Spider and Bee took to the same tree. Both built, one weaving and the other stacking, until the Bee peered out from his formidable home.
‘I am done,’ the Bee said, and watched the Spider slowly cross and cross and cross again. ‘And you have just begun.’
Time passed and the Bee set about gathering and storing in his endless rows of cells. He forgot his neighbor, until a sharp rustling whistled from the tree.
‘You shake in every gust,’ the Bee observed, as the Spider clung tight. ‘While I am kept from such trouble.’
Then on another day the Bee returned to his fortress from the day, and after tossing the day’s spoils in a nearby chamber turned to the laborious Spider, who dragged another strand over and through the rest.
‘Yours is weak and small and ugly, while mine grows neater all the time.’
On some third occasion, on a sweet lunch the Bee ventured a third look. A gnat spun round and round the Spider’s pining legs, round and round and round.
‘You work always, and yet somehow must always wait.’
Then while both creatures slept a pair of drops escaped the sky. They froze along the descent and were caught again, one in some cell and the other somewhere in a web. The Spider rose at once, while a host of jealous rain came to hail after the first.
It was quite a ruckus, as the far side of the tree was torn to bits, but from a sheltered branch the spider sat in peace, awaiting lunch so sweet.