You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the last one
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A4Chapter 13: Good Progress
F
ar into the night, while the othercreatures 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 (type of tree) 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 PRESHRUNK.
"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 in to 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 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. "The fish
lost the fight. My cousin wrapped it up
so tight it couldn't budge."
"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 a 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
thrushes,
Praise the world from the woods
and the rushes.
Rest from 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.
