"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[p. 45] 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[p. 46] in the habit of taking from Farmer Green.
"Eggs!" he replied promptly.
"Eggs!" Mrs. Ladybug repeated after him. "Betsy Butterfly steals butter and eggs!"