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A4Chapter 5: Charlotte
T
he night seemed long. Wilbur'sstomach was empty and his mind was
full. And when your stomach is empty
and your mind is full, it's always hard to
sleep.
A dozen times during the night
Wilbur woke and stared into the
blackness, listening to the sounds and
trying to figure out what time it was. A
barn is never perfectly quiet. Even at
midnight there is usually something
stirring.
The first time he woke, he heard
Templeton gnawing a hole in the grain
bin. Templeton's teeth scraped loudly
against the wood and made quite a
racket. "That crazy rat!" thought Wilbur.
"Why does he have to stay up all night,
grinding his clashers and destroying
people's property? Why can't he go to
sleep, like any decent animal?"
The second time Wilbur woke, he
heard the goose turning on her nest and
chuckling to herself.
"What time is it?" whispered
Wilbur to the goose.
"Probably-obably-obably about
half-past eleven," said the goose. "Why
aren't you asleep, Wilbur?"
"Too many things on my mind," said
Wilbur.
"Well," said the goose, "that's not
my trouble. I have nothing at all on my
mind, but I've too many things under my
behind. Have you ever tried to sleep
while sitting on eight eggs?"
"No," replied Wilbur. "I suppose it
is uncomfortable. How long does it take
a goose egg to hatch?"
"Approximately-oximately thirty
days, all told (on the whole)," answered
the goose. "But I cheat a little. On warm
afternoons, I just pull a little straw over
the eggs and go out for a walk."
Wilbur yawned and went back to
sleep. In his dreams he heard again the
voice saying, "I'll be a friend to you. Go
to sleep - you'll see me in the morning."
About half an hour before dawn,
Wilbur woke and listened.
The barn was still dark. The sheep
lay motionless. Even the goose was
quiet. Overhead, on the main floor,
nothing stirred: the cows were resting,
the horses dozed. Templeton had quit
work and gone off somewhere on an
errand. The only sound was a slight
scraping noise from the rooftop, where
the weather-vane swung back and forth.
Wilbur loved the barn when it was like
this calm and quiet, waiting for light.
"Day is almost here," he thought.
Through a small window, a faint gleam
appeared. One by one the stars went out.
Wilbur could see the goose a few feet
away. She sat with head tucked under a
wing. Then he could see the sheep and
the lambs. The sky lightened.
"Oh, beautiful day, it is here at last!
Today I shall find my friend."
Wilbur looked everywhere. He
searched his pen thoroughly. He
examined the window ledge, stared up at
the ceiling. But he saw nothing new.
Finally he decided he would have to
speak up. He hated to break the lovely
stillness of day by using his voice, but he
couldn't think of any other way to locate
the mysterious new friend who was
nowhere to be seen. So Wilbur cleared
his throat.
"Attention, please!" he said in a
loud, firm voice. "Will the party who
addressed me at bedtime last night
kindly make himself or herself known by
giving an appropriate sign or signal!"
Wilbur paused and listened. All the
other animals lifted their heads and
stared at him. Wilbur blushed. But he
was determined to get in touch with his
unknown friend.
"Attention, please!" he said. "I will
repeat the message. Will the party who
addressed me at bedtime last night
kindly speak up. Please tell me where
you are, if you are my friend!"
The sheep looked at each other in
disgust.
"Stop your nonsense, Wilbur!" said
the oldest sheep. "If you have a new
friend here, you are probably disturbing
his rest; and the quickest way to spoil a
friendship is to wake somebody up in the
morning before he is ready. How can
you be sure your friend is an early
riser?"
"I beg everyone's pardon,"
whispered Wilbur. "I didn't mean to be
objectionable."
He lay down meekly in the manure,
facing the door. He did not know it, but
his friend was very near. And the old
sheep was right - the friend was still
asleep.
Soon Lurvy appeared with slops
for breakfast. Wilbur rushed out, ate
everything in a hurry, and licked the
trough. The sheep moved off down the
lane, the gander waddled along behind
them, pulling grass. And then, just as
Wilbur was settling down for his
morning nap, he heard again the thin
voice that had addressed him the night
before.
"Salutations!" said the voice.
Wilbur jumped to his feet. "Saluwhat?"
he cried.
"Salutations!" repeated the voice.
"What are they, and where are
you?" screamed Wilbur. "Please, please,
tell me where you are. And what are
salutations?"
"Salutations are greetings," said the
voice. "When I say 'salutations,' it's just
my fancy way of saying hello or good
morning. Actually, it's a silly expression,
and I am surprised that I used it at all.
As for my whereabouts, that's easy. Look
up here in the corner of the doorway!
Here I am. Look, I'm waving!"
At last Wilbur saw the creature that
had spoken to him in such a kindly way.
Stretched across the upper part of the
doorway was a big spiderweb, and
hanging from the top of the web, head
down, was a large grey spider. She was
about the size of a gumdrop. She had
eight legs, and she was waving one of
them at Wilbur in friendly greeting. "See
me now?" she asked.
"Oh, yes indeed," said Wilbur. "Yes
indeed! How are you? Good morning!
Salutations! Very pleased to meet you.
What is your name, please? May I have
your name?"
"My name," said the spider, "is
Charlotte."
"Charlotte what?" asked Wilbur,
eagerly.
"Charlotte A. Cavatica. But just
call me Charlotte."
"I think you're beautiful," said
Wilbur.
"Well, I am pretty," replied
Charlotte. "There's no denying that.
Almost all spiders are rather nicelooking.
I'm not as flashy as some, but
I'll do. I wish I could see you, Wilbur, as
clearly as you can see me."
"Why can't you?" asked the pig.
"I'm right here."
"Yes, but I'm near-sighted," replied
Charlotte. "I've always been dreadfully
near-sighted. It's good in some ways, not
so good in others. Watch me wrap up
this fly."
A fly that had been crawling along
Wilbur's trough had flown up and
blundered into the lower part of
Charlotte's web and was tangled in the
sticky threads. The fly was beating its
wings furiously, trying to break loose
and free itself.
"First," said Charlotte, "I dive at
him." She plunged headfirst toward the
fly. As she dropped, a tiny silken thread
unwound from her rear end.
"Next, I wrap him up." She grabbed
the fly, threw a few jets of silk around it,
and rolled it over and over, wrapping it
so that it couldn't move. Wilbur watched
in horror. He could hardly believe what
he was seeing, and although he detested
flies, he was sorry for this one.
"There!" said Charlotte. "Now I
knock him out, so he'll be more
comfortable." She bit the fly. "He can't
feel a thing now," she remarked. "He'll
make a perfect breakfast for me."
"You mean you eat flies?" gasped
Wilbur.
"Certainly. Flies, bugs,
grasshoppers, choice beetles, moths,
butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats,
midges, daddy longlegs (type of spider
that has a tiny body and very long thin
legs), centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets -
anything that is careless enough to get
caught in my web. I have to live, don't
I?"
"Why, yes, of course," said Wilbur.
"Do they taste good?"
"Delicious. Of course, I don't really
eat them. I drink them - drink their
blood. I love blood," said Charlotte, and
her pleasant, thin voice grew even
thinner and more pleasant.
"Don't say that!" groaned Wilbur.
"Please don't say things like that!"
"Why not? It's true, and I have to
say what is true. I am not entirely happy
about my diet of flies and bugs, but it's
the way I'm made. A spider has to pick
up a living somehow or other, and I
happen to be a trapper. I just naturally
build a web and trap flies and other
insects. My mother was a trapper before
me. Her mother was a trapper before
her. All our family have been trappers.
Way back for thousands and thousands of
years we spiders have been laying for
flies and bugs."
"It's a miserable inheritance," said
Wilbur, gloomily. He was sad because
his new friend was so bloodthirsty.
"Yes, it is," agreed Charlotte. "But I
can't help it. I don't know how the first
spider in the early days of the world
happened to think up this fancy idea of
spinning a web, but she did, and it was
clever of her, too. And since then, all of
us spiders have had to work the same
trick. It's not a bad pitch, on the whole."
"It's cruel," replied Wilbur, who
did not intend to be argued out of his
position.
"Well, you can't talk." said
Charlotte. "You have your meals brought
to you in a pail. Nobody feeds me. I
have to get in own living. I live by my
wits. I have to be sharp and clever, lest I
go hungry. I have to think things out,
catch what I can, take what comes. And
it just so happens, my friend, that what
comes is flies and insects and bugs. And
furthermore," said Charlotte, shaking one
of her legs, "do you realize that if I didn't
catch bugs and eat them, bugs would
increase and multiply and get so
numerous that they'd destroy the earth,
wipe out everything?"
"Really?" said Wilbur. "I wouldn't
want that to happen. Perhaps your web is
a good thing after all."
The goose had been listening to this
conversation and chuckling to herself.
"There are a lot of things Wilbur doesn't
know about life," she thought. "He's
really a very innocent little pig. He
doesn't even know what's going to
happen to him around Christmastime; he
has no idea that Mr. Zuckerman and
Lurvy are plotting to kill him." And the
goose raised herself a bit and poked her
eggs a little further under her so that they
would receive the full heat from her
warm body and soft feathers.
Charlotte stood quietly over the fly,
preparing to eat it.
Wilbur lay down and closed his
eyes. He was tired from his wakeful
night and from the excitement of meeting
someone for the first time. A breeze
brought him the smell of clover - the
sweet-smelling world beyond his fence.
"Well," he thought, "I've got a new
friend, all right. But what a gamble
friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal,
scheming, bloodthirsty - everything I
don't like. How can I learn to like her,
even though she is pretty and, of course,
clever?"
Wilbur was merely suffering the
doubts and fears that often go with
finding a new friend. In good time he
was to discover that he was mistaken
about Charlotte. Underneath her rather
bold and cruel exterior, she had a kind
heart, and she was to prove loyal and
true to the very end.
