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Richard R. Grant
ePub
A4Chapter 10: An Explosion
D
ay after day the spider waited,head-down, for an idea to come to her.
Hour by hour she sat motionless, deep in
thought.
Having promised Wilbur that she
would save his life, she was determined
to keep her promise. Charlotte was
naturally patient.
She knew from experience that if
she waited long enough, a fly would
come to her web; and she felt sure that if
she thought long enough about Wilbur's
problem, an idea would come to her
mind.
Finally, one morning toward the
middle of July, the idea came. "Why,
how perfectly simple!" she said to
herself. "The way to save Wilbur's life
is to play a trick on Zuckerman. If I can
fool a bug," thought Charlotte, "I can
surely fool a man. People are not as
smart as bugs."
Wilbur walked into his yard just at
that moment.
"What are you thinking about,
Charlotte?" he asked.
"I was just thinking," said the
spider, "that people are very gullible."
"What does 'gullible' mean?"
"Easy to fool," said Charlotte.
"That's a mercy," replied Wilbur,
and he lay down in the shade of his fence
and went fast asleep. The spider,
however, stayed wide awake, gazing
affectionately at him and making plans
for his future. Summer was half gone.
She knew she didn't have much time.
That morning, just as Wilbur fell
asleep, Avery Arable wandered into the
Zuckerman's front yard, followed by
Fern. Avery carried a live frog in his
hand. Fern had a crown of daisies in her
hair. The children ran for the kitchen.
"Just in time for a piece of
blueberry pie," said Mrs. Zuckerman.
"Look at my frog!" said Avery,
placing the frog on the drainboard and
holding out his hand for pie.
"Take that thing out of here!" said
Mrs. Zuckerman.
"He's hot," said Fern. "He's almost
dead, that frog."
"He is not," said Avery. "He lets me
scratch him between the eyes." The frog
jumped and landed in Mrs. Zuckerman's
dishpan full of soapy water.
"You're getting your pie on you,"
said Fern. "Can I look for eggs in the
henhouse, Aunt Edith?"
"Run outdoors, both of you! And
don't bother the hens!"
"It's getting all over everything,"
shouted Fern. "His pie is all over his
front."
"Come on, frog!" cried Avery. He
scooped up his frog. The frog kicked,
splashing soapy water onto the blueberry
pie.
"Another crisis!" groaned Fern.
"Let's swing in the swing!" said
Avery.
The children ran to the barn.
Mr. Zuckerman had the best swing
in the county. It was a single long piece
of heavy rope tied to the beam over the
north doorway. At the bottom end of the
rope was a fat knot to sit on.
It was arranged so that you could
swing without being pushed. You
climbed a ladder to the hayloft. Then,
holding the rope, you stood at the edge
and looked down, and were scared and
dizzy. Then you straddled the knot, so
that it acted as a seat. Then you got up
all your nerve, took a deep breath, and
jumped. For a second you seemed to be
falling to the barn floor far below, but
then suddenly the rope would begin to
catch you, and you would sail through
the barn door going a mile a minute, with
the wind whistling in your eyes and ears
and hair. Then you would zoom upward
into the sky, and look up at the clouds,
and the rope would twist and you would
twist and turn with the rope. Then you
would drop down, down, down out of
the sky and come sailing back into the
barn almost into the hayloft, then sail out
again (not quite so far this time), then in
again (not quite so high), then out again,
then in again, then out, then in; and then
you'd jump off and fall down and let
somebody else try it.
Mothers for miles around worried
about Zuckerman's swing. They feared
some child would fall off. But no child
ever did. Children almost always hang
onto things tighter than their parents think
they will.
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 itch!" 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 an 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 an 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 tremenjus."
"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 ol'
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 mighta
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, and
sucked and gulped, 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.
