Buster noticed, as he drew near to the Carpenter's house once more, that
there was a crowd in the Carpenter's dooryard. Everybody looked so
sorrowful that Buster was sure something dreadful had happened.

"What's the matter?" he asked little Mrs. Ladybug, who was wiping her
eyes with a lace pocket-handkerchief.

"It's the Carpenter," she answered, as soon as she could speak. "He's
disappeared. And now we've just heard what's become of him. Johnnie Green
caught him yesterday and has made him a prisoner!"

That was bad news indeed--for Buster Bumblebee. He was so sorry that he
swallowed hard three or four times before he could say a word. And then
he began to groan.

"This is terrible!" he moaned at last. And all the Carpenter's neighbors
gathered around him and said what a kind-hearted young gentleman he was,
but that it was no more than you might expect of a queen's son.

"The Carpenter must have been a dear friend of yours," quavered old Daddy
Longlegs, tottering up to Buster and peering into his face.

"Oh, no!" said Buster Bumblebee. "But he promised to build a house for me
as soon as he had finished working on his own. So his being a prisoner is
pretty hard on me. For I've invited all my friends to a house-warming and
I don't know what to do."