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the missus, Seven Eyes.”
    â€œYou bet, Cap,” Seven Eyes replied. The second pirate was missing an eye. Unlike brown recluses, pirate spiders had eight eyes, arranged in two rows.
    Edith and Felix had suspended themselves from a dust-encrusted ship’s lantern opposite the figurehead. The egg sac glimmered softly in the reflection of the streetlight outside. This is terrible, Edith thought. A hundred innocent lives cut off!
    She and Felix exchanged glances, a cross fire of desperate looks from their dozen eyes. They were not in a good place to attack. Oliphant Uxbridge would be no help. His wife was growing hysterical as he continued to converse.
    â€œOliphant! He’s coming closer to the sac! Oliphant, do something!”
    â€œI think we could make an arrangement of some sort. My wife, she is lovely, I admit. But, well … I guess I could find anoth —”

    â€œAre you nuts?” Edith screamed. “You lousy good-for-nothing!”
    At that moment, there was another tiny glimmer above the ship’s figurehead.
    â€œHi, guys!” said Julep.
    Edith was stunned. How in the name of silk and venom had her daughters gotten there so quickly? But there they were! The two girls were swinging from silken threads attached to a block and tackle used for hoisting sails.
    â€œAhoy there!” cried Jo Bell, wiggling a dragline.
    The two pirates launched themselves toward the sisters. But blinded by the streetlight outside, they had not seen the kill trap that Julep and Jo Bell had spun. They were caught! Julep and Jo Bell perched in opposite corners of the kill trap, paying out binding silk as fast as they could.
    â€œMake it tight. Steer clear of their fangs, girls.” Edith paused to look at her three children in awe. “Brilliant, just brilliant,” she murmured.
    â€œThank you!” Mrs. Uxbridge gasped. “I don’t know how to thank you. Your courage, your kindness.”
    â€œYes, we cannot thank you enough,” Oliphant chimed in.
    Mrs. Uxbridge swung herself toward her husband and glared.
    â€œWhat do you mean WE! You mealy-fanged, gutless, pompous ass. As soon as the eggs hatch, I’m out of here. And you get out now, on the double. Find yourself another figurehead to spin a web in. And find yourself another mate, as you suggested when you were about to hand me over to those thugs!”
    â€œYou can’t mean it, dearest.”
    â€œI do mean it, and don’t dearest me.”
    Fat Cat meowed, “Bravo, madame!”
    â€œMrs. Uxbridge, you are welcome to move onto the Constitution with us,” Edith said.
    â€œMy dear, don’t you want to reconsider?” Oliphant persisted.

    â€œNo, Oliphant. I don’t. But I do owe Mrs …. what is your name?”
    â€œEdith, just call me Edith.”
    â€œI do owe you an apology, Edith. You are not vulgar at all. And you may call me by my first name — Glory.”
    â€œOh, my! My!” Edith murmured to no one in particular. “Let’s go back and get settled. It’s been quite a night.”
    Julep, Felix, and Jo Bell exchanged glances. The S word again. Whenever Edith said the word “settled,” they knew she was anything but. However, they followed their mother back to the Constitution .

D espite Edith’s worries, life was settled for a while. Oliphant Uxbridge moved to another ship’s figurehead. He lost no time in taking up with another orb weaver. Glory’s egg sac hatched, but unfortunately the proprietor of the store left the door wide open on the very day the spiderlings arrived. A fresh breeze swept into the shop and all one hundred twenty-two little Uxbridges blew away, out of the shop and onto the winds to find their own way in the world. Glory was very upset and often dropped in to visit Edith.
    â€œImagine losing a husband and one hundred twenty-two children all within such a short time.” Edith shook her head in sympathy.