"Won't I please knock you down? Of course I will!" Jennie Junebug exclaimed. And thereupon she struck Mrs. Ladybug again.
Poor Mrs. Ladybug was much shaken. In her fall she had dropped her umbrella, and her handkerchief too. But she didn't stop to pick them up. She scrambled to her feet and rose into the air again, angrier than she had ever been before in all her life.
"I'll thank you—" she spluttered.
"You'll thank me if I'll do that again, eh?" said Jennie Junebug, interrupting her rudely. "Very well! Here goes!" This time she gave Mrs. Ladybug a terrific blow. She dropped upon the grass, where she clung to a blade and swayed up and down for a few moments, dizzy and trembling. And she was gasping so hard, in order to get her breath, that she couldn't speak.
Watching her, Jennie Junebug shrieked with laughter. Then, seeing Freddie Firefly's light flashing in the meadow, Miss Junebug hurried away.
XV
ENOUGH!
"Such impudence!" Mrs. Ladybug gasped, as soon as she could speak. "That terrible Jennie Junebug didn't care whether I ever got my breath or not."
After bowling Mrs. Ladybug over three times, Miss Junebug had flown away, leaving poor little Mrs. Ladybug clinging to a blade of grass and wondering if she would be able to move again.
Mrs. Ladybug had attempted to take Jennie Junebug to task. She had intended to berate Jennie for devouring the leaves of Farmer Green's trees and to order her to stop such damage at once. But Jennie Junebug hadn't allowed her to say much. In her playful way she had knocked the breath out of Mrs. Ladybug.