"I was thinking, boys, last night, of what you said about killing the poor spiders; and I was sorry that I did not then recollect one thing about a spider which I could have told you, and which would have made you like the poor little creatures better. However, I determined that when you came to see me again, it should be the first thing I would tell you, if you wished to hear it." "Wish to hear it! Why, Uncle Philip, we always wish to hear you tell us of any thing that you please to talk about. You have told us of a great many strange things, about which we knew nothing before; and we will thank you to tell us the story about the spider." "Very well, boys; you shall hear it. Pray, do you not think that it is a piece of difficult work to make a door to a house, and to make hinges to hang it with, and to fit it so nicely that when it is done you cannot see the joints where the door is shut?" "Indeed it is a piece of very hard work. Uncle Philip, and it takes the carpenter a long time to do it; and it is hard work, too, for the blacksmith to make the hinges. But what has that to do with the story about the spider?" "Patience, boys, patience: you shall know presently. Never be in too great a hurry: it is a bad plan. I have always noticed that those persons who hurried most, went slowest in the end. Another question I wish to ask you is this,--do you not think it was hard work for the first man who ever made a spring, and put it on a door, to make it shut itself again when it had been opened?" "Yes, it was so: and the man who does it now gets well paid for it." "Very good, boys. And now what will you say when I tell you that a poor little spider did all these things long before man did?" "What, Uncle Philip! A spider make a door with a hinge and a spring to make it shut itself!" "Yes, boys; a spider. Do you think he deserves to be killed for doing it?" "Oh no, no! But pray tell us all about it. Uncle Philip."