Then Freddie Firefly knew exactly what Benjamin feared. And he was so amused that he couldn"t help taking a turn around the dooryard, to dance and laugh and shout.
And when he came back to the place where he had left Benjamin Bat, that odd gentleman had vanished.
The terrified Benjamin had floundered away toward the swamp. And never, afterward, did he have a word to say to Freddie Firefly.
But whenever Freddie Firefly caught sight of Benjamin Bat"s dark shape, flitting in a zigzag path across the moon, he always cried out in a loud voice:
"Look out, Benjamin Bat! Mr. Moon will singe your wings if you"re not careful."
XX
MRS. LADYBUG"S ADVICE
Finding himself face to face with Mrs. Ladybug one night in Farmer Green"s meadow, Freddie Firefly noticed, even before she spoke, that the little lady was not in a cheerful mood. In fact, she frowned at him darkly and pointed one of her knitting needles straight at him as she began to speak.
"You"re terribly careless with that light of yours," she said. "People are always warning me that my house is on fire and telling me that I"d better hurry home. Now--" she added--"now I think I"ve discovered the reason why my friends are forever worrying about fire. No doubt when they give me such advice they have seen you prowling around my house with that light of yours; and they think that if you haven"t already set my house on fire, you"re just a-going to."
When Freddie Firefly saw that Mrs. Ladybug was making Benjamin Bat"s mistake of thinking that his light could start a blaze, he had to smile.
"Nonsense!" he cried. "I"m always very careful, Mrs. Ladybug, when I"m near your house. You know that I wouldn"t want your charming children to burn up."
And now Mrs. Ladybug pointed her other knitting needle at Freddie.
"Well, if you"re not careless, you"re silly, anyhow," she snapped. "I wouldn"t object so much to your light if only you"d put it to some good use. But as long as I"ve known you--and that"s several weeks--I"ve never seen you do anything but caper about the meadow and dance." And then Mrs. Ladybug began to knit furiously, as if to show Freddie Firefly that she was never idle, even if she did spend a good deal of time away from home. "Do you intend always to fritter your nights away as you do now?"
she inquired.
"What else could I do? I should like to know--" Freddie began.
"Why not use your light in some kind of work?" Mrs. Ladybug asked him.
"What work, I should like to know--" Freddie said. And since Mrs.
Ladybug did not at once answer him, he added: "I don"t believe you can suggest anything--can you?"
"Oh, yes, I can!" she declared quickly. "I was thinking. That"s why I didn"t reply sooner. Probably you don"t know that I have helped many youngsters to begin to work. For instance, it was I that told Daddy Longlegs to help Farmer Green with his harvesting." Little Mrs. Ladybug felt so proud of herself that she dropped a st.i.tch without noticing it.
"Daddy Longlegs! HE"S not young!" Freddie Firefly exclaimed.
"Oh! yes, he is! He"s not so old as you think," Mrs. Ladybug replied.
"He"s just about your age. And if he can work, you certainly can."
"But I didn"t know that Daddy Longlegs was working for Farmer Green,"
Freddie Firefly said.
"He tried to, one day. But the wind blew too hard. ... It wasn"t really Daddy"s fault," Mrs. Ladybug explained. "And you ought not to attempt to work on windy nights, either," she went on. "For your light might go out, and then there"d be a terrible accident."
XXI
ALL ABOUT TRAINS
"What do you mean?" Freddie Firefly asked little Mrs. Ladybug. "What accident could happen if the wind blew out my light?" And he laughed very hard, because he knew that no gale was strong enough even to dim his greenish-white gleams.
"Why," replied Mrs. Ladybug, "the train would strike you and be wrecked.
You see," she continued, "I have everything planned for you. You"re going to spend your nights on the railroad tracks, signalling the trains."
Well, Freddie Firefly rather liked Mrs. Ladybug"s idea. And though he knew that she was mistaken about some things, he began to think that perhaps she was quite wise, after all.
"Aren"t you afraid I might set fire to the trains?" he inquired slyly.
"No, indeed!" she answered. "You"d stop them, you know, before they ran over you."
"But I don"t know how to make a train stop," he objected. "I"ve never worked on a railroad in all my life."
"Why, it"s simple enough," said little Mrs. Ladybug. "When a train came along you would stand on the track right in front of it and wave your light." And while she smiled at Freddie Firefly as if to say, "You see how easy it is," she dropped six more st.i.tches out of her knitting--and never found them, either.
Freddie Firefly, however, did not smile at all. On the contrary, he looked somewhat worried.
"Are you sure it"s safe?" he asked her. "If the train failed to stop, with me on the track in front of it--"
"Don"t worry about that!" cried little Mrs. Ladybug. "You"ll never amount to anything if you worry. And if you don"t wish to fritter away your time dancing in this meadow, you"ll take my advice and begin to work at once."
"I"ll think about the matter," said Freddie Firefly. And then he added somewhat doubtfully: "It"s a long way to the railroad."
"Pooh!" Mrs. Ladybug exclaimed. "Old Mr. Crow often visits it. And if he can fly that far, at his age, a youngster like you ought not to mind the trip."
"Perhaps you know best," Freddie Firefly told Mrs. Ladybug at last.
"I"ll take your advice just this once, and I"ll see how I like the work.
But there"s another question I"d like to ask you: What will the trains do after they stop?"
While laughing over Freddie"s question Mrs. Ladybug shook so hard that she unravelled sixteen rows of her knitting before she could stop.
"Bless you!" she cried, as soon as she could speak. "I don"t know what the trains will do. That"s their affair--not yours nor mine. Everybody"s aware that trains are made for two purposes--to start and to stop. But I never should think of being so rude as to ask them WHY, or WHAT, or WHEN, or WHERE."
So Freddie Firefly thanked Mrs. Ladybug most politely. He was sure, now, that she was one of the wisest persons in the whole valley. No doubt, he thought, she knew almost as much as old Mr. Crow, or even Solomon Owl.
And he wished he knew half what she did.
"I"ll start for the railroad track at once," Freddie told Mrs. Ladybug.
And waving his cap at her, while she waved her knitting at him, he set forth towards the village, the lights of which twinkled dimly in the distance.