THE FAIRY SPINNER (SOUTHERN TALE)

Many years ago there lived at a swamp's edge a tiny fairy who occupied her time in spinning, and made the most beautiful and delicate fabrics imaginable.

Her wheel whirled so fast that it was nothing but a blur such as a fly's wings make when he is tangled in a flower, and her spindle was the sting of a bumble-bee—her uncle—who had left it to her, for any good use in amends for a life so grouchy that none of the other creatures would have anything to do with him.

Still, one inhabitant of the swamp was worse than the bee, and the fairy was mightily disturbed when she discovered that he had taken up his abode in the very next bush. He was an enormous spider, big as a bird and hideously 191gorgeous with red, blue, and yellow. He took some pride in himself as a spinner, but when he saw the shining tissue that the fairy was weaving he realized that his own art was cheap and poor in comparison and he was jealous and determined to destroy her. She caught up her wheel and spindle and ran with the spider in pursuit. She asked the mouse for shelter, but he was afraid, and shut the door. She begged the toad to protect her, but he only ran out his tongue. Finally a fire-fly came along, with his lantern lit. He saw the fairy; he saw the spider, and, calling to the fairy to follow, he flew with her across the field, lighting the way, for it was now night. They soon reached a bush which bore a handsome pink blossom.

"Jump into the flower," commanded the fire-fly. Still clutching her wheel, the fairy put her last strength into a spring and alighted in the heart of the blossom. The spider was close upon her, but as he put his ugly claw on the lower petal to draw himself up after her, she gave him such a stab in the leg with her spindle that he lost his hold and fell to 192the ground. In another second the flower closed over the fairy, gathering its petals so tightly that the spider could not get in. He wove his web about it, believing that he would catch her when she ventured out in the morning. But when morning came she did not appear. The spider kept watch, but finally the petals dropped to the earth and when he saw no fairy he knew it was all up, so he bit his own body and died. But the fairy was not dead. She remained snuggled in the little ball that the plant put out behind the blossom and in a few days the ball opened and all the beautiful fabric she had been spinning while in hiding poured out in a tassel of snowy white. And men wove the threads to make garments for themselves, and they bless the fairy of the cotton plant and are glad when she escapes the weevil as well as the spider.

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