Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1906-01-12
THE STRAND FROM ABOVE.
II Seemed 10 Have No Use but II Held
tho Whole Web.
From the Danish of Johannes Jorgen
sen by Jacob A, Riis.)


(From the Danish of Johannes Jorgen
sen by Jacob A. Riis.)
The sun rose on bright, Septembe
morning. A thousand gems Of dew
sparkled in the meadows, and upon th,
breeze iloated, In the wake Of summer
the shining silken strands Of which NJ
man knoweth the whence or the whittier
One of them caught in the top of O
tree, and the skipper, a little speckled
yellow spider, quit his airship to survey
the leafy demesne there. II was not 10
his liking, and, with prompt decision,
he spun new strand and let himself
down straight into the hedge below.
There were twigs and shoots in plenty
there TO spin n web in, and he went TO
work Mt once, letting the strand from
above, by which he had come, bear the
upper corner Of IL.
A fine large web il was when finished,
and with this about IL that set II of
from all the other webs thereabouts,
that it seemed to stand straight up in the
air, without anything to show what held
it. IL takes pretty sharp eyes TO make
out single strand of spider.web,
even very little way of.
The days went by. Flies grew scarcer,
as the sun rose later, and the spider had
to make his net larger that il might
reach farther and catch more, And here
the strand from above turned out
great help With it to brace the struc.
ture, the web was spun higher and wild
err, until ii covered the hedge all the way
across. In the wet October mornings,
when il hung full of shimmering rain
drops, it was like veil stitched with
precious pearls
The spider was proud Of its work. No
longer the little thing that had come
drifting out of the vast with nothing |
but its unspun web in its pocket, so to
speak, he was now big, portly, opu
lent spider, with the largest web in the
hedge.
One morning he woke very much out
IF sorts. There had been n frost in the
night, and daylight brought no sun.
rhe sky was overcast; not a fly was out
All the long gray autumn day the spider
vat hungry and cross in his corner.
Toward evening, TO kill time, he started
IN tour Of inspection, to see If any
hing needed bracing or mending. He
'uled at all the strands; they were
irm enough. But, though he found
othing wrong, his temper, did not i'm
rove; he waxed crosser than ever.
At the farthest end of the web he
anne at last to a strand that all at once
eemed strange to him. All the rest
rent this way or that-the spider
new every stick and knob they were
lade fast TO, every one. But this pre-
osterous strand went nowhere-that is
, say, went straight up in the air and
as lost. He stood up on his hind legs
nd stared with all his eyes, but he
,uld not make it out. To look at, the
rand went right up into the clouds,
hich was nonsense.
The longer he sat and glared to no
irpose, the angrier the spider grew.
e had quite forgotten how, on bright
,ptember morning, he himself had
me down this same strand. And he
ID forgotten how, in the building of
Q web and afterward when il had to
enlarged, it was Just this strand he
d depended upon. He saw only that
ere was useless strand, fool strand,
At WtHt Hu"utIt III stHsc VI Icdson,
ly up in the air where solid spiders -
d no concern
"Away with itl'' and with one vie.
is snap of his angry jaws he bit the
and in two. H
That instant the web collapsed, the
ole proud and prosperous structure
in heap, and when the spider =,
ne to he lay sprawling in the hedge ~
III the web all about his head like p;
rag. In one brief moment he had w.
ccked it all-because he did not I'M on
stand the use of the strand from oa'
,ve.-The Outlook. "a