“But there is,” declared a large brown spider, whose body looked as though it were set on a framework of legs. “I mean to speak too—if only to point out all those webs in the grass.”
“Oh, I’ve often seen webs like that,” said Ruth. “They are lovely with dew on them. But why do you call yourself a funnel weaver?”
“I don’t!” she snapped. “The men, who think they know everything, gave me that name, because at one side of my web is a funnel-shaped tube. It is our way to escape our enemies. We run through it into the grass when something too big for us to manage gets into our web.”
“I generally make my web in houses,” said a small, slender-legged, light-coloured spider.
She spoke in a hurry, as though she was afraid some one might stop her before she finished. “I have cousins who like fields and fences and outbuildings, but our webs are all the same pattern. Not so regular as yours, Mrs. Orb Weaver, but very fine and delicate.”
“Oh, everybody knows you, Mrs. Cobweb Weaver,” said a voice from a nearby twig. “Now if you are speaking of legs——”
“We are not,” answered Mrs. Orb Weaver, “and I should like to know how you came here.”
“On my legs of course. Don’t you think they are long enough? And though I can neither spin nor weave, I am your relation, and I have as much right to be here as you have. I——”
“Why, it’s Daddy Long Legs,” interrupted Ruth, with a friendly smile of recognition. “I like daddies.”
“Well, I am not saying anything about my legs,” remarked a fat little spider, as Daddy tried to bow to Ruth, “though I have eight of them. I usually travel in a balloon, which I make myself. Oh, I tell you, it is fine to go