THE
WONDERFUL STORIES
OF
FUZ-BUZ THE FLY
AND
MOTHER GRABEM
THE
SPIDER.
PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
1867.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
MRS. GRABEM AND FUZ-BUZ.
MRS. GRABEM was a hairy spider who knitcobwebs and caught flies and brought up asmall household of nine young spiders.
When I first knew this happy family, and learned all thewonderful things they heard and did, their home was aspretty a place as a spider need want. Their web wasspun to and fro across the crotch of an old apple tree,and when they looked down they could see the greengrass, and when they looked up they could see the greatjolly red apples which must have looked to those youngspiders just as the stars look to our own young folks.
On one side of their web, Mrs. Grabem had knit withgreat labour a long dark cave all of cobweb, where thefamily slept at night, and where they lay trembling whilethe great winds blew and the tree rocked and bent.
One fine breezy morning in June, when the leaves[Pg 4]above were clapping their palms for joy at growing, andwhen the birds were tossing little love songs to one another,the old lady sat mending her web which a greatwasp had broken. Meanwhile, the young spiders chasedeach other along one thread and down another andshook the dew from the web as they played.
"Ah!" said the eldest of them, as he saw it sparkle inthe sun, "these must be the diamonds we have heardabout."
"No," said another, "they look to me blue, they areturquoises."
"Geese!" said a third, who was on a distant part of theweb, "they are drops of gold, any one can see they areyellow."
At this they fell to abusing each other, when suddenlythe old lady cried out, "Foolish children, if you changeplaces you will see that each of you is right. You makeme think of a tale which my grandmother used to tellme. It is a story which has come down in our familyfrom your ancestor who gave Robert Bruce such verygood advice without ever saying a word. You knowthat the king was looking at the spider when he wasswinging a line, striving to fasten it. The spider havingtried six times was about to stop, for before this spidersnever tried more than six times. But when he looked upand saw the king he knew just what was needed to givehim courage, and therefore it was that the spider made[Pg 5]one more mighty effort, and so at last made fast theweb.
"Thus you see that our ancestor invented trying seventimes, although I think the Bruce usually gets more creditthan the s