“I’m no more an ant than you,” said Emma, “I can’t help being small.”
“Ant, ant, ant!” they cried, “ants belong on the ground and that’s your proper place,” and pushed her off on to the ground.
The unlucky part was that Emma’s mother didn’t know what had happened, and before Emma could struggle to her feet, she had hurried away having noticed a bird hovering near. There was Emma all alone, a poor lost little spider without a mother or a home.
She was feeling very sad and wondering what would become of her, when along came another Mother Spider with a lot of babies on her back. Two of these fell off quite near to Emma, and when they ran back to their mother she ran with them. Up an unknown leg she climbed and on to a strange back, and yet she felt quite as happy and at home as if it had been her own mother and the companions she joined had been her real brothers and sisters. How different spiders are from us! Emma’s mother never knew she had lost a baby, and the new mother didn’t bother herself at all that she had adopted one, and as for the strange brothers and sisters, they treated her rather better than her own, for they happened to be just a little smaller than Emma so were not strong enough to push her off. As far as Emma was concerned it was decidedly a change for the better, and she was really a very lucky little spider.