ent he was joined by
others, and presently they came into a smooth little avenue under
the grass. It took them into the edge of the meadow, around a
stalk of mullen, where there were a number of webs.

"There's where she lived--this hairy old woman," said the
teacher,--"up there in that tower. See her snares in the
grass--four of them?"

He rapped on the stalk of mullen with a stick, peering into the
dusty little cavern of silk near the top of it.

"Sure enough! Here is where she lived; for the house is empty, and
there's living prey in the snares."

"What a weird old thing!" said Polly. "Can you tell us more about
her?"

"Well, every summer," said Trove, "a great city grows up in the
field. There are shady streets in it, no wider than a cricket's
back, and millions living in nest and tower and cave and cavern.
Among its people are toilers and idlers, laws and lawbreakers,
thieves and highwaymen, grand folk and plain folk. Here is the
home of the greatest criminal in the city of the field. See! it is
between two leaves,--one serving as roof, the other as floor and
portico. Here is a long cable that comes out of her sitting room
and slopes away to the big snare below. Look at her sheets of silk
in the grass. It's like a washing that's been hung out to dry.
From each a slender cord of silk runs to the main cable. Even a
fly's kick or a stroke of his tiny wing must have gone up the tower
and shaken the floor of the old lady, maybe, with a sort of
thunder. Then she ran out and down the cable to rush upon her
helpless prey. She was an arrant highwayman,--this old lady,--a
creature of craft and violence. She was no sooner married than she
slew her husband--a timid thing smaller than she--and ate him at
one meal. You know the ants are a busy people. This road was
probably a thoroughfare for their freight,--eggs and cattle and
wild rice. I'll warrant she used to lie and wait for them; and woe
to the little traveller if she caught him unawares, for she could
nip him in two with a single thrust of her knives. Then she, would
seize the egg he bore and make off with it. Now the ants are
cunning. They found her downstairs and cut her off from her home
and drove her away into the grass jungle. I've no doubt she faced
a score of them, but, being a swift climber, with lots of rope in
her pocket, was able to get away. The soldier ants began to beat
the jangle. They separated, content to meet her singly, kn