“Hello! There is the sea at last!” he cried joyfully, and rushed forward eagerly to meet it. And as he joined the great ocean he shouted out as if he meant that all the world should hear, “Here I am; I’m a sea now!” (See full page illustration on [page 68].)
THE SPIDER AND THE FLY
The spider was in a rare temper as she hurried back to the dark corner where she had her home.
“Upon my word,” she muttered, “it is too bad! This is the third time that wretched housemaid has swept my web away. The ignorant creature calls me an insect. I am not an insect. My body is in two parts instead of three; my head is part of my chest; and I have eight legs instead of six.”
The spider sat in her dark corner thinking very hard. Presently a buzzing sound caught her ears, which happened to be placed at the end of her feet. Her six pairs of eyes glistened with anger.
“There’s that old bluebottle again,” she murmured. “His noise makes my head ache. If I make haste and spin another web, perhaps I can catch him before the maid comes with her broom.”
Having made up her mind, the spider began. On the underpart of her body were four tiny tubes, each with about a thousand still tinier holes. From each tube came a thousand delicate threads made of a gummy fluid. The spider’s hind feet combed and twisted them into one fine thread.
The thread gradually increased in length until a draught caught it and carried it to the edge of the window-curtain, to which it clung.
Several other threads were then stretched from point to point.
“Now,” said the spider, “I can go on building my web.”