LITTLE MISS MUFFET
"Cowards are cruel
But the brave
Have mercy, and delight to save"
Little Miss Muffet,
Sat on a tuffet,
Eating her curds and whey.
There came a big spider,
And sat down beside her,
Which frightened Miss Muffet away.
Of course if Miss Muffet had been just an ordinary little girl, she would not have been afraid of spiders! But she wasn't an ordinary little girl at all, she was a little fairy girl, which just makes all the difference. That is why she is always known as "little" Miss Muffet, because she was so very small, and spiders did seem to her so very large; and that is why she is always called "Miss" Muffet, because fairy girls only have sur-names, just as if they were grown-ups!
It was really extremely awkward that Miss Muffet was so afraid of spiders, and of the Spider in particular, because, you see, the one thing a fairy cannot be is a coward. If a fairy once does a cowardly act, unless he or she immediately makes it right by doing a brave one, he or she will become a mortal at once. And think how dull it would be to become a mere mortal, when you have been used to flying, or dancing, or appearing in dreams, or granting wishes, or doing one of the hundred and one exciting things that fairies do!
Miss Muffet lived under a gooseberry bush just outside the farm-house door, and the Spider lived in the barn opposite, and there was a fine tuft of grass in between, where they sometimes met. The farm people knew all about fairies, and on Midsummer Eve always put out a bowl of curds and whey for Miss Muffet in the true old-fashioned style. Miss Muffet always hoped that the Spider would not see it and get there first. Oh, Miss Muffet was certainly very much afraid of the Spider!
She was quite sure he had a hundred legs, whereas he had only eight; quite sure that he was as big as a house, whereas he wasn't as big as your little finger; and quite sure that he spent his life lying in wait to eat her up, whereas he was far too busy about his own affairs ever to think about her at all!
It was on one particular Midsummer Eve that Miss Muffet had her great adventure with the Spider.
It was a beautiful moonlight night. Miss Muffet crept out from under the gooseberry bush, and flew across to the tuft of grass. Yes, there was the bowl of curds and whey as usual. It had never been forgotten ever since Miss Muffet had come to live under the gooseberry bush.
Miss Muffet tripped up to the bowl, and began to sip the contents, thinking all the while how glad she was that she was not a mortal, when——
Plop!
Out of the barn dropped the Spider, close down beside her.
"Can you tell me where the best dewdrops——" he began. But Miss Muffet only looked once in his direction, and then fled as fast as her wings could carry her.
Trembling, she reached the gooseberry bush, and then, all of a sudden, her wings failed her.
"Oh dear," she cried. "I have run away, and been a coward. If I don't do something very brave at once I shall start turning into a mortal. Oh, I don't want to be an ordinary little girl and be called Molly or Dolly, and have to walk everywhere, and go to school, and put my hair in pig-tails. I must do something brave this minute."
Then her eye fell on the gooseberry bush.
"I know," she said, "I will screw up my courage and kill that spider dead. I will take a thorn from the gooseberry bush to spear him with."
So, with her tiny hands, she broke off a long thorn from the gooseberry bush. Then, feeling very brave indeed, she shouldered the thorn and flew back very slowly to the tuft.
At first she thought the spider had disappeared, as she could not see him anywhere. But, happening to fly over the bowl of curds and whey, she saw that he was lying struggling, in the very middle of it!
At first sight of him Miss Muffet felt all her old terror returning, and had half a mind to fly away again. But then she remembered that she had come to do a brave deed, and she held her big thorn tighter, and forced herself to look at the Spider as he struggled in the curds and whey.
"That will make it easier," she said, as she balanced herself on the rim of the bowl. "He will not be able to fly away when I start to stab him," and she poised the thorn all ready for a vigorous thrust.
The Spider looked up at her.
"Gracious lady," he began humbly. "Can you direct me as to the best way out of this pond?"
Miss Muffet was so astonished at being addressed so humbly and so politely by such a formidable person as the Spider, that she lowered her spear-point in order to look at him more closely.
"Gracious lady," began the Spider again. "I beg you will show me the way to get out of this pond soon. I have eight hours more work to do to-night before my task is done."
"Work!" said Miss Muffet, almost to herself. "Do you do any work?"
"Toil and spin, toil and spin, year in, year out," said the Spider sadly. "It is my masterpiece that I am finishing to-night,—a woven counterpane, light as air, threaded with sparkling dewdrops. I was just going out to fetch a few more, and thought there might be some in this pond; but it is a sticky pond, and I fell in, and now I cannot get out again."
"Well, of all the idiots!" began Miss Muffet. "Of course you won't find dewdrops in there," she continued hastily. "But tell me some more about your work?"
So the Spider, still struggling in the curds and whey, told on. How he helped the gardener by eating up the flies; how day and night he toiled and spun, making and weaving carpets and counterpanes from silken threads that he himself spun out of nothing. "It was my masterpiece I was to finish to-night," he said again at the end.
All the while he was talking a great struggle was going on in Miss Muffet's mind.
She raised the thorn again.
"I came here to kill him. I shall be a coward and turn into a mortal if I don't kill him," she said to herself. "But if I kill him he will never finish his masterpiece. Supposing I don't kill him after all, but help him out, then he can finish his work and be happy." She looked at him again and shuddered.
"Oh, if I help him out he will eat me!" she cried. "I will be brave and kill him."
So she shouldered the thorn, and poised herself once more upon the edge of the bowl.
The Spider was still struggling, but more feebly, and Miss Muffet could hear him muttering to himself, "Grey, threaded with silver and sparkling dewdrops, oh, my masterpiece!"
"No!" she said, flinging the spear down on the tuft behind her. "I can't kill him. What does it matter if I turn into a mortal. I have never done any work or made a masterpiece. Let him eat me if he likes. I will save him!"
"Here!" she said in a louder voice. "Give me one of your feet, and I will pull you out."
"Ugh! how ugly he is," she continued to herself, as the Spider drew nearer and lifted up one of his feet. She knelt down on the brim, and stretching out her tiny hands seized the foot, and pulled him slowly up the side of the bowl.
"Now he'll eat me!" she thought, as he stood for a moment shaking himself on the edge.
But no, without a word he was gone, scuttling straight off to the barn as fast as he could run. Was it possible that he was afraid of her!
Miss Muffet looked round. Behind her on the ground lay the big thorn with which she had set out to kill the Spider.
"I wonder it I have been a coward to spare him after all," she said as she flew home. "Anyway, I shall know to-morrow morning. Perhaps this is the last fly I shall ever have, and when I wake up to-morrow I shall be just an ordinary little girl with no wings, and a serge frock and pigtails." And murmuring "Coward, coward, I shall be an ordinary little girl to-morrow!" she fell asleep.
But when she woke up to-morrow morning she found she was a fairy still—wings and all; and moreover she found spread over her the daintiest and most beautiful counterpane in the world, made of grey threads woven with silver and diamented with dewdrops all glistening and quivering in the morning sunlight. It was indeed a masterpiece!
"Look what a lovely spider's web there is under the gooseberry bush!" said the farmer's little girl, when she came to fetch the empty bowl of curds and whey that morning.