THE SPIDER
AND OTHER TALES
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
THE SPIDER AND OTHER TALES _net_, $1.00
TWO-LEGS _net_, $1.00
MY LITTLE BOY _net_, $1.00
THE SPIDER
AND OTHER TALES
BY
CARL EWALD
TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH
BY
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK ::::::: 1907
_Copyright, 1907, by Charles Scribner’s Sons_
_Sole Authorized Translation_
_Published, April, 1907_
_The Trow Press, New York_
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE SPIDER 3
THE MIST 59
THE ANEMONES 77
THE QUEEN BEE 97
THE CATERPILLAR 123
THE BEECH AND THE OAK 143
THE WEEDS 165
THE WATER-LILY AND THE DRAGON-FLY 183
AUNT EIDER-DUCK 199
THE SPIDER
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.
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 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
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.
“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 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! 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 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
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 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.
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,[1] 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.
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.”
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 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.
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.
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
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.
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.”
“Shall I soon hear how you came to be mist?” asked the night-scented
rocket, impatiently. “I know the brook. On a very still night, I can
hear her babbling from where I stand.”
The mist rose and took a little dance across the meadow. Then he came
back and continued:
“That is the worst of this world; we are never satisfied with what we
have. For instance, we ran on and on until, at last, we came to a big
lake, where the water-lilies rocked on the water and the dragon-flies
buzzed around on their great stiff wings. On the surface, the water was
as clear as a mirror; but, whether we wanted to or not, we had to run
along the bottom and there it was dark and dismal. I could not bear it.
I longed for the sunbeams. I knew them so well from the time when I
ran in the brook. Now they looked down upon us through the leaves and
cast a bright light over me. I wanted to see them again and therefore
I crept up to the surface and lay down in the sunshine among the white
water-lilies and their big green leaves. But oh, how the sun burnt upon
the lake! It was almost unendurable and I bitterly regretted that I had
not remained at the bottom.”
“All this is very dull,” said the rocket. “When are we coming to the
mist?”
“Here he is!” said the mist and lay down around the flower, who almost
lost her breath.
“Hi! Hi!” screamed the rocket. “You’re the roughest playfellow I know.
Go away and tell your story in your own manner, if you must.”
“In the evening, when the sun had gone down, I suddenly became
wonderfully light,” said the mist. “I don’t know how it happened,
but I felt that I must rise up and fly away from the lake. And, in
fact, before I knew it, I was hovering over the water, away from the
dragon-flies and the water-lilies. The evening-wind carried me along; I
flew high in the air and there I met many of my brothers, who had been
as inquisitive as I and had met with the same fortune. We were wafted
up to the sky; we had turned into clouds: do you understand?”
“I am not quite sure,” said the rocket. “It does not sound very
probable.”
“But it’s true, for all that,” said the mist. “Now listen. The wind
carried us for some time through the sky. Then, suddenly, he grew tired
of us and let us go. And we fell down upon the earth in pouring rain.
The flowers lost no time in closing their petals and the birds took
shelter, all except the ducks and geese, who were the better pleased
the wetter it was. Oh; and the farmer, too: he stood there rejoicing,
because his crops needed rain. He did not care how wet he got. But,
otherwise, we really caused a great disturbance.”
“Ah, so you’re the rain too, are you?” asked the night-scented rocket.
“I say, you seem to have plenty to do.”
“Yes, I never have any rest,” said the mist.
“All the same, I haven’t yet heard how you became mist,” said the
rocket. “Now don’t fly into a passion again: you promised to tell me
and I would rather hear the whole story over again than once more
shiver in your horrid damp arms.”
The mist lay and wept for a moment and then continued:
“When I had fallen on the ground as rain, I sank through the black
earth and was glad to think I was returning to my native place, the
deep subterranean source. There at least I had known peace and been
free from cares. But, just as I was sinking, the roots of the trees
sucked me up again and, all day long, I had to wander around in the
branches and leaves. They used me as a beast of burden, you see. I had
to drag up from the roots all the food that the leaves and flowers
needed. I was not free until the evening. When the sun had gone down,
all the trees and flowers heaved deep sighs and in their sighs my
brothers and I were sent forth as a light, gleaming mist. At night, we
dance over the fields. But, in the morning, when the sun rises, we turn
into beautiful, clear dew-drops and come and hang on your petals. Then
you shake us off and we sink deeper and deeper until we come to the
source where we were born, unless some root or other snatches us up on
the way. And so it goes on: through the brook, into the lake, up in the
sky and back again to earth....”
“Stop!” cried the night-scented rocket. “It makes my head swim to
listen to you!”
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.
But the night-scented rocket shook her head fretfully:
“Tell that to the children,” she said. “I don’t believe a word of all
you’ve said. You’re just water and nothing more.”
“You’re right enough there!” said the sun. And he laughed.
THE ANEMONES
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.
“It’s too early,” they whispered. “It’s a shame for the starling to
call us. There’s no one in the world left that one can trust.”
Then the swallow came:
“Tsee! Tsee!” he whistled and darted through the air on his long,
pointed wings. “Out with you, you silly flowers! Can’t you see that
Dame Spring has come?”
But the anemones had become careful. They just pushed their green wraps
a little to one side and peeped out:
“One swallow does not make a summer,” they said. “Where is your wife?
You have only come to see if it’s possible to live here and now you’re
trying to take us in. But we are not so stupid as all that. We know
that, if once we catch cold, we’re done for.”
“You’re a pack of poltroons,” said the swallow and sat down on the
weathercock on the ranger’s roof and looked out over the landscape.
But the anemones stood and waited and were very cold. One or two of
them, who could not control their impatience, cast off their wraps in
the sun. The cold killed them at night and the story of their pitiful
death went from flower to flower and aroused great consternation.
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.