Avery put the frog in his pocket and climbed to the hayloft. “The last time I swang in this swing, I almost crashed into a barn swallow,” he yelled.
“Take that frog out!” ordered Fern.
Avery straddled the rope and jumped. He sailed out through the door, frog and all, and into the sky, frog and all. Then he sailed back into the barn.
“Your tongue is purple!” screamed Fern.
“So is yours!” cried Avery, sailing out again with the frog.
“I have hay inside my dress! It itches!” called Fern.
“Scratch it!” yelled Avery, as he sailed back.
“It’s my turn,” said Fern. “Jump off!”
“Fern’s got the itch1” sang Avery.
When he jumped off, he threw the swing up to his sister. She shut her eyes tight and jumped. She felt the dizzy drop, then the supporting lift of the swing. When she opened her eyes she was looking up into the blue sky and was about to fly back through the door.
They took turns for and hour.
When the children grew tired of swinging, they went down toward the pasture and picked wild raspberries and ate them. Their tongues turned from purple to red. Fern bit into a raspberry that had a bad-tasting bug inside it, and got discouraged. Avery found and empty candy box and put his frog in it. The frog seemed tired after his morning in the swing. The children walked slowly up toward the barn. They, too, were tired and hardly had energy enough to walk.
“Let’s build a tree house,” suggested Avery. “I want to live in a tree, with my frog.”
“I’m going to visit Wilbur,” Fern announced.
They climbed the fence into the lane and walked lazily toward the pigpen. Wilbur heard them coming and got up.
Avery noticed the spider web, and , coming closer, he saw Charlotte.
“Hey, look at that big spider!” he said. “It’s tremendous.”
“Leave it alone!” commanded Fern. “You’ve got a frog—isn’t that enough?”
“That’s a fine spider and I’m going to capture it,” said Avery. He took the cover off the candy box. Then he picked up a stick. “I’m going to knock that old spider into this box,” he said.
Wilbur’s heart almost stopped when he saw what was going on. This might be the end of Charlotte if the boy succeeded in catching her.
“You stop it, Avery!” cried Fern.
Avery put one leg over the fence of the pigpen. He was just about to raise his stick to hit Charlotte when he lost his balance. He swayed and toppled and landed on the edge of Wilbur’s trough. The trough tipped up and then came down with a slap. The goose egg was right underneath. There was a dull explosion as the egg broke, and then a horrible smell.
Fern screamed. Avery jumped to his feet. The air was filled with the terrible gases and smells from the rotten egg. Templeton, who had been resting in his home, scuttled away into the barn.
“Good night!” screamed Avery. “Good night! What a stink! Let’s get out of here!”
Fern was crying. She held her nose and ran toward the house. Avery ran after her, holding his nose. Charlotte felt greatly relieved to see him go. It had been a narrow escape.
Later on that morning, the animals came up from the pasture—the sheep, the lambs, the gander, the goose, and the seven goslings. There were many complaints about the awful smell, and Wilbur had to tell the story over and over again, of how the Arable boy had tried to capture Charlotte, and how the smell of the broken egg drove him away just in time. “It was that rotten goose egg that saved charlotte’s life,” said Wilbur.
The goose was proud of her share in the adventure. “I’m delighted that the egg never hatched,” she gabbled.
Templeton, of course, was miserable over the loss of his beloved egg. But he couldn’t resist boasting. “It pays to save things,” he said in his surly voice. “A rat never knows when something is going to come in handy. I never throw anything away.
“Well,” said one of the lambs, “this whole business is all well and good for Charlotte, but what about the rest of us? The smell is unbearable. Who wants to live in a barn that is perfumed with rotten egg?”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” said Templeton. He sat up and pulled wisely at his long whiskers, then crept away to pay a visit to the dump.
When Lurvy showed up at lunchtime carrying a pail of food for Wilbur, he stopped short a few paces from the pigpen. He sniffed the air and made a face.
“What in thunder?” he said. Setting the pail down, he picked up the stick that Avery had dropped and pried the trough up. “Rats!” he said. “Fhew! I might a’known a rat would make a nest under this trough. How I hate a rat!”
And Lurvy dragged Wilbur’s trough across the yard and kicked some dirt into the rat’s nest, burying the broken egg and all Templeton’s other possessions. Then he picked up the pail. Wilbur stood in the trough, drooling with hunger. Lurvy poured. The slops ran creamily down around the pig’s eyes and ears. Wilbur grunted. He gulped and sucked, making swishing and swooshing noises, anxious to get everything at once. It was a delicious meal—skim milk, wheat middlings, leftover pancakes, half a doughnut, the rind of a summer squash, two pieces of stale toast, a third of a gingersnap, a fish tail, one orange peel, several noodles from a noodle soup, the scum off a cup of cocoa, an ancient jelly roll, a strip of paper from the lining of the garbage pail, and a spoonful of raspberry jello.
Wilbur ate heartily. He planned to leave half a noodle and a few drops of milk for Templeton. Then he remembered that the rat had been useful in saving Charlotte’s life, and that Charlotte was trying to save his life. So he left a whole noodle, instead of a half.
Now that the broken egg was buried, the air cleared and the barn smelled good again. The afternoon passed, and evening came. Shadows lengthened. The cool and kindly breath of evening entered through doors and windows. Astride her web, Charlotte sat moodily eating a horsefly and thinking about the future. After a while she bestirred herself.
She descended to the center of the web and there she began to cut some of her lines. She worked slowly but steadily while the other creatures drowsed. None of the others, not even the goose, noticed that she was at work. Deep in his soft bed, Wilbur snoozed. Over in their favorite corner, the goslings whistled a night song.
Charlotte tore quite a section out of her web, leaving an open space in the middle. Then she started weaving something to take the place of the threads she had removed. When Templeton got back from the dump, around midnight, the spider was still at work.
XI. The Miracle
The next day was foggy. Everything on the farm was dripping wet. The grass looked like a magic carpet. The asparagus patch looked like a silver forest.
On foggy mornings, Charlotte's web was truly a thing of beauty. This morning each thin strand was decorated with dozens of tiny beads of water. The web glistened in the light and made a pattern of loveliness and mystery, like a delicate veil. Even Lurvy, who wasn't particularly interested in beauty, noticed the web when he came with the pig's breakfast. He noted how clearly it showed up and he noted how big and carefully built it was. And then he took another look and he saw something that made him set his pail down. There, in the center of the web, neatly woven in block letters, was a message. It said:
SOME PIG!
Lurvy felt weak. He brushed his hand across his eyes and stared harder at Charlotte's web. "I'm seeing things," he whispered. He dropped to his knees and uttered a short prayer. Then, forgetting all about Wilbur's breakfast, he walked back to the house and called Mr. Zuckerman.
"I think you'd better come down to the pigpen, he said.
"What’s the trouble?” asked Mr. Zuckerman. “Anything wrong with the pig?"
"N-not exactly," said Lurvy. "Come and see for yourself."
The two men walked silently down to Wilbur's yard. Lurvy pointed to the spider's web. "Do you see what I see?" he asked.
Zuckerman stared at the writing on the web. Then he murmured the words "Some Pig." Then he looked at Lurvy. Then they both began to tremble. Charlotte, sleepy after her night's exertions, smiled as she watched. Wilbur came and stood directly under the web.
"Some pig!" muttered Lurvy in a low voice.
"Some pig!" Whispered Mr. Zuckerman. They stared and stared for a long time at Wilbur. Then they stared at Charlotte.
"You don't suppose that that spider . . . " began Mr. Zuckerman--but he shook his head and didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he walked solemnly back up to the house and spoke to his wife. "Edith, something has happened," he said, in a weak voice. He went into the living room and sat down and Mrs. Zuckerman followed.
"I've got something to tell you, Edith," he said. "You better sit down."
Mrs. Zuckerman sank into a chair. She looked pale and frightened.
"Edith," he said, trying to keep his voice steady, "I think you had best be told that we have a very unusual pig."
A look of complete bewilderment came over Mrs. Zuckerman's face . "Homer Zuckerman, what in the world are you talking about?" she said.
"This is a very serious thing, Edith," he replied.
"Our pig is completely out of the ordinary."
"What’s unusual about the pig?” asked Mrs. Zuckerman, who was beginning to recover from her scare.
"Well, I don't really know yet," said Mr. Zuckerman. "But we have received a sign, Edith--a mysterious sign. A miracle has happened on this farm. There is a large spider's web in the doorway of the barn cellar, right over the pigpen, and when Lurvy went to feed the pig this morning, he noticed the web because it was foggy, and you know how a spider's web looks very distinct in a fog. And right spang in the middle of the web there were the words 'Some Pig.' The words were woven right into the web. They were actually part of the web, Edith. I know, because I have been down there and seen them. It says, 'Some Pig,' just as clear as clear can be. There can be no mistake about it. A miracle has happened and a sign has occurred hereon earths right on our farm, and we have no ordinary pig."
"Well," said Mrs. Zuckerman, "it seems to me you're a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider."
“Oh, no,” said Zuckerman. “It’s the pig that’s unusual. It says so, right there in the middle of the web.”
“Maybe so,” said Mrs. Zuckerman. “Just the same, I intend to have a look at that spider.”
“It’s just a common grey spider,” said Zuckerman.
They got up, and together they walked down to Wilbur’s yard. “You see, Edith? It’s just a common grey spider.”
Wilbur was pleased to receive so much attention. Lurvy was still standing there, and Mr. And Mrs. Zuckerman, all three, stood for about an hour, reading the words on the web over and over, and watching Wilbur.
Charlotte was delighted with the way her trick was working. She sat without moving a muscle, and listened to the conversation of the people. When a small fly blundered into the web, just beyond the word “pig,” Charlotte dropped quickly down, rolled the fly up, and carried it out of the way.
After a while the fog lifted. The web dried off and the words didn’t show up so plainly. The Zuckermans and Lurvy walked back to the house. Just before they left the pigpen, Mr. Zuckerman took one last look at Wilbur.
“You know,” he said, in an important voice, “I’ve thought all along that that pig of ours was an extra good one. He’s a solid pig. That pig is as solid as they come. You notice how solid he is around the shoulders, Lurvy?”
“Sure, Sure I do,” said Lurvy. “I’ve always noticed that pig. He’s quite a pig.”
“He’s long, and he’s smooth,” said Zuckerman.
“That’s right,” agreed Lurvy. “he’s as smooth as they come. He’s some pig.”
When Mr. Zuckerman got back to the house, he took off his work clothes and put on his best suit. Then he got into his car and drove to the minister’s house. He stayed for an hour and explained to the minister that a miracle had happened on the farm.
“So far,” said Zuckerman, “only four people on earth know about this miracle—myself, my wife Edith, my hired man Lurvy, and you.”
“Don’t tell anybody else,” said the minister. “We don’t know what it means yet, but perhaps if I give thought to it, I can explain it in my sermon next Sunday. There can be no doubt that you have a most unusual pig. I intend to speak about it in my sermon and point out the fact that this community has been visited with a wondrous animal. By the way, does the pig have a name?”
“Why, yes,” said Mr. Zuckerman. “My little niece calls him Wilbur. She’s rather queer child—full of notions. She raised the pig on a bottle and I bought him from her when he was a month old.”
He shook hands with the minister, and left.
Secrets are hard to keep. Long before Sunday came, the news spread all over the county. Everybody knew that a sign had appeared in a spider’s web on the Zuckerman place. Everybody knew that the Zuckermans had a wondrous pig. People came from miles around to look at Wilbur and to read the words on Charlotte’s web. The Zuckermans’ driveway was full of cars and trucks from morning till night—Fords and Chevvies and Buick roadmasters and GMC pickups and Plymouths and Studebakers and Packards and De Sotos with gyromatic transmissions and Oldsmobiles with rocket engines and Jeep station wagons and Pontiacs. The news of the wonderful pig spread clear up into the hills, and farmers came rattling down in buggies and buckboards, to stand hour after hour at Wilbur’s pen admiring the miraculous animal. All said they had never seen such a pig before in their lives.
When Fern told her mother that Avery had tried to hit the Zuckermans’ spider with a stick, Mrs. Arable was so shocked that she sent Avery to bed without any supper, as punishment.
In the days that followed, Mr. Zuckerman was so busy entertaining visitors that he neglected his farm work. He wore his good clothes all the time now—got right into them when he got up in the morning. Mrs. Zuckerman prepared special meals for Wilbur. Lurvy shaved and got a haircut; and his principal farm duty was to feed the pig while people looked on.
Mr. Zuckerman ordered Lurvy to increase Wilbur’s feedings from three meals a day to four meals a day. The Zuckermans were so busy with visitors they forgot about other things on the farm. The blackberries got ripe, and Mrs. Zuckerman failed to put up any blackberry jam. The corn needed hoeing, and Lurvy didn’t find time to hoe it.
On Sunday the church was full. The minister explained the miracle. He said that the words on the spider’s web proved that human beings must always be on the watch for the coming of wonders.
