THE SPIDER 1
 THE hedge had once been full of trees and bushes, but they were cut down and nothing now shot up from their stubs but long, thin twigs.
 
In between the stubs grew goat’s-foot and fool’s-parsley and more weeds of the same kind, which all look like one another and are called wild chervil by people who know no better.
 
Their branches were almost as long as those of the bushes. And they were as pretentious as though they really were bushes and as though they did not wither in the autumn and have to start all over again with a little seed, just like some silly daisy or pansy. They strutted and swaggered, they rustled in the wind, they snapped, they lost their leaves and got new ones, exactly as if their time were their own. If any one asked them what they really were, they pretended not to hear, or turned it off as a jest, or refused pointblank to answer.
 
And then they had beautiful white flowers, which they lifted high in the air, like parasols, whereas the real branches, that grew on the stubs, never got to look like anything but overgrown children and could put forth neither flowers nor fruit.
THE SPIDER 2
 “Why, here’s quite a wood!” said the mouse, one evening, sitting under the foliage and peeping up with her bright eyes.
 
“We are the wood,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Pray take a look round,” said the parsley. “If you like us, build your nest in us. All that we can offer you is at your service.”
 
“Don’t believe them,” said the real bushes. “They only make a show while summer lasts. When autumn comes, they are gone without leaving a trace behind them.”

“I don’t know anything about autumn,” said the parsley.
 
“I don’t believe in autumn,” said the goat’s-foot. “It’s a cock-and-bull[6] story with which they take in the baby bushes.”
 
“Autumn exists all right,” said the mouse. “And after that comes winter. Then the thing is to have one’s larder full. It’s well I thought of it. I think I will dig myself a little hole between the stones and begin laying up.”
 
“Let him burrow in the ground that pleases,” said the parsley.
 
“We have loftier aims,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
Then they stood a bit and said nothing. And then the parsley sighed and said what they were both thinking.
 
“If only a bird would come and build her nest in us!”
 
“We would shade it and rock it and take such care of it that the real[7] bushes would die of envy,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Won’t you have me?” asked a voice.
 
A queer, gray individual came walking up the hedge.
 
“Who are you?” asked the parsley.
 
“I am the spider,” said the individual.
 
“Can you fly?” asked the goat’s-foot.
 
“I can do a little of everything, if need be.”
 
“Do you eat flies?” asked the parsley.
 
“All day long.”
 
“Do you lay eggs?” asked the goat’s-foot. “For, of course, you’re a woman?”
 
“Yes—thank goodness!” said the spider.
 
[8]“Then you’re the bird for us,” said the parsley.
 
“You’re heartily welcome,” said the goat’s-foot. “You look pretty light, so you won’t break our branches. Be sure and begin to build as soon as you please. You’ll find plenty of materials in the hedge.”
 
“It doesn’t matter in the least if you nip off a leaf here and there,” said the parsley.
 
“Thanks, I carry my own materials with me,” said the spider.
 
“I don’t see any luggage,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Perhaps your husband’s bringing it?” asked the parsley.
 
“I have no husband, thank goodness!” said the spider.
 
“Poor thing!” said the mouse, who[9] sat listening. “That must be awfully sad for you.”
 
“Ah, there’s the usual feminine balderdash!” said the spider. “That’s what makes us women such ridiculous and contemptible creatures. It’s always ‘my husband’ here and ‘my husband’ there. I should like to know what use a husband is to one, when all’s said. He’s nothing but a nuisance and a worry. If ever I take another, he sha’n’t live with me, whatever happens.”
 
“How you talk!” said the mouse. “I can’t think of anything more dismal than if my husband were to live away from me. And I should like to know how I should manage with the children, if he didn’t help me, the dear soul!”
 
“Children!” replied the spider. “Fiddle-de-dee![10] I don’t see the use of all that coddling. Lay your eggs in a sensible place and then leave them alone.”
 
“She doesn’t talk like a bird,” said the parsley, doubtfully.
 
“I too am beginning to be uneasy about her,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“You can call me what you like,” said the spider. “In any case, I don’t associate with the other birds. If there are too many of them here, I won’t even stay.”
 
“Lord preserve us!” said the parsley, who began to fear lest she should go away. “There are hardly ever any here.”
 
“They flew into the wood when the trees were cut down,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Yes, it’s dull here,” said the long[11] twigs on the stubs. “One never hears a note.”
 
“It’s all right here,” said the spider. “As long as the flies buzz, I’m content.”
 
“Here we are!” said the goat’s-foot and the parsley, straightening themselves.
 
The spider crawled about and looked around her and the mouse kept on following her with her eyes:
 
“I beg your pardon,” said she. “But why do you build a nest when you leave your eggs to shift for themselves?”
 
“Listen to me, Mousie,” said the spider. “You may as well look upon me from the start as an independent woman. I think only of myself and my belongings and I look after myself. If I ever condescend to take a[12] husband, the milksop will have to look after himself.”
 
“Lord, how you speak of him!” said the mouse. “My husband is bigger and stronger than I am.”
 
“I have never met him,” replied the spider, carelessly. “The men in my family are scarce a quarter as large as I am. Wretched creatures, not worth a fly. I should be ashamed to share my flat with a customer like one of those. But now I’m going to build.”
 
“You had better wait till it’s light,” said the parsley.
 
“What will you build with?” asked the goat’s-foot.
 
“I like the dark, as it happens,” said the spider. “And I carry my own building-materials.”
 
Then she scrambled to the top of[13] the goat’s-foot and looked round the landscape.
 

“You must have good eyes to see at night,” said the mouse. “Mine are not bad, but still I shouldn’t care to build a nest by this light.”
 
“As for eyes, I have eight,” said the spider. “And they see what they have to. I have also eight legs, I may as well tell you, and you needn’t be struck with amazement on that account. Taken all round, I am a woman who knows how to help herself in an emergency. There’s no coddling here and no nonsense.”
 
Now she pressed her abdomen against the branch of the goat’s-foot on which she was sitting and then took a header into the air.
 
“She’ll break her neck!” cried the mouse, terrified.
 
“I haven’t got a neck,” said the spider, from down below. “And, if I had, I wouldn’t break it. You go home to your dear husband and fondle him. When you come back in the morning, you shall see what a capable woman can do who doesn’t waste her time on love and emotions.”
 
The mouse went away, because she had other things to see to and also because the spider’s words hurt her. But the goat’s-foot and the fool’s-parsley were obliged to remain where they were and so were the long twigs on the stubs. And the spider behaved in such a curious manner that none of them closed an eye all night for looking at her.
 
The fact is, she did nothing but take headers into the air. She jumped first from one branch and then from another, then crawled up again and jumped once more. And, although she had no wings, as any one could see, she let herself down quite slowly to the ground or to another branch, never missed her jump and did not come to the least harm. To and fro, up and down she went, the whole night long.
 
“It is a bird,” said the parsley, delightedly.
 
“Of course,” said the goat’s-foot. “What else could it be?”
 
But the twigs on the stubs bobbed at one another mockingly:
 
“She’s never been a bird in her life,” they said. “Can she sing? Have you heard as much as a chirp from her?”
 
The goat’s-foot and the parsley looked at each other doubtfully. And, when the spider sat still, for a moment, catching her breath, the parsley ventured upon a question:
 
“Can you sing?”
 
“Pshaw!” replied the spider. “Do you think I go in for that sort of twaddle? What is there to sing about? Life is nothing but toil and drudgery and, if a lone woman is to hold her own, she must turn to and set to work.”
 
“Birds sing,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“They sing because they are in love,” said the spider. “I am not in love.”
 
“Wait till the right man comes along,” said the parsley.
 
“If he does, he’d better look out,” said the spider.
 
Then she took another header; and so she went on.
THE SPIDER 3
 But, when the day began to break, the goat’s-foot and the parsley were near snapping with surprise.
 
The spider was hanging in the air between their branches. She had drawn her legs up under her, bundled herself together and was sleeping like a top.
 
“Is she on you?” asked the goat’s-foot.
 
“No,” replied the parsley. “Is she on you?”
 
“No,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“She’s not on us either,” said the twigs.
 
“It is a bird,” said the parsley and the goat’s-foot, enraptured.
 
“A bird doesn’t hang in the middle of the air, sleeping,” said the twigs.
“It’s an elf,” said the mouse, who came up at that moment. “Just wait till it’s quite light: then perhaps we shall see.”
 
And, when the sun rose, they saw.
 
In between the branches of the goat’s-foot and the fool’s-parsley were stretched a number of very fine threads, which crossed one another and shone in the sun so that it was a delight to see. Other threads ran across them in circles, one outside the other.
 
“Ah!” said the mouse. “Now I understand. She was sitting in the middle of that. But where has she gone to now?”
 
“Here I am,” said the spider, from under a leaf. “I can’t stand the bright sunlight. What do you think of my work? But I haven’t finished yet.”
 
“Pish!” said the mouse. “Frankly speaking, I think it’s a funny sort of nest you’ve made.”
 
“Nest, nest, nest!” said the spider. “It’s you who’ve been talking of a nest, not I. You keep on taking it for granted that I am a silly, effeminate woman like yourself and the others. What use is a nest to me? I’m all right here under this leaf. It’s shady here and good enough for me. The threads are my web. I catch flies in it. I wonder, shall we have a little rain? Then I can set to again and finish my work.”
 
Presently, the sun disappeared behind the clouds. A mild and gentle rain fell and when it stopped the spider came out and stretched her eight legs contentedly in the moist air.
 
And then she set to work.
 
They all saw how she pulled a multitude of very fine threads at a time from her abdomen. Then she began to unravel them with combs which she had at the ends of her legs, twisted them together into one thick thread and hung it beside the others where she thought that the opening was too large or the net not strong enough. All the threads were greasy and sticky, so that the flies would have to hang fast in them. Later in the day, the web was ready; and they all admired it because it was so pretty.
 
“Now I’m settled,” said the spider.
 
At that moment came a starling and sat on the top of one of the long twigs:
 
“Is there nothing to eat here?” he asked. “A few grubs? A spider or so?”
 
The goat’s-foot and the parsley said nothing: they almost withered with fright at the idea of losing their lodger. The mouse made off, for safety’s sake, but the twigs on the stubs cried with one breath that a nice fat spider had just come and had spun her web in the night.
 
“I can see none,” said the starling and flew away.
 
But the spider, quick as lightning, had let herself down to the ground by a long thread and lay there as still as if she were dead. Now she crept up again and sat in the middle of her web with all her eight legs outstretched.
 
“That was a near thing,” she said. “Now my turn’s coming.”
 
Up came a smart little fly, who didn’t see the web but flew in and got caught, poor fellow.
 
“That’s an earnest,” said the spider.
 
She bit the fly with her mandibles, which were filled with poison, so that he died at once. Then she ate him. And she did the same with the next three that came into the web. After that, she could eat no more. She let a good many little insects, that had the misfortune to get caught, hang and sprawl, without stirring a limb. When a good fat fly came along, she bit him dead, spun a little web round him and hung him up:
 
“He may come in handy one day, when I run short,” she said.
 
“Very sensible,” said the mouse. “That’s really the first thing you’ve said that I can agree with. But, otherwise, I am bound to say I don’t care for your ways. They’re far too sly for me. And then you use poison, like the adder. That, I think, is mean.”
 
“You think so, do you?” said the spider, with a sneer. “Is it any worse than what you others do? I suppose you blow a trumpet when you sneak out after your prey; eh, you pious little mouse?”
 
“Indeed I could, if I had a trumpet,” said the mouse. “Thank goodness, I am not a robber and murderer like yourself. I gather nuts and acorns and anything else that comes to hand and I have never hurt a soul.”
 
“No, you’re a dear little woman of the old-fashioned sort,” said the spider, “You take other people’s leavings and are quite happy. Then you go home and let your husband and children pet and fondle you. I’m not built that way, let me tell you. I don’t care for caresses, but I have an appetite. I want meat: nice, juicy fly-meat; and lots of it. I ask nothing of anybody, but get myself what I want. If things go well, I have all the honour and pleasure myself; if they go badly, I don’t go crying to anybody. It would be a good thing if there were more women like me.”
 
“You’re so rough,” said the mouse.
 
“Fiddlesticks!” replied the spider. “It’s all one. I’m no worse than most people. Take the goat’s-foot and the parsley: they fight for the butterflies and bees and steal each other’s light and air as much as they can.”
 
“Very true,” said the parsley.
 
“An exceedingly sensible woman,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“That’s such an ugly name of yours,” said the mouse.
 
“Can’t help that,” said the spider. “Some people call me venom-head, because of those few drops of poison I carry in my mandibles. They’re so immensely upset about the poor flies I catch; and they kill a fly themselves if he only settles on their nose. It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other. Nothing but sentimental affectation. Besides, I have no objection to changing my name. You can call me spinner, if you prefer. That’s a word which a dainty little lady like you can pronounce without fainting; and it suits me, because there’s not an animal in the world that spins as beautifully as I do.”
 
“That’s all very likely,” said the mouse, shaking her head. “But what you do is ugly and you yourself are so hideous that there’s no excusing you.”
 
“Is that it?” asked the spider and laughed. “Look here, little Mrs. Mouse: I’m rationally dressed. My homely gray clothes suit my work and don’t attract unnecessary attention. Thank goodness, I don’t have to dress up like the others, who deck themselves out to obtain love and happiness and who strut and swagger in a way that a sensible person would be ashamed of. But, of course, the ninnies despise me for my plain frocks. Let them! What do I care for ninnies? And, if they come into my meshes, I’ll eat them.”
 
The mouse shook her head and went away. The parsley and the goat’s-foot muttered softly to each other. The spider hung in her net, stretched her legs and digested her food.
 
When the sun came out, she crept under her leaf and then the mouse came back and peeped up:
 
“Is she asleep?” she asked.
 
“I think so,” said the parsley. “And you had better not wake her with your chattering.”
 
“She’s our bird, once and for all,” said the goat’s-foot. “Though she may behave differently from other birds, she has done us the honour and shown us the confidence to build in us and therefore we ask that she may be respected.”
 
“A nice sort of bird!” said the twigs, with a sneer.
 
“In any case, she’s better than nothing,” said the parsley.
 
“Such louts as you had better hold your tongues,” said the goat’s-foot. “No one builds in you, at any rate.”
 
“She’s not a bird,” said the mouse. “But that’s no reason why she shouldn’t be very good. Now I think that she’s a poor, unhappy old maid, who has fallen out with existence. Perhaps her sweetheart jilted her; that leaves a wound. My first husband ran away with a white mouse, just after my children were born. So I speak from experience.”
 
“That’s possible,” said the parsley, thoughtfully. “But what can one do in a case like that?”
 
“We must try and make her happy,” said the mouse. “If she goes on leading this lonely life, she will grow more bitter every day and at last all gentler feelings will be stifled in her. If we could only find a husband for her!”
 
“Yes, if we only could!” said the parsley.
 
“Then perhaps she would build a real nest, with little eggs in it,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Perhaps she would sing to her young,” said the parsley.
 
“That would at once entitle us to rank with the bushes,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“What are you talking about?” asked the spider, putting out her head from under the leaf.
 
“We’re talking about you,” said the mouse. “We were saying that you really ought to get married. It’s not good, in the long run, for a woman to live alone. It makes her queer and sour. If you only knew how delightful it is to see one’s dear little young and feed them and educate them!”
 
“Stuff!” said the spider.
 
“It’s the provision of nature,” said the mouse. “And I will do what I can for you, no matter what you say. I see a heap of spiders daily on my way along the hedge. They are certainly much smaller than you, but nice fellows, for all that. Perhaps I may meet a big one, too. Then I shall tell him that there’s a charming young lady over here, longing for a sweetheart.”
 
“Then you’ll be telling an awful lie,” said the spider. “And you needn’t look for one who is bigger than I, for our men are all miserable under-sized vermin. I tell you, no one looks upon them as worth a straw. It’s long been understood among us that it’s only the women that are good for anything.”
 
“Well, I’m going,” said the mouse. “I shall find the right man yet. And I feel sure that you’ll be much more amiable when you’re in love.”
 
“Run away, Mousie,” said the spider. “The man who can please me isn’t born yet. But you have nothing in your head but love and nonsense.”
 
She killed a fly, spun a web round him and hung him up and then hid under the leaf. The mouse went away, the parsley and the goat’s-foot put their heads together and talked of the future.
THE SPIDER 4
 The next morning, a really nice gentleman-spider was sitting on the parsley, but a good way off from the snappish young lady.
 
He had brushed his clothes and spun a couple of fine threads to show what he could do. He bent and stretched his legs for her to see that he was well-shaped. Seven of his eyes beamed with love, while the eighth took care that she didn’t eat him:
 
“Allow me, miss, to offer you my hand and heart,” said he.
 
“He’s a fair-spoken man,” said the parsley.
 
“A charming man,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“It was I that sent him here,” said the mouse.
“Idiot!” said the damsel.
 
But the spider did not throw up the game so easily. He gracefully bowed his thorax, set two of his eyes to watch that nothing happened to him and looked doubly enamoured with the other six:
 
“Do not think that I mean to be a burden to you,” he said. “I have my own web a little way down the hedge and I can easily catch the few flies I require. I have even got five real fat ones hanging and spun up, which I shall esteem it an honour to offer you to-morrow, so that you may see that it is love alone that urges me to propose to you.”
 
“Is that you talking your nonsense?” said the damsel. “What the blazes should I do with such a silly man?”
“Dear me!” he said—and now there was only one eye in love, so fierce was her air—“If my courtship seems inopportune to you, I will retire at once and wait till another time....”
 
“I rather think that’s the wisest thing you could do,” said she. “Clear out, this minute, or I’ll....”
 
He slid down a thread in no time and she after him. But he escaped and, a little later, she was sitting in her web again, looking sourer than ever.
 
“What a woman!” said the mouse.
 
“Yes, just so!” said the spider.
 
“It doesn’t do to take the first that comes,” said the parsley.
 
“It’s only that he wasn’t the right one,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
But the unfortunate suitor went round the hedge telling the other spiders about the charming and remarkable lady whose web hung between the parsley and the goat’s-foot.
 
“She is so big,” he said, spreading his legs as wide as he could. “I have never seen any one so pretty in my life. But she’s as proud as a peacock. I shall certainly die of grief at her refusal. In any case, one thing is sure, that I shall never marry.”
 
They listened to him wide-eyed and made him tell them again. It was not long before the story of the proud and beautiful spider-princess went the round of the hedge. As soon as the men had finished their day’s work, they came together and sat and talked about her. Each of them had his own observations to make, but gradually they were all so excited with love that they thought they simply could not live unless they won the fair one.
 
One after the other, they set out a-wooing and they all fared badly.
 
The first was a dashing fellow, who had chaffed the unfortunate suitor mercilessly for promising her the five flies which he had got spun up at home in his web:
 
“Women don’t care a hang for promises,” he said. “They like their presents down, then and there. You just watch me.”
 
He came dragging a splendid blue-bottle along and laid it without a word at the damsel’s feet.
 
“Do you think I would allow a man to support me?” she said.
 
Before he could look round, she had caught him and eaten him up. She scornfully let the fly be, but, later in the afternoon, when she thought no one saw her, she came down notwithstanding and ate it.
 
And the wooers that came after fared not a whit better.
 
She ate six of them in the middle of their speech and two had not even time to open their mouths. One was caught by the starling, just as he was about to make his bow, and one fell into the ditch with fright, when she looked at him, and was drowned.
 
“That makes twelve,” said the mouse.
 
“I have not counted them,” said the spider. “But now I presume they’ll leave me in peace.”
 
“You’re a terrible woman,” said the mouse. “I prophesy you’ll end by going childless to your grave.”
 
For the first time, the spider seemed a little pensive.
 
“Now her hard heart is melting,” said the mouse.
 
“Oh!” said the wild parsley.
 
“Ah!” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Stuff!” said the spider.
 
But she continued to look pensive and stared at her combs and never noticed that a fly flew into her web. Presently, she said:
 
“The fact is, one ought at least to see that one brings a pair of strapping wenches into the world. I suppose it’s my duty to leave somebody behind me to inherit my contempt for those wretched men.”
 
“She’s on the road!” whispered the mouse.
 
And the goat’s-foot and the fool’s-parsley nodded and neither of them said a word, so as not to disturb her in her reflections.
 
But the mouse hurried off to the hedge and called all the surviving gentleman-spiders together:
 
“The one who proposes to the princess to-morrow gets her,” said she. “She’s quite altered. She’s melted. Her heart is like wax. She won’t catch any flies, won’t eat, won’t drink and just sits and stares wistfully before her. Look sharp!”
 
Then the mouse ran away.
 
But the spiders looked at one another doubtfully. Not one of them had the proper courage to risk the attempt, seeing how badly the twelve had fared, and a few even of the wiser ones went up at once and hid under their leaves, so as not to fall into temptation.
A few remained behind, who thought about what the mouse had said, including one little young, thin one, who had always listened while the others were talking about the wonderful princess, but had never said anything himself:
 
“I think I’ll try,” he said, suddenly.
 
“You?” cried all the others, in one breath.
 
And they began to laugh at the thought that this chap should achieve what so many a bold spider-fellow had lost his life in attempting.
 
But the little chap let them laugh as much as they pleased:
 
“I don’t suppose I’m poaching on your preserves,” he said. “There’s none of you that has the pluck. And I just feel like making the experiment. I’ve been there to look at her and, by Jove, she is a fine woman! If she’s rejected the twelve, perhaps she’ll accept the thirteenth. Also, I think the suitors went the wrong way to work.”
 
“Oh, you think so, do you?” said the others, still laughing. “And how will you go to work?”
 
“You can come with me and see for yourselves,” he said. “I’ll stroll across to-morrow and propose.”
THE SPIDER 5
 And he did, the next morning.
 
He came crawling up on his eight legs, very sedately and circumspectly. A little behind him came all that was left in the way of man-spiders in the hedge. The long twigs on the stubs stretched out their necks to see him. The parsley and the goat’s-foot spread out both flowers and leaves, to make his road as easy as possible. The mouse stood on her hind-legs with curiosity and stared and listened.
 
The princess herself sat in her web and pretended not to see him.
 
“Noble princess,” he said, “I have come to ask you if you will have me for your husband.”
 
“This is the thirteenth,” she said.
 
But within herself she thought that she liked him better than the others. They had all wanted to take her for their wife: this one begged her to take him for her husband. That sounded modest and well-mannered.
 
“She’s giving way,” said the mouse and danced with rapture.
 
“Hush!” said the parsley.
 
“Hark!” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“She hasn’t eaten him yet!” whispered the gentleman-spiders to one another.
 
“I well know,” said the wooer, “how presumptuous it is of me to address such a request to you. What is a wretched man compared with a woman and, in particular, what is a silly fellow like myself to you, who are the largest and cleverest lady in all the hedge? But that is just what attracts me to you.”
 
She turned and looked at him. He nearly fell to the ground with fright and cast his eight eyes down before him. All the other gentleman-spiders rushed away at a furious pace.
 
“Now she’ll eat him,” said the goat’s-foot and the parsley.
 
“She is a sweet young thing!” said the twigs on the stubs.
 
“She’s a terrible woman!” said the mouse.
 
But she did not eat him.
 
She caught a fly that flew into her web just then and began leisurely to devour it, while attentively contemplating her suitor.
 
He was an ugly little beggar, especially now, when he was shaking all over his body, because he thought that his last hour had struck. But that was just how she liked to see him. She thought that quite the right attitude for a man. And, when he saw that she gave no sign of making for him, he recovered to such an extent that he was able to finish his speech:
 
“I quite understand that you can’t see anything at all good-looking in me,” he said. “I don’t want to make myself out better than I am; and I am only a miserable man. But, if I could become the father of a daughter who was like you, I should consider that I had attained the object of my life and give thanks most humbly for my good fortune.”
 
Then a wonderful thing came to pass. She took the leg of a fly and threw it to him, which among spiders means the same as “yes.”
 
Quivering with happiness and apprehension, he crept nearer to her.
 
“Very well,” she said. “I accept you. But mind you don’t irritate me. For then I’ll eat you.”
 
“She’s accepted him!” said the mouse and swooned away with delight.
 
“She’s accepted him!” said the goat’s-foot and the parsley.
 
“She’s accepted him!” said the twigs on the stubs and rustled for sheer astonishment.
 
“She’s accepted him!” cried the gentleman-spiders, who had come back, but now ran away again, partly to spread the news in the hedge and partly so as not to be eaten at the wedding.
 
And it was a wedding.
 
The whole hedge was a scene of jubilation and the mouse was the gladdest of them all, for it was her doing. Or perhaps the fool’s-parsley and the goat’s-foot were gladder still, for they would now have that family-life in their tops which they had so often longed for and which would raise them to the level of the real bushes. As for the twigs on the old stubs, they were infected with the universal joy and forgot their envy.
 
The wedding took place forthwith, for there was nothing to wait for. The parsley and the goat’s-foot scattered their white flowers on every side to mark the festival. The mouse dragged her little ones up the hedge so that they might see the happy bridal pair; the bluebell rang, the poppy laughed and the bindweed closed her petals half an hour earlier than usual so as not to embarrass the newly-married couple with a misplaced curiosity.
 
The bride ate all the flies that she had spun up, without offering the bridegroom one. But that did not matter, for he was up to the throat in happiness, so he could not have got a morsel down in any case. He[48] made himself as small as possible. Once, when she stroked him on the back with one of her combs, he shook till they thought that he would die.
THE SPIDER 6
 The mouse was astir early next morning:
 
“Have you seen nothing of the young couple?” she asked.
 
“No,” said the parsley.
 
“They’re asleep,” said the goat’s-foot.
 
“Ah!” said the mouse. “What a good thing that we got her married at last. Now you’ll see how sweet and amiable she will become. There is no end to the wonders that love can work. And when the children come!...”
 
“Do you think she’ll sing then?” asked the goat’s-foot.
 
“I shall hope for the best,” said the mouse. “She does not look as if she had a voice, but, as I said—love! Now you’ll just see, when she comes, what a radiance there will be about her. I half doubt if we shall know her when we see her.”
 
And the mouse laughed and the parsley and the goat’s-foot laughed and the sun rose and laughed with the rest.
 
Then the spider came crawling from under her leafy hiding-place.
 
“Good luck! Good luck!” squeaked the mouse.
 
“Good luck! Good luck!” said the parsley and the goat’s-foot.
 
The spider stretched herself and yawned. Then she went off and sat in her web, as though nothing had happened.
 
“Where’s the husband?” asked the mouse. “Won’t he get out of bed?”
 
“I’ve eaten him this morning,” replied the spider.
 
The mouse gave a scream that was heard all over the hedge. The parsley and the goat’s-foot trembled so that all their flowers fell off. The twigs snapped as though a storm were raging.
 
“He looked so stupid and ugly as he sat there beside me,” said the spider; “so I ate him. He could have staid away!”
 
“Heaven preserve us all!” screamed the mouse. “To eat one’s own, lawful husband!”
 
“Oh dear, oh dear!” said the goat’s-foot and the parsley.
 
“Stuff!” said the spider.
 
THE SPIDER 7
 That day was very quiet in the hedge and the next was no livelier.
 
The spider attended to her web and caught and ate more flies than ever. She did not speak a word and looked so fierce that no one dared speak a word to her. The gentleman-spiders took good care not to come near her. They met every evening and talked about it.
 
“Yes, but he got her all the same!” said the most romantic of them.
 
Then the others fell upon him and asked him if he thought that that was happiness, to be eaten by one’s wife on the morning after the wedding. And he didn’t know what to answer, for his romance wasn’t so very real, after all.
 
The mouse stole away dejectedly and went to her hole. She took the thing to heart as though it had happened in her own family. The goat’s-foot and the parsley hung their screens and felt sheepish and ashamed in the face of the twigs on the stubs. And so great was their overthrow that even the twigs thought it would be a shame to scoff at them.
 
But, one day, when there was a blazing sun and the spider had crawled as far as she could into the shade of the leaf, the parsley bent down to the mouse’s hole and whispered:
 
“Psst!... Mousie!...”
 
“What is it?” asked the mouse and came out.
 
“It’s only the goat’s-foot and I who have something to ask you,” said the parsley. “Tell me—you’re so clever—don’t you believe that it’s possible that the spider may become a different person when she begins to lay her eggs?”
 
“I believe nothing now,” said the mouse. “I shall never believe that that woman will ever lay eggs.”
 
But she did, for all that.
 
One fine morning, she began and behaved in such a way that no one in the hedge ever forgot the story:
 
“Ugh!” she said. “That one should be bothered with this nonsense with children now!”
 
She laid a heap of ten eggs and stood looking at them, angrily.
 
“Build a nest for your eggs,” said the parsley. “All that we have and possess is at your disposal.”
 
“Sit on them and hatch them,” said the goat’s-foot. “We will weave a roof over you, so the sun won’t inconvenience you in the least.”
 
“Lay up some small flies for the children, for when they come out,” said the mouse. “You have no idea what those young ones can eat.”
 
“Practise singing to them a bit,” said the twigs on the stubs.
 
“Stuff!” said the spider.
 
She laid four more heaps. Then she began to spin a fine, close covering of white threads to wrap each heap in separately.
 
“She’s not quite heartless,” said the mouse.
 
The spider took a heap, went down the hedge and buried it in the ground. Then up again for the next heap and so on until all the five heaps were buried.
 
“There!” she said. “Now that’s done with! And they won’t catch me at it again. Now at least I am a free and independent woman once more.”
 
“A nice woman!” said the mouse. “A shame and a disgrace to her sex, that’s what she is!”
 
“Such a dear little bird!” said the twigs on the stubs, sarcastically.
 
But the parsley and the goat’s-foot said nothing.
 
The next morning the spider was gone.
 
“The starling caught her,” said the mouse. “She was gone in a twinkling. I saw it myself.”
 
“If only she doesn’t make him ill,” said the twigs. “She must have been a bad mouthful.”
 
Then autumn came and winter.
 
The mouse sat snug in her hole and the spider’s eggs lay snug in the ground. The goat’s-foot and the parsley withered and died. The twigs on the stubs lost their leaves, but rustled on through storm and frost and snow until next spring.
THE MIST 1
 THE sun had just set.
 
The frog was croaking his even-song, which took so long that there seemed to be no end to it. The bee crept into her hive and the little children cried because it was bed-time. The flowers closed their petals and bent their heads, the bird hid his beak under his wing and the stag lay down to rest in the tall, soft grass of the glade.
 
The bells of the village-church rang in the night and, when that was done, the old sexton went off home, chatted a little with the villagers who were taking their evening stroll or standing at their doors smoking a pipe, bade them good-night and shut his door.
 
By and by, it was quite still and darkness fell. There was still a light in the parsonage and at the doctor’s. But at the farm-houses it was dark, for the farmers rise early in the summer and therefore have to go early to bed.
 
Then the stars shone forth in the sky and the moon rose higher and higher. A dog barked down in the village. But he was certainly dreaming, for there was really nothing to bark at.
THE MIST 2
 “Is any one here?” asked the mist.
 
But no one answered, for there was no one there.
 
So the mist went on in his light, gleaming clothes. He danced over the meadows, up and down, to and fro. Now he would lie quite still for a while and then begin to dance again. He skipped across the pond and into the wood, where he flung his long, wet arms round the trunks of the trees.
 
“Who are you, friend?” asked the night-scented rocket, who stood and distilled her perfume for her own pleasure.
 
The mist did not reply, but went on dancing.
 
“I asked who you were,” said the rocket. “And, as you don’t answer me, I conclude that you are an ill-mannered churl.”
 
“I’ll conclude you!” said the mist.
 
And he lay down round the night-scented rocket, till her petals were dripping wet.
 
“Hi! Hi!” screamed the rocket. “Keep your fingers to yourself, my friend! I feel as if I had been dipped in the pond. You needn’t be so angry, just because I ask you who you are.”
 
The mist rose up again:
 
“Who I am?” he repeated. “Why, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
 
“Try,” said the rocket.
 
“I am the dew-drop on the flowers, the cloud in the sky and the mist on the fields,” he answered.
 
“I beg your pardon?” said the rocket. “Would you mind saying that again? Why, I know the dew-drop. He settles on my petals every morning; and I don’t see any resemblance between you.”
 
“Ah, I am the dew-drop, for all that!” said the mist, sadly. “But nobody knows me. I have to spend my life in many shapes. Sometimes I am dew and sometimes I am rain and sometimes I trickle in the form of a clear, cool spring through the wood. But, when I dance over the meadow in the evening, then people say that the mist is rising.”
 
“That’s a queer story,” said the rocket. “Have you any more to tell me? The night is long and sometimes I feel a little bored.”
 
“It is a sad story,” answered the mist. “But you shall hear it if you like.”
 
And he made as though to lie down, but the night-scented rocket shook all her petals in alarm.
 
“Be so good and keep a little farther off,” she said, “at least, until you have introduced yourself properly. I have never cared to be intimate with people whom I don’t know.”
 
The mist lay down a few steps away and began his story:
 
“I was born deep down in the ground,” he said, “much deeper than your roots grow. I and my brothers—for you must know that we are a big family—came into the world in the shape of clear crystal spring-water and lay long in our hiding-place. But, one day, we sprang suddenly from under a gentle hill, into the midst of the full, bright sunshine. Believe me, it was delightful to run through the wood. We rippled over the stones and splashed against the banks. Dear little fishes played among us and the trees bent over us and reflected their green splendour. If a leaf fell, we rocked it and caressed it and bore it into the wide world. Oh, how delightful it was! It was really the happiest time in my life.”
THE MIST 3
 Now the frog began to stir. He stretched his legs and went down to the ditch to take his morning bath. The birds began to chirp in the wood and the stag belled among the trees.
 
Morning began to break and the sun peeped over the hill:
“What’s this?” he said. “What does it all mean? One can’t see one’s hand before one’s eyes. Morning-wind! Up with you, you sluggard, and blow that nasty mist away!”
 
And the morning-wind flew across the fields and blew away the mist. At the same moment, the sun sent his first rays straight down upon the night-scented rocket.
 
“Hullo!” said the flower. “Here’s the sun! Now I must be quick and close my petals. Where in the name of wonder has the mist gone to?”
 
“Here I am,” said the dew-drop hanging from her stalk.
 
THE ANEMONES 1
 “PEEWIT! Peewit!” cried the lapwing, as he flew over the moss in the wood. “Dame Spring is coming! I can feel it in my legs and wings.”
 
When the new grass, which lay down below in the earth, heard this, it at once began to sprout and peeped out gaily between the old, yellow straw. For the grass is always in an immense hurry.
 
Now the anemones in between the trees had also heard the lapwing’s cry, but refused on any account to appear above the earth.
 
“You mustn’t believe the lapwing,” they whispered to one another. “He is a flighty customer, whom one can’t trust. He always comes too early and starts calling at once. No, we will wait quite quietly till the starling and the swallow come. They are sensible, sober people, who are not to be taken in and who know what they are about.”
 
And the starlings came.
 
They sat down on a twig outside their summer villa and looked about them.
 
“Too early, as usual,” said Mr. Starling. “Not a green leaf and not a fly, except an old tough one of last year, not worth opening one’s beak for.”
 
Mrs. Starling said nothing, but looked none too cheerful either.
 
“If we had only remained in our snug winter-quarters beyond the mountains!” said Mr. Starling. He was angry because his wife did not answer, for he was so cold that he thought a little discussion might do him good. “But it’s your fault, just as last year. You’re always in such a terrible hurry to go to the country.”
 
“If I’m in a hurry, I know the reason why,” said Mrs. Starling. “And it would be a shame for you if you didn’t know too, for they are your eggs as well as mine.”
 
“Heaven forbid!” replied Mr. Starling, indignantly. “When have I denied my family? Perhaps you expect me, over and above, to sing to you in the cold?”
 
“Yes, that I do!” said Mrs. Starling, in the tone which he could not resist.
 
He at once began to whistle as best he could. But, when Mrs. Starling had heard the first notes, she flapped her wings and pecked at him with her beak:
 
“Will you be quiet at once!” she screamed, angrily. “That sounds so dismal that it makes one quite melancholy. You’d better see to it that the anemones come out. I think it’s high time. And, besides, one always feels warmer when there are others shivering too.”
 
Now, as soon as the anemones had heard the starling’s first whistle, they carefully stuck their heads out of the ground. But they were still so tightly tucked up in their green wraps that one could hardly see them. They looked like green buds which might turn into anything.
THE ANEMONES 2
 Then Dame Spring came, one delightfully mild and still night.

No one knows what she looks like, for no one has ever seen her. But all long for her and thank her and bless her. She goes through the wood and touches the flowers and the trees and they bud at once. She goes through the stables and unfastens the animals and lets them out into the field. She goes straight into men’s hearts and makes them glad. She makes it difficult for the best-behaved boy to sit still on his bench at school and occasions a terrible lot of mistakes in the exercise-books.

But she does not do this all at once. She attends to her business night after night and comes first to those who long for her most.
 
So it happened that, on the very night when she arrived, she went straight off to the anemones, who stood in their green wraps and could no longer curb their impatience.
 
And one, two, three! There they stood in newly-ironed white frocks and looked so fresh and pretty that the starlings sang their finest songs for sheer joy at the sight of them.
 
“Oh, how lovely it is here!” said the anemones. “How warm the sun is! And how the birds sing! It is a thousand times better than last year.”
 
But they say this every year, so it doesn’t count.
 
Now there were many others who went quite off their heads when they saw that the anemones were out. There was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays then and there and then there was the beech, who was most offended.
 
“Aren’t you coming to me soon, Dame Spring?” he said. “I am a much more important person than those silly anemones and really I can no longer control my buds.”
 
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” replied Dame Spring. “But you must give me a little time.”
 
She went on through the wood. And, at every step, more anemones appeared. They stood in thick bevies round the roots of the beech and bashfully bowed their round heads to the ground.
 
“Look up freely,” said Dame Spring, “and rejoice in heaven’s bright sun. Your lives are but short, so you must enjoy them while they last.”
 
The anemones did as she told them. They stretched themselves and spread their white petals to every side and drank as much sunshine as they could. They knocked their heads against one another and wound their stalks together and laughed and were constantly happy.
 
“Now I can wait no longer,” said the beech and came into leaf.
 
Leaf after leaf crept out of its green covering and spread out and fluttered in the wind. The whole green crown arched itself like a mighty roof above the ground.
 
“Good heavens, is it evening so soon?” asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.
 
THE ANEMONES 3
 Now there were many others who went quite off their heads when they saw that the anemones were out. There was a schoolboy who wanted to have his summer holidays then and there and then there was the beech, who was most offended.
 
“Aren’t you coming to me soon, Dame Spring?” he said. “I am a much more important person than those silly anemones and really I can no longer control my buds.”
 
“I’m coming, I’m coming!” replied Dame Spring. “But you must give me a little time.”
 
She went on through the wood. And, at every step, more anemones appeared. They stood in thick bevies round the roots of the beech and bashfully bowed their round heads to the ground.
 
“Look up freely,” said Dame Spring, “and rejoice in heaven’s bright sun. Your lives are but short, so you must enjoy them while they last.”
 
The anemones did as she told them. They stretched themselves and spread their white petals to every side and drank as much sunshine as they could. They knocked their heads against one another and wound their stalks together and laughed and were constantly happy.
 
“Now I can wait no longer,” said the beech and came into leaf.
 
Leaf after leaf crept out of its green covering and spread out and fluttered in the wind. The whole green crown arched itself like a mighty roof above the ground.
 
“Good heavens, is it evening so soon?” asked the anemones, who thought that it had turned quite dark.
 
The summer was past and the farmer had carted his corn home from the field.
 
The wood was still green, but darker; and, in many places, yellow and red leaves appeared among the green ones. The sun was tired of his warm work during the summer and went early to bed.
 
At night, the winter stole through the trees to see if his time would soon come. When he found a flower, he kissed her politely and said:
 
“Well, well, are you there still? I am glad to see you. Stay where you are. I am a harmless old man and wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
 
But the flower shuddered with his kiss and the bright dew-drops that hung from her petals froze to ice at the same moment.
 
The winter went oftener and oftener through the wood. He breathed upon the leaves, so that they turned yellow, or upon the ground, so that it grew hard.
 
Even the anemones, who lay down below in the earth and waited for Dame Spring to come again as she had promised, could feel his breath and shuddered right down to their roots.
 
“Oh dear, how cold it is!” they said to one another. “How ever shall we last through the winter? We are sure to die before it is over.”
 
“Now my time has come,” said the winter. “Now I need no longer steal round like a thief in the night. From to-morrow I shall look everybody straight in the face and bite his nose and make his eyes run with tears.”
 
At night the storm broke loose.
 
“Let me see you make a clean sweep of things,” said the winter.
 
And the storm obeyed his orders. He tore howling through the wood and shook the branches so that they creaked and broke. Any that were at all decayed fell down and those that held on had to twist and turn to every side.
 
“Away with all that finery!” howled the storm and tore off the leaves. “This is no time to deck one’s self out. Soon there will be snow on the branches: that’s another story.”
 
All the leaves fell terrified to the ground, but the storm did not let them be in peace. He took them by the waist and waltzed with them over the field, high up in the air and into the wood again, swept them together into great heaps and scattered them once more to every side, just as the fit seized him.
 
Not until the morning did the storm grow weary and go down.
 
“Now you can have peace for this time,” he said. “I am going down till we have our spring-cleaning. Then we can have another dance, if there are any of you left by that time.”
 
And then the leaves went to rest and lay like a thick carpet over the whole earth.
 
The anemones felt that it had grown delightfully warm.
 
“I wonder if Dame Spring can have come yet?” they asked one another.
 
“I haven’t got my buds ready!” cried one of them.
 
“No more have I! No more have I!” exclaimed the others in chorus.
 
But one of them took courage and just peeped out above the ground.
 
“Good-morning!” cried the withered beech-leaves. “It’s rather too early, little missie: if only you don’t come to any harm!”
 
“Isn’t that Dame Spring?” asked the anemone.
 
“Not just yet,” replied the beech-leaves. “It’s we, the green leaves you were so angry with in the summer. Now we have lost our green color and have not much left to make a show of. We have enjoyed our youth and danced, I may tell you. And now we are lying here and protecting all the little flowers in the ground against the winter.”
 
“And meanwhile I am standing and freezing with my bare branches,” said the beech, crossly.
 
The anemones talked about it down in the earth and thought it very nice.
“Those dear beech-leaves!” they said.
 
“Mind you remember it next summer, when I come into leaf,” said the beech.
 
“We will, we will!” whispered the anemones.
 
For that sort of thing is promised; but the promise is never kept.