Charlotte's Web (9 page)

“No good,” said Charlotte. “It sounds like a rich dessert.”

“How about ‘Terrific, terrific, terrific'?” asked the goose.

“Cut that down to one ‘terrific' and it will do very
nicely,” said Charlotte. “I think ‘terrific' might impress Zuckerman.”

“But Charlotte,” said Wilbur, “I'm
not
terrific.”

“That doesn't make a particle of difference,” replied Charlotte. “Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print. Does anybody here know how to spell ‘terrific'?”

“I think,” said the gander, “it's tee double ee double rr double rr double eye double ff double eye double see see see see see.”

“What kind of an acrobat do you think I am?” said Charlotte in disgust. “I would have to have St. Vitus's Dance to weave a word like that into my web.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” said the gander.

Then the oldest sheep spoke up. “I agree that there should be something new written in the web if Wilbur's life is to be saved. And if Charlotte needs help in finding words, I think she can get it from our friend Templeton. The rat visits the dump regularly and has access to old magazines. He can tear out bits of advertisements and bring them up here to the barn cellar, so that Charlotte can have something to copy.”

“Good idea,” said Charlotte. “But I'm not sure Templeton will be willing to help. You know how he is—always looking out for himself, never thinking of the other fellow.”

“I bet I can get him to help,” said the old sheep. “I'll
appeal to his baser instincts, of which he has plenty. Here he comes now. Everybody keep quiet while I put the matter up to him!”

The rat entered the barn the way he always did—creeping along close to the wall.

“What's up?” he asked, seeing the animals assembled.

“We're holding a directors' meeting,” replied the old sheep.

“Well, break it up!” said Templeton. “Meetings bore me.” And the rat began to climb a rope that hung against the wall.

“Look,” said the old sheep, “next time you go to the dump, Templeton, bring back a clipping from a magazine. Charlotte needs new ideas so she can write messages in her web and save Wilbur's life.”

“Let him die,” said the rat. “I should worry.”

“You'll worry all right when next winter comes,” said the sheep. “You'll worry all right on a zero morning next January when Wilbur is dead and nobody comes down here with a nice pail of warm slops to pour into the trough. Wilbur's leftover food is your chief source of supply, Templeton.
You
know that. Wilbur's food is your food; therefore Wilbur's destiny and your destiny are closely linked. If Wilbur is killed and his trough stands empty day after day, you'll grow so thin we can look right through your stomach and see objects on the other side.”

Templeton's whiskers quivered.

“Maybe you're right,” he said gruffly. “I'm making a trip to the dump tomorrow afternoon. I'll bring back a magazine clipping if I can find one.”

“Thanks,” said Charlotte. “The meeting is now adjourned. I have a busy evening ahead of me. I've got to tear my web apart and write ‘Terrific.'”

Wilbur blushed. “But I'm
not
terrific, Charlotte. I'm just about average for a pig.”

“You're terrific as far as
I'm
concerned,” replied Charlotte, sweetly, “and that's what counts. You're my best friend, and
I
think you're sensational. Now stop arguing and go get some sleep!”

F
AR 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 now! Attach! Climb! Attach! Over to the right! Pay out line! Attach! Now right and down and swing that 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 ate 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.