The Tale of Mrs. LadyBug

MP3 Audio CD. The Tale of Mrs. LadyBug

I

THE POLKA DOT LADY


LITTLE Mrs. Ladybug was a worker. Nobody could deny that. To be sure,
she had to stop now and then to talk to her neighbors, because Mrs.
Ladybug dearly loved a bit of gossip. At the same time there wasn't
anyone in Pleasant Valley that helped Farmer Green more than she did.
She tried her hardest to keep the trees in the orchard free from
insects.

Some of her less worthy neighbors were known sometimes to say with a
sniff, "If Mrs. Ladybug didn't enjoy her work she wouldn't care about
helping Farmer Green. If she hadn't such a big appetite she'd stop to
chat even more than she does now."

That might seem an odd remark--unless one happened to know how Mrs.
Ladybug freed the orchard of the tiny pests that attacked it. The truth
of the matter was this: Mrs. Ladybug _ate_ the little insects that fed
upon the fruit trees. Her constant toil meant that she devoured huge
numbers of Farmer Green's enemies.

Goodness knows what Farmer Green would have done had Mrs. Ladybug and
all her family lost their taste for that kind of fare. The orchard might
have been a sorry sight.

Perhaps it was only to be expected that Mrs. Ladybug should have little
patience with folk that seemed lazy. She thought that Freddie Firefly
wasted too much of his time dancing in the meadow at night. She
considered Buster Bumblebee, the Queen's son, to be a useless idler,
dressed in his black velvet and gold. Having heard that Daddy Longlegs
was a harvestman, she urged him to go to work for Farmer Green at
harvest time. And as for the beautiful Betsy Butterfly, Mrs. Ladybug
found all manner of fault with her.