"You'd better go home. Farmer Hayseed is pouring white stuff all over your houses. Most of your folks have left, but I saw little Poe and Tato still there."
"Dear me! O! O!" they both cried, "those children will be choked to death!" No two mothers could have hurried home faster. Lady Bug tried to give a little comfort on the way.
"I think," said she, "that Rose Bug will help the children, for all she lives in such a beautiful new home. Rose is so fond of Poe and Tato; and then, too, Bush Manor is not so far away."
Not one word did Mrs. Poe Tato-Bug say, but flying and jumping she hurried home. Her red speckled wings kept cracking louder and louder as she hurried along faster and faster.
"I wish you would not hurry so fast," said Lady Bug, gently, "really I am quite out of breath; and see! there is Farmer Hayseed way up at the other end of the patch. He hasn't reached our home yet."
Mrs. Poe Tato-Bug looked eagerly, and sure enough, there was Farmer Hayseed with a big box marked "Paris Green" in one hand, and in the other a sieve through which he was sifting fine white powder.
"Dear me!" sighed Mrs. Poe Tato-Bug, "this is such a relief. Here we are." At once she began scurrying around over every leaf of her home, but not a sign of little Poe and Tato could she find.
"Gracious!" said Lady Bug, "how very unfortunate. Where do you suppose they are?"
"I don't suppose, but I guess I know," replied Mrs. Poe Tato-Bug, as off she scurried toward the Rose Bush in the old fashioned garden near by.
And as they hurried toward the bush they could see Rose Bug with her wings around little Poe and Tato. She was singing a lullabye, trying to keep them quiet or put them to sleep, and this was the lullabye she sang: