and clean and has so many transoms over windows and doors that I could crawl out to the open air any time I chose. I just believe I will go right to work and build me a silken web, away up high, out of everybody's way, and then surely the people who live here will not care.

"Mr. Gipsy has a fine face! I do not believe he would ever think of sweeping or dusting up high. But Mrs. Gipsy? No, indeed! I could not think of rooming in the same room with her! She has a face that is sweet and beautiful enough, but her hand-I believe Mrs. Gipsy almost lives with a broom in her hand, to say nothing of a duster! She would sweep me off the face of the earth in less than three minutes!"

So Mrs. Spider-Brown crawled down the side wall very quickly and went straight into Joe-Boy's room.

"Dear me," said she, as she went to the top of the toy cabinet for a good look, "is n't this a dainty room! All in white, with daisies scattered around! Just the place for the baby spiders, and I know they would enjoy these birds along the walls-I could tell them stories of every one. But there is a little white bed over there, too; who sleeps in it, I wonder? Why, a little boy, I do believe,-how charming! I always loved children; they never dust high with brooms and dusters-bless their dear hearts! Yes, yes, yes, this is the place for me, and I shall room with the little boy. I believe he will treat me kindly and we will be great friends."

Then Mrs. Spider-Brown crawled over in the corner and went to the top of the ceiling, where she began to spin a most beautiful silver web, which was to be her sitting room,

you know, and the place where she always caught the flies she ate. The wonderful silken thread came from the tiny spinning holes near her hind legs, and Mrs. Spider-Brown could work those legs of hers as fast as you can work your fingers, and it did not take her very long to build her pretty web, from the thread of dark, rich blue. First she fastened a few long threads to stand on while she worked, and then she spun some eross threads, gluing' them tightly to the wall. Then came the pretty part of her work, for she spun the threads round and round like a wheel, and by and by Mrs. Spider-Brown had finished one of the daintiest, prettiest silken rooms that ever you saw, with a small round window right in the center. And then she felt so tired she crawled in and went to sleep. The next morning when Joe-Boy waked up the very first thing he saw was Mrs. Spider-Brown peeping at him from her round window, and he thought her silken house was very beautiful.

"I'm glad she came to room with me," said he, "and I shall have her for my own pet spider; she shall live with me as long as she chooses."

"That's good," said Mrs. Spider-Brown, "I knew that was a polite child!"

But right after breakfast in walked Mrs. Gipsy and then something inside Mrs. Spider-Brown went "thump, thump, thump," because, sure enough, in Mrs. Gipsy's hand there was a broom and a great long duster.

"Just as I expected," said Mrs. Spider-Brown, "and now my day has come!"

But when Mrs. Gipsy saw it she smiled one of her most beautiful smiles and said, "Oh, is n't that a lovely web?

Why, it must have been spun last night. I never saw it before.

And I did not know that kind

of web was ever found in houses
at all. I thought the spiders al-
ways spun them in the gardens on
bushes or in fence corners or barn

windows and doors, and they look
so much like silken fairy wheels
that it is a pity to dust them down!
I wonder if Joe-Boy saw it.
Here he comes now."

"Mother, mother," said Joe-Boy, "I just remembered and ran in to tell you that Mrs. Spider-Brown in the corner belongs to me I am going to have her for my pet, so be sure and do not clean her up, too!"

Then Mrs. Gipsy laughed merrily and long-the very idea of Joe-Boy's saying, "don't clean a spider up!" Why, she cleaned up rooms and not spiders, of course! So she said:

"Well, I never heard

of anybody having a pet

“Mrs. Spider-Brown in the corner belongs to me" spider in all my life, but

this is your room and not my room, and I suppose if you want to keep a spider in it, why, you can,-just so that it is n't poisonous and won't bite."

"The idea!" said Mrs. Spider-Brown. "Why do people always think we garden spiders are poisonous and bite? Why, we would n't bite them for anything, and would be their friends if they would only let us! I am very glad the little boy there is to be my friend, and I believe I shall learn to love his mother, too,-see the smile around her mouth! She believes in letting even children have their rights, and that shows she has a kind heart. Now, if she would only let brooms and dusters alone!"

From "Little Folks' Land.”

Trăn'soms, small windows above doors or above other windows; fairy wheels (fâr'ĭ hwēlz), delicate spider webs with threads spreading from a center like the spokes of a wheel; poi'son ous, destructful of life or health.

STUDY HELPS

How did Mrs. Spider-Brown get her name? Why did she come indoors?

How many legs and eyes has a spider? a fly?

Read what Mrs. Spider-Brown said about the house, about Mrs. Gipsy, about Joe-Boy and his room.

Tell how she spun her web.

What did Joe-Boy say when he saw the web? How did Mrs. Spider-Brown like what he said?

Why was she so disturbed when Mrs. Gipsy came in?

What did Mrs. Gipsy say?

Why did she agree to let the spider alone?

What did Mrs. Spider-Brown say when she heard the word "poisonous"? (Read her speech just as you think she must have spoken it.)

Why did she speak as she did, in the last line, about brooms and dusters?

Mrs. Spider-Brown spent a very happy time in JoeBoy's room and they were the best of friends. He had drawn her picture two or three times, and her silken house, too, and had even carried it to kindergarten and shown it to the children there. So when Mrs. Spider-Brown saw she need not feel afraid she decided to weave her nest and get ready for the baby spiders she had spoken about. "I believe I will make my nest here, under the window ledge," she said one day, "and lay my egg in it."

You need not think Mrs. Spider-Brown was going to lay her egg in that pretty silken house with the round window in the center. No, indeed, that was for her sitting room and to catch any stray flies that happened near. She lived on flies, and woe be unto any of them that buzzed around Joe-Boy's room! It was Mrs. Spider-Brown's special pleasure to see that none of them ever specked the walls of Joe-Boy's room or those of her own. But, as I started out to tell you, Mrs. Spider-Brown built her nest under the window ledge by the transom - such a tiny, tiny nest, about the size of a thimble, and made out of that same silken thread which came from her body. When she had lined it soft and warm, then she laid her egg- only one egg, a wee, wee, wee egg, not even as big as a pea! But Mrs. Spider-Brown was very proud of it she would even fight for that egg, because she knew the baby spiders were growing inside and would soon wake up. Why, she often carried it around on her back, and that is how Joe-Boy came to see it. He