"Yes, step right down upon me, and kill me, if you like," said Mrs. Tarantula to Dick, as they met at the schoolhouse door. "This is a hard world, Dick Adams, and I am about tired of living in it.

"You don't know what a fine home I once had! It was in that clay mound; and, when I had dug me a hole fully a foot deep and an inch across, my jaws and my eight legs were quite tired out. I left some small stones on the side for stairs: I lined the hole with brown silk next to the dirt, and with white satin inside, both of which I spun and wove on the spot.

"My nice round lid fitted so snug and even, that I thought no one but myself ever could find my house. But, last week, your brother Will's sharp eyes spied the round ring that marks my nest; and he went and tore the lid from its hinges, and left my hundred and ten children without a roof to cover their heads. How I would like to bite that boy!

"I found the lid, and tried to fasten it down again; but a heavy shower came up, and I could not fix it in the rain. Then my husband came over from his house. You know our husbands never live with the rest of the family. They are too cross and get too hungry at times.

"We were not on very good terms; for, some time before, when he thought I was away from home, he tried to get into my house. I heard him, and, running up stairs, I put my claws in the two little holes in the lining of the lid, and braced myself so that he could not pry open the lid. He said he only wanted to pay me a visit; but I knew he was hungry, and wanted to eat up our children.

"But now he spoke very kindly to me, and told me that my lid could not be fixed on; but, as my children were now old enough to care for themselves, I had better go home with him. I went to his house to talk it over and forgot to give the children their supper, and tell them to work for themselves after this.

"My husband told me a few days after that my boys and girls got into a fight, and, before they quit, ate each other up; but he was away from home for two days, and looked very full when he came back.

"He may have told the truth; but I can't see how one of my little ones could eat the other one hundred and nine, and then swallow himself too."

This is what Dick Adams dreamed that a tarantula said to him. He had seen one on his way to school, and what the teacher told him about the insect had interested him so much that he found himself dreaming about it all night.

San Diego, Cal.