After Buster Bumblebee left the old house in the meadow, where Mrs. Field
Mouse had once lived, he had no real home. Like that quarrelsome rascal,
Peter Mink, he would crawl into any good place that he happened to find.
Sometimes Buster chose a hole in a fence-rail, and sometimes a crack in
the side of one of the farm-buildings. He really didn't much care where
he spent the night, provided it was not too far from the flower garden or
the clover field.

Not being one of the worrying kind, Buster was quite contented with his
lot. And it would never have occurred to him to live in any different
style had it not been for a remark that little Mrs. Ladybug made to him
one day.

"I should think--" she said--"I should think that the son of a queen
ought to have a house of his own, instead of sleeping--like a
tramp--where night overtakes him."

Now, Mrs. Ladybug's words did not offend Buster Bumblebee in the least.

"No doubt you know best," he told her. "But how can I build a house? I've
never worked in all my life. And I don't intend to begin now."

"Why not get some one to build a house for you?" she asked him.

"I never thought of that!" he cried. "Whom would you suggest?"

"I know the very person!" Mrs. Ladybug told him. "He's a Carpenter Bee;
and he lives in the big poplar by the brook. Perhaps you know him.