Far
into the night, while the other creatures slept, Charlotte worked on her web.
First she ripped out a few of the orb lines near the center. She left the
radial lines alone, as they were needed for support. As she worked, her eight
legs were a great help to her. So were her teeth. She loved to weave and she
was an expert at it. When she was finished ripping things out, her web looked
something like this:
A spider can produce
several kinds of thread. She uses a dry, tough thread for foundation lines, and
she uses a sticky thread for snare lines--the ones that catch and hold insects.
Charlotte decided to use her dry thread for writing the new message.
"If I write the
word 'Terrific' with sticky thread," she thought, "every bug that
comes along will get stuck in it and spoil the effect.""Now let's
see, the first letter is T."Charlotte climbed to a point at the top of the
left hand side of the web. Swinging her spinnerets into position, she attached
her thread and then dropped down. As she dropped, her spinning tubes went into
action and she let out thread. At the bottom, she attached the thread. This
formed the upright part of the letter T. Charlotte was not satisfied, however.
She climbed up and made another attachment, right next to the first. Then she
carried the line down, so that she had a double line instead of a single line.
"It will show up better if I make the whole thing with double
lines."She climbed back up, moved over about an inch to the left, touched
her spinnerets to the web, and then carried a line across to the right, forming
the top of the T. She repeated this, making it double. Her eight legs were very
busy helping.
"Now for the
E!"Charlotte got so interested in her work, she began to talk to herself,
as though to cheer herself on. If you had been sitting quietly in the barn
cellar that evening, you would have heard something like this:
"Now for the R!
Up we go! Attach! Descend! Pay out line! Whoa! Attach! Good! Up you go! Repeat!
Attach! Descend! Pay out line. Whoa, girl! Steady now1 Attach! Climb! Attach!
Over to the right! Pay out line! Attach! Climb! Attach! Over to the right! Pay
loop and around and around! Now in to the left! Attach! Climb! Repeat! O.K.!
Easy, keep those lines together! Now, then, out and down for the leg of the R!
Pay out line! Whoa! Attach! Ascend! Repeat! Good girl!"And so, talking to
herself, the spider worked at her difficult task. When it was completed, she
felt hungry. She are a small bug that she had been saving. Then she slept.
Next morning, Wilbur
arose and stood beneath the web. He breathed the morning air into his lungs.
Drops of dew, catching the sun, made the web stand out clearly. When Lurvy
arrived with breakfast, there was the handsome pig, and over him, woven neatly
in block letters, was the word TERRIFIC. Another miracle.
Lurvy rushed and
called Mr. Zuckerman. Mr. Zuckerman rushed and called Mrs. Zuckerman. Mrs.
Zuckerman ran to the phone and called the Arables. The Arables climbed into
their truck and hurried over.
Everybody stood at
the pigpen and stared at the web and read the word, over and over, while
Wilbur, who really felt terrific, stood quietly swelling out his chest and
swinging his snout from side to side.
"Terrific!"
breathed Zuckerman, in joyful admiration. "Edith, you better phone the
reporter on the Weekly Chronicle and tell him what has happened. He will want
to know about this. He may want to bring a photographer. There isn't a pig in
the whole state that is as terrific as our pig."The news spread. People
who had journeyed to see Wilbur when he was "some pig" came back
again to see him now that he was "terrific."That afternoon, when Mr.
Zuckerman went to milk the cows and clean out the tie-ups, he was still
thinking about what a wondrous pig he owned.
"Lurvy!" he
called. "There is to be no more cow manure thrown down into that pigpen. I
have a terrific pig. I want that pig to have clean, bright straw every day for
his bedding. Understand?
"Yes, sir,"
said Lurvy.
"Furthermore,"
said Mr. Zuckerman, "I want you to start building a crate for Wilbur. I
have decided to take the pig to the County Fair on September sixth. Make the
crate large and paint it green with gold letters!""What will the
letters say?" asked Lurvy.
"They should say
Zuckerman's Famous Pig."Lurvy picked up a pitchfork and walked away to get
some clean straw. having such an important pig was going to mean plenty of
extra work, he could see that.
Below the apple
orchard, at the end of a path, was the dump where Mr. Zuckerman threw all sorts
of trash and stuff that nobody wanted any more. here, in a small clearing
hidden by young alders and wild raspberry bushes, was an astonishing pile of
old bottles and empty tin cans and dirty rags and bits of metal and broken
bottles and broken hinges and broken springs and dead batteries and last
month's magazines and old discarded dishmops and tattered overalls and rusty
spikes and leaky pails and forgotten stoppers and useless junk of all kinds,
including a wrong-size crank for a broken ice-cream freezer.
Templeton knew the
dump and liked it. There were good hiding places there--excellent cover for a
rat. And there was usually a tin can with food still clinging to the inside.
Templeton was down
there now, rummaging around. When he returned to the barn, he carried in his
mouth an advertisement he had torn from a crumpled magazine.
"How's
this?" he asked, showing the ad to Charlotte. "It says 'Crunchy.'
'Crunchy' would be a good word to write in your web.""Just the wrong
idea," replied Charlotte. "Couldn't be worse. We don't want Zuckerman
to think Wilbur is crunchy. He might start thinking about crisp, crunchy bacon
and tasty ham. That would put ideas into his head. We must advertise Wilbur's
noble qualities, not his tastiness. Go get another word, please,
Templeton!"The rat looked disgusted. But he sneaked away to the dump and
was back in a while with a strip of cotton cloth. "How's this?" he
asked. "It's a label off an old shirt."Charlotte examined the label.
It said PRE-SHRUNK.
"I'm sorry,
Templeton," she said, "but 'Pre-shrunk' is out of the question. We
want Zuckerman to think Wilbur is nicely filled out, not all shrunk up. I'll
have to ask you to try again.""What do you think I am, a messenger
boy?" grumbled the rat. "I'm not going to spend all my time chasing
down to the dump after advertising material.""Just once more--please!"
said Charlotte.
"I'll tell you
what I'll do," said Templeton. "I know where there's a package of
soap flakes in the woodshed. It has writing on it. I'll bring you a piece of
the package."He climbed the rope that hung on the wall and disappeared
through a hole in the ceiling. When he came back he had a strip of
blue-and-white cardboard in his teeth.
"There!" he
said, triumphantly. "How's that?"Charlotte read the words: "With
New Radiant Action.""What does it mean?" asked Charlotte, who
had never used any soap flakes in her life.
"How should I
know?" said Templeton. "You asked for words and I brought them. I
suppose the next thing you'll want me to fetch is a dictionary."Together
they studied the soap ad. "'With new radiant action,'" repeated
Charlotte, slowly. "Wilbur!" she called.
Wilbur, who was
asleep in the straw, jumped up.
"Run
around!" commanded Charlotte. "I want to see you in action, to see if
you are radiant."Wilbur raced to the end of his yard.
"Now back again,
faster!" said Charlotte.
Wilbur galloped back.
His skin shone. His tail had a fine, tight curl in it.
"Jump into the
air!" cried Charlotte.
Wilbur jumped as high
as he could.
"Keep your knees
straight and touch the ground with your ears!" called Charlotte.
Wilbur obeyed.
"Do a back flip
with a half twist in it!" cried Charlotte.
Wilbur went over
backwards, writhing and twisting as he went.
"O. K.,
Wilbur," said Charlotte. "You can go back to sleep. O.K., Templeton,
the soap ad will do, I guess. I'm not sure Wilbur's action is exactly radiant,
but it's interesting.""Actually," said Wilbur, "I feel
radiant.""Do you?" said Charlotte, looking at him with
affection. "Well, you're a good little pig, and radiant you shall be. I'm in
this thing pretty deep now--I might as well go the limit."Tired from his
romp, Wilbur lay down in the clean straw. He closed his eyes. The straw seemed
scratchy--not as comfortable as the cow manure, which was always delightfully
soft to lie in. So he pushed the straw to one side and stretched out in the
manure. Wilbur sighed. It had been a busy day--his first day of being terrific.
Dozens of people had visited his yard during the afternoon, and he had had to
stand and pose, looking as terrific as he could. Now he was tired. Fern had
arrived and seated herself quietly on her stool in the corner.
"Tell me a
story, Charlotte!" said Wilbur, as he lay waiting for sleep to come.
"Tell me a story!"So Charlotte, although she, too, was tired, did
what Wilbur wanted.
"Once upon a
time," she began, "I had a beautiful cousin who managed to build her
web across a small stream. One day a tiny fish leaped into the air and got
tangled in the web. My cousin was very much surprised, of course. The fish was
thrashing wildly. My cousin hardly dared tackle it. But she did. She swooped
down and threw great masses of wrapping material around the fish and fought
bravely to capture it.""Did she succeed?" asked Wilbur.
"It was a
never-to-be-forgotten battle," said Charlotte. "There was the fish,
caught only by one fin, and its tail wildly thrashing and shining in the sun.
There was the web, sagging dangerously under the weight of the
fish.""How much did the fish weigh?" asked Wilbur eagerly.
"I don't
know," said Charlotte. "There was my cousin, slipping in, dodging out,
beaten mercilessly over the head by the wildly thrashing fish, dancing in,
dancing out, throwing her threads and fighting hard. First she threw a left
around the tail. The fish lashed back. Then a left to the tail and a right to
the mid-back. Then a left to the tail and a right to the mid-section. The fish
lashed back. Then she dodged to one side and threw a right, and another right
to the fin. Then a hard left to the head, while the web swayed and
stretched.""Then what happened?" asked Wilbur.
"Nothing,"
said Charlotte. "My cousin kept the fish for a while, and then, when she
got good and ready, she ate it.""Tell me another story!" begged
Wilbur.
So Charlotte told him
about another cousin of hers who was an aeronaut.
"What is an
aeronaut?" asked Wilbur.
"A
balloonist," said Charlotte. "My cousin used to stand on her head and
let out enough thread to form balloon. then she'd let go and be lifted into the
air and carried upward on the warm wind.""Is that true?" asked Wilbur.
"Or are you just making it up?""It's true," replied
Charlotte. "I have some very remarkable cousins. And now, Wilbur, it's
time you went to sleep.""Sing something!" begged Wilbur, closing
his eyes.
So Charlotte sang a
lullaby, while crickets chirped in the grass and the barn grew dark. This was
the song she sang.
"Sleep, sleep,
my love, my only,Deep, deep, in the dung and the dark;Be not afraid and be not
lonely!
This is the hour when
frogs and thrushesPraise the world from the woods and the woods and rushes.
Rest form care, my
one and only,Deep in the dung and the dark!"But Wilbur was already asleep.
When the song ended, Fern got up and went home.