A WORLD OF LITTLE PEOPLE.
By Paranete.
FROM the further corner of the fence, one end fastened to a bush near by, hung a spider’s silken web, regular as if made on geometrical principles. In the centre of this sat a good-sized spider, the proprietress, who had just finished devouring the most of an unwary fly, whose bloodless remains lay at her side. Up to the spider came two ants—Zed and Zoo.
“Excuse me,” said the spider, looking at them suspiciously, “for having any doubts as to the safety of making your acquaintance. But you have just been communicating with my greatest enemy, the wasp, and have been watching with heartless interest the destruction of one of my family. I am sure I hope you have no personal designs upon my life. The wasp is such a very daring foe, that I fear you, even though you are so small.”
“I assure you,” replied Zed, “that our interest in the wasp’s doings was wholly due to ignorance, and we are no friends of hers, nor have we any design against you.”
“Very well,” replied the spider, whose name was Luxz, “I am very glad. I feel in a pretty good humor this morning, having just finished a most delicious fly. I say finished, or I would offer you some. All spiders like flies. I had a most unpleasant disappointment yesterday. I was over on the window-sill of the house yonder, and saw a large fly resting on a piece of paper. Of course I sprang after him, but there was no fly there! I walked over and over him, too! One of my neighbors suggests that it was a picture; as if an intelligent spider couldn’t tell the difference between a picture and a fly!”
The two ants nodded their assent to this highly probable statement.
“You spin a great deal, I suppose?” asked Zoo.
“O, yes!” said Luxz; “I am as busy as can be. I can spin little fine threads, and coarser ones, and dance and swing all around on them. But of course the most of my time is occupied with work. It is a good deal of work to make a web, although you might not think so. There were some boys coming past here to school as I had just finished a nice web, quite a while ago, and they knocked it all down. I built another, then another, but every time those wicked creatures would destroy it, and then laugh at my dismay. Finally my pockets were as empty as could be, and I was all out of silk, so I had to go and kill another spider, and occupy her web for a time. But this I built myself.”
“You catch a good many flies?”