Jennie Junebug kept still as a mouse, herself, until Solomon had gone back to the woods. Then she stole forth from her hiding place, showing a battered face to her friends.
"Good-by, everybody!" she called. "I'm going to move. I'm going 'way down to the end of the valley to live.... I'm off already," she added, as she spread her wings.
Nobody ever saw Jennie Junebug on Farmer Green's place again.
And Mrs. Ladybug was more than satisfied.
XVI
PLAYING DEAD
Farmer Green's apple trees looked green and flourishing. Thanks to Mrs. Ladybug—and some of her relations—there was scarcely an insect left on the leaves. And since there was no more work to be done in the orchard just then, and nothing for her to eat, Mrs. Ladybug settled among the raspberry bushes near the duck pond. She said that they needed her attention.
One day she paused in her labors, feeling that she had earned a few minutes' rest. And she dropped out of the bushes and strayed close to the water's edge.
A light breeze ruffled the surface of the duck pond into tiny waves.
"What a terrible, rough sea there is to-day!" Mrs. Ladybug murmured as she gazed upon the troubled water. "Perhaps, if I cling to a tall grass stalk, I can get a better view of it."