This banner made the following announcement:
HONEST TO GOODNESS, I DIDN'T DO IT!
"Why, I don't know what that's all about!" Freddie exclaimed impatiently. "Let me see the third one!" So he looked next at the banner of Mehitable Moth, which seemed to please him better, as he read it aloud:
DON'T WORRY, MRS. GREEN! I'LL CALL AT THE FARMHOUSE BEFORE FALL.
"That's better!" cried Freddie Firefly. "I'll carry this banner with a great deal of pleasure. And I can call at the farmhouse to-night—if Farmer Green's family doesn't go to bed too early."
But there was one difficulty about Freddie's plan. Mehitable Moth did not like to have her banner, which she had made with great pains, taken away from her like that. And she drew Chirpy Cricket to one side and began talking to him in an undertone.
Soon he turned again to Freddie Firefly, saying, "She thinks that if you're going to carry her banner in the procession you ought to let her take your light."
"Oh, I can't do that!" Freddie exclaimed quickly. "I wouldn't THINK of doing that!"
"It would be only fair, it seems to me," Chirpy Cricket observed.
"Well, I won't do it, anyhow," Freddie declared. "I'd stay out of the procession first. And so would all my relations, too."