|Carrie jumped from her seat because a spider was spinning-down before
her from the ceiling. "They are such hateful black things!" she said.
"They are curious things," said Aunt Nellie. "They have eight fixed
eyes."
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"Dear me! And maybe she's looking at me with all eight of them," groaned
Carrie.
"They are very fond of music,"
"I shall never dare to sing again, for fear they 'll be spinning down to
listen."
"They can tell you whether the weather is going to be fine or not. If it
is going to storm, they spin a short thread; if it will clear, they spin
a long one."
"That's funny."
"They are an odd family," Aunt Nellie went on. "I saw one on the
window-pane the other day. She carrieed a little gray silk bag about
with her wherever she ran. She had spun the bag herself. When it burst
open, ever so many tiny baby spiders tumbled out, like birds from a
nest, and ran along with her. Perhaps you did n't know that the spider
can spin and sew, too? She spins her web, and she sews leaves together
for her summer house."
"What a queer thing a spider is," said Carrie, beginning to forget her
dislike.
"Yes, and she has a queerer sister in England, who makes a raft, and
floats on pools of water upon it in search of flies for her dinner."
"I should like to know what it's made of."
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"She binds together a ball of weeds with the thread she spins."
"I wish we could go to England."
"And there's another of the family who lives under water in a
diving-bell, which she weaves herself."
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"How I should like to see her!"
"Maybe you would rather see the one in the West Indies who digs a hole
in the earth. She lines it with silk of her own making, and fits a door
to it, which opens and closes when the family go in and out."
"Yes, yes," said Carrie, "how delightful!"
"But you would be afraid of the inmates?"
"Perhaps not, now I know their family affairs."
--MARY N. PRESCOTT.