“It’s the very first thing you ought to know. It’s about your own family tree. I’m simply shocked.”
“You’re just dreadful,” exclaimed Priscilla, angrily, stamping her foot on the rough bark. “I shall not go a—”
“Oh, yes, I guess you will,” responded the spider, with a queer little twinkle in his eyes.
Then, before Priscilla could tell him that she really and truly wouldn’t move a step, she felt herself rapidly approaching the trunk of the tree. It seemed as if the old oak were suddenly drawing in the limb upon which she stood, just as a turtle draws in its long neck. She noticed, too, for the first time, a hole in the trunk—a very ordinary knot-hole, she would have said a moment before—which was growing bigger and bigger as she approached. Unless, perhaps, she, herself, was shrinking smaller and smaller. Suddenly, and exactly as if she did it on purpose—although she tried her best not to do it—Priscilla raised her two hands over her head and dived right through the knot-hole, just grazing the tip of her nose as she went in. Indeed, if her nose had been the least bit longer, or had stuck straight out from her face, like some people’s noses, instead of having its own neat upward curve, it would have been badly nipped. Of course, though, Priscilla had no time just then to think about noses. Down she went, and around she went, and very queerly, indeed, she felt.
Now, it isn’t quite easy to count the time while a person is falling, as I am sure any friend of yours who has dropped from the top of a church steeple will tell you if you ask him. To Priscilla it seemed as if she had been going just about as long as her little brother Halbert could sit still at the dinner table, when—puff, whist—and she had stopped.
“Now, come right along and don’t talk back. That’s one thing the Hopolanthus will not stand. You can say anything you choose if he hasn’t spoken first, but—”
“But suppose he speaks just as soon as I come into his parlor?”
“That’s impossible,” responded the spider, in a very positive tone. “He hasn’t any parlor; but come along.”
Everything was done in such a dreadful hurry that Priscilla felt as if she were not getting more than half as many breaths as she should.
“Please, Mr. Spider,” she protested, “you know I’ve come quite a—a quick distance, and I want to sit down and rest a few minutes.”