Part 7 (1/2)

”It's a lovely idea,” he went on, chuckling. ”This is what we'll do.

We'll wait till that silly old Spider goes to sleep or is busy, and then we'll rush down--quick as quick--and _steal his diamonds_!”

Then all the sun-fairies laughed and clapped their hands so loudly that the hole in the black cloud grew a good deal larger. They thought it was a grand idea.

They had not long to wait. Presently the Spider became rather tired of admiring his diamonds all by himself, so he set to work to send out invitations for a fly-party. He asked all the flies in the neighbourhood to come and see how nice his web looked when it was hung with diamonds.

As soon as the sun-fairies saw that he was busy they took each other's hands, and with a little run and a big jump they all burst through the hole in the black cloud. Then they flew softly down to the garden where the Big Spider lived.

”How nice and warm it is getting!” thought the Spider.

Presently he said to himself--

”My diamonds must be sparkling beautifully in this suns.h.i.+ne. I'll just take a look at them.”

He turned round, expecting to see the pattern of his web delicately outlined in sparks of light. You will not be surprised to hear that he saw nothing of the kind. He saw his web, it is true, looking like filmy lace against the green of the gra.s.s; but there was not one single diamond hanging upon it!

Then the rage of the Big Spider was terrible to see.

He stamped with all his legs, and he rolled himself round and round, and he used all the most dreadful threats in spider-language.

”I don't care who the thief is,” he said; ”I shall think no more of eating him than if he were a fly!”

At that moment he heard the sweetest little laugh just behind him. This made him so angry that he spent a long time in looking for the person who laughed. While he was still searching the sun-fairies flew up again to the black clouds, carrying the diamonds with them.

”There,” they said, as they threw the diamonds down on the cloud, ”he won't find them there!”

They had forgotten for the moment that, hidden in the black cloud, there were a great number of rain-fairies. Now the rain-fairies never enjoy themselves so much as when they are annoying the sun-fairies: and in the same way there is nothing that pleases the sun-fairies so much as a good quarrel with the rain-fairies. This does not prevent them from being very friendly when they are not quarrelling.

The rain-fairies had seen all that had happened. They pretended to think that the sun-fairies had behaved very unkindly to the Big Spider.

”It's too bad,” they said, ”to steal the poor thing's diamonds. It's not fair. Let's throw them down to him.”

Then a great fight began between the sun-fairies and the rain-fairies for the diamonds, and the fight lasted a long time, and all the time that it lasted the Big Spider was in a rage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WEB AND THE DIAMONDS AND THE BIG SPIDER HIMSELF ALL FELL TO THE GROUND]

At last the rain-fairies won the fight, and went off with the diamonds in their arms.

”Now we'll throw them to the Big Spider,” they said, ”and we'll see how glad he is when his web is hung with diamonds as it was before.”

They forgot that the dew-fairies, when they had trimmed the web with the diamonds, had crept up softly and touched the strings with gentle fingers. But the rain-fairies are rather rough.

They flung out their little arms and threw the diamonds down out of the black cloud. Down dropped the diamonds, and down, and down, till they reached the garden where the Big Spider lived, and the web that the Big Spider had made. But instead of hanging on the web in rows, like little lighted lamps, they dropped into the middle of it with a crash and a dash and a splash, and broke it into a great many pieces, so that the web and the diamonds and the Big Spider himself all fell to the ground.

And by the time the Big Spider was standing on all his legs again the diamonds had disappeared into the gra.s.s.

The truth is that the dew-fairies had found them and had taken them home. I expect they will keep them till the Big Spider has made a new web.

_A LITTLE GIRL IN A BOOK_