ed 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 trouble upon yourselves," she told them. "How can
you expect Mrs. Ladybug to keep the tongue of the bell still? She can't
even keep her own tongue from wagging!"

No doubt Peppery Polly knew what she was talking about. She had a very
sharp tongue, herself.

XX

FIRE! FIRE!

THE whole countryside was dry. It hadn't rained for weeks. The grass was
turning brown. The water in the river was low. And Broad Brook was no
more than a narrow trickle. E