"The butter-and-eggs in the meadow!" Daddy Longlegs informed her. "I suppose you know the plant, don't you?"
"I've heard of it," Mrs. Ladybug replied. "But I doubt if there is such a thing."
"And I say there is!" Buster Bumblebee clamored. "We Bumblebees are very fond[p. 61] of butter-and-eggs. And we're about the only field people that know how to open a blossom and reach its nectar."
Little Mrs. Ladybug waited to hear no more.
"You've made a terrible blunder!" she told Daddy Longlegs hurriedly. And before he could answer her she had hastened away.
Like many another jealous body, Mrs. Ladybug had behaved very foolishly. And it was no wonder that she wanted to get away from the crowd.
She didn't even beg Betsy Butterfly's pardon for calling her a thief. But all the rest of the field people realized at last that Betsy was no thief.
The butter-and-eggs plant, they were well aware, was as free as the clover, or the milk-weed blossoms, or any other of the wild flowers. Everybody knew that Farmer[p. 62] Green laid no claim to them, though they did grow in his meadow.
And when Betsy Butterfly thanked Daddy Longlegs for his explanation he wished more than ever that he had worn his new coat that day—and his new hat, too.