"Ah!" Chirpy Cricket exclaimed. "Now I know! You're going to live in the haystack. A haystack is cozy and warm; it's wind-proof; it sheds water; and there's nothing bigger anywhere."
It really seemed as if Chirpy Cricket had solved the great mystery.
"He's guessed the riddle!" people said. "You might as well admit now, Mrs. Ladybug, that you're going to spend the winter in Farmer Green's haystack."
But Mrs. Ladybug dashed their hopes.
"You're wrong," she told her friends. "And if to-night's as nippy as last night was, perhaps you'll find out to-morrow where I'm going. For I don't care to freeze my toes here in the orchard."
That night it was colder than ever. And the next day Mrs. Ladybug went all around the orchard and the garden bidding people good-by.
Still she wouldn't tell where she was going. And if Daddy Longlegs hadn't happened to stroll around the cherry tree outside Farmer Green's chamber window that afternoon, nobody would have known where Mrs. Ladybug went. But Daddy Longlegs saw her. And he hastened to spread the news.
"Mrs. Ladybug has gone to spend the winter in the farmhouse!"