."

Jennie Junebug kept still as a mouse, herself, until Solomon had gone
back to the woods. Then she stole forth from her hiding place, showing a
battered face to her friends.

"Good-by, everybody!" she called. "I'm going to move. I'm going 'way
down to the end of the valley to live.... I'm off already," she added,
as she spread her wings.

Nobody ever saw Jennie Junebug on Farmer Green's place again.

And Mrs. Ladybug was more than satisfied.

XVI

PLAYING DEAD

FARMER GREEN'S apple trees looked green and flourishing. Thanks to Mrs.
Ladybug--and some of her relations--there was scarcely an insect left on
the leaves. And since there was no more work to be done in the orchard
just then, and nothing for her to eat, Mrs. Ladybug settled among the
raspberry bushes near the duck pond. She said that they needed her
attention.

One day she paused in her labors, feeling that she had earned a few
minutes' rest. And she dropped out of the bushes and strayed close to
the water's edge.

A light breeze ruffled the surface of the duck pond into tiny waves.

"What a terrible, rough sea there is to-day!" Mrs. Ladybug murmured as
she gazed upon the troubled water. "Perhaps, if I cling to a tall grass
stalk, I can get a better view of it."

She soon found a stalk that grew high above all the rest. Crawling to
the very top of it Mrs. Ladybug was able to look far out over the face
of the pond.

"Goodness!" she said to herself. "I'm glad I'm not out there in a ship."

A few moments later she happened to glance down near the shore. And
there, to her horror, she beheld a frog.

He was not a big frog. On the contrary, he was the tiniest frog that
Mrs. Ladybug had ever seen. He was sitting on a lily pad, singing with a
small, shrill voice, which sounded exactly as if you were tapping two
marbles together.

Now, Mrs. Ladybug had all her life stood in great fear of frogs. She
didn't dare move, as she gazed at this one with eyes that popped almost
out of her head.

He was a brownish