This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.
Elbert Hubbard
ePub
A4Chapter 22: A Warm Wind
A
nd so Wilbur came home to hisbeloved manure pile in the barn cellar.
His was a strange homecoming. Around
his neck he wore a medal of honor; in
his mouth he held a sac of spider's eggs.
There is no place like home, Wilbur
thought, as he placed Charlotte's five
hundred and fourteen unborn children
carefully in a safe corner. The barn
smelled good. His friends the sheep and
the geese were glad to see him back.
The geese gave him a noisy
welcome.
"Congratu-congratucongratulations!"
they cried. "Nice
work."
Mr. Zuckerman took the medal from
Wilbur's neck and hung it on a nail over
the pigpen, where visitors could
examine it. Wilbur himself could look at
it whenever he wanted to.
In the days that followed, he was
very happy. He grew to a great size. He
no longer worried about being killed, for
he knew that Mr. Zuckerman would keep
him as long as he lived. Wilbur often
thought of Charlotte. A few strands of
her old web still hung in the doorway.
Every day Wilbur would stand and look
at the torn, empty web, and a lump
would come to his throat. No one had
ever had such a friend - so affectionate,
so loyal, and so skillful.
The autumn days grew shorter,
Lurvy brought the squashes and
pumpkins in from the garden and piled
them on the barn floor, where they
wouldn't get nipped on frosty nights. The
maples and birches turned bright colors
and the wind shook them and they
dropped their leaves one by one to the
ground. Under the wild apple trees in the
pasture, the red little apples lay thick on
the ground, and the sheep gnawed them
and the geese gnawed them and foxes
came in the night and sniffed them. One
evening, just before Christmas, snow
began falling. It covered house and barn
and fields and woods. Wilbur had never
seen snow before. When morning came
he went out and plowed the drifts in his
yard, for the fun of it. Fern and Avery
arrived, dragging a sled. They coasted
down the lane and out onto the frozen
pond in the pasture.
"Coasting is the most fun there is,"
said Avery.
"The most fun there is," retorted
Fern, "is when the Ferris wheel stops
and Henry and I are in the top car and
Henry makes the car swing and we can
see everything for miles and miles and
miles."
"Goodness, are you still thinking
about that ol' Ferris wheel?" said Avery
in disgust. "The Fair was weeks and
weeks ago."
"I think about it all the time," said
Fern, picking snow from her ear.
After Christmas the thermometer
dropped to ten below zero. Cold settled
on the world. The pasture was bleak and
frozen. The cows stayed in the barn all
the time now, except on sunny mornings
when they went out and stood in the
barnyard in the lee of the straw pile. The
sheep stayed near the barn, too, for
protection. When they were thirsty they
ate snow. The geese hung around the
barnyard the way boys hang around a
drug store, and Mr. Zuckerman fed them
corn and turnips to keep them cheerful.
"Many, many, many thanks!" they
always said, when they saw food
coming.
Templeton moved indoors when
winter came. His ratty home under the
pig trough was too chilly, so he fixed
himself a cozy nest in the barn behind the
grain bins. He lined it with bits of dirty
newspapers and rags and whenever he
found a trinket or a keepsake he carried
it home and stored it there. He continued
to visit Wilbur three times a day, exactly
at mealtime, and Wilbur kept the
promise he had made. Wilbur let the rat
eat first.
Then, when Templeton couldn't
hold another mouthful, Wilbur would
eat. As a result of overeating, Templeton
grew bigger and fatter than any rat you
ever saw. He was gigantic. He was as
big as a young woodchuck.
The old sheep spoke to him about
his size one day. "You would live
longer," said the old sheep, "if you ate
less."
"Who wants to live forever?"
sneered the rat. "I am naturally a heavy
eater and I get untold satisfaction from
the pleasures of the feast." He patted his
stomach, grinned at the sheep, and crept
upstairs to lie down.
All winter Wilbur watched over
Charlotte's egg sac as though he were
guarding his own children. He had
scooped out a special place in the
manure for the sac, next to the board
fence. On very cold nights he lay so that
his breath would warm it. For Wilbur,
nothing in life was so important as this
small round object - nothing else
mattered. Patiently he awaited the end of
winter and the coming of the little
spiders. Life is always a rich and steady
time when you are waiting for something
to happen or to hatch. The winter ended
at last.
"I heard the frogs today," said the
old sheep one evening. "Listen! You can
hear them now."
Wilbur stood still and cocked his
cars. From the pond, in shrill chorus,
came the voices of hundreds of little
frogs.
"Springtime," said the old sheep,
thoughtfully. "Another spring." As she
walked away, Wilbur saw a new lamb
following her.
It was only a few hours old.
The snows melted and ran away.
The streams and ditches bubbled and
chattered with rushing water. A sparrow
with a streaky breast arrived and sang.
The light strengthened, the mornings
came sooner. Almost every morning
there was another new lamb in the
sheepfold. The goose was sitting on nine
eggs. The sky seemed wider and a warm
wind blew. The last remaining strands of
Charlotte's old web floated away and
vanished.
One fine sunny morning, after
breakfast, Wilbur stood watching his
precious sac. He wasn't thinking of
anything much. As he stood there, he
noticed something move. He stepped
closer and stared. A tiny spider crawled
from the sac. It was no bigger than a
grain of sand, no bigger than the head of
a pin.
Its body was grey with a black
stripe underneath. Its legs were grey and
tan. It looked just like Charlotte.
Wilbur trembled all over when he
saw it. The little spider waved at him.
Then Wilbur looked more closely. Two
more little spiders crawled out and
waved. They climbed round and round
on the sac, exploring their new world.
Then three more little spiders. Then
eight. Then ten. Charlotte's children
were here at last.
Wilbur's heart pounded. He began
to squeal. Then he raced in circles,
kicking manure into the air. Then he
turned a back flip. Then he planted his
front feet and came to a stop in front of
Charlotte's children.
"Hello, there!" he said.
The first spider said hello, but its
voice was so small Wilbur couldn't hear
it.
"I am an old friend of your
mother's," said Wilbur. "I'm glad to see
you. Are you all right? Is everything all
right?"
The little spiders waved their
forelegs at him. Wilbur could see by the
way they acted that they were glad to see
him.
"Is there anything I can get you? Is
there anything you need?"
The young spiders just waved. For
several days and several nights they
crawled here and there, up and down,
around and about, waving at Wilbur,
trailing tiny draglines behind them, and
exploring their home. There were dozens
and dozens of them. Wilbur couldn't
count them, but he knew that he had a
great many new friends. They grew quite
rapidly. Soon each was as big as a BB
shot. They made tiny webs near the sac.
Then came a quiet morning when
Mr. Zuckerman opened a door on the
north side. A warm draft of rising air
blew softly through the barn cellar. The
air smelled of the damp earth, of the
spruce woods, of the sweet springtime.
The baby spiders felt the warm updraft.
One spider climbed to the top of the
fence. Then it did something that came as
a great surprise to Wilbur. The spider
stood on its head, pointed its spinnerets
in the air, and let loose a cloud of fine
silk. The silk formed a balloon. As
Wilbur watched, the spider let go of the
fence and rose into the air.
"Good-bye!" it said, as it sailed
through the doorway.
"Wait a minute!" screamed Wilbur.
"Where do you think you're going?"
But the spider was already out of
sight. Then another baby spider crawled
to the top of the fence, stood on its head,
made a balloon, and sailed away. Then
another spider. Then another. The air
was soon filled with tiny balloons, each
balloon carrying a spider.
Wilbur was frantic. Charlotte's
babies were disappearing at a great rate.
"Come back, children!" he cried.
"Good-bye!" they called. "Goodbye,
good-bye!" At last one little spider
took time enough to stop and talk to
Wilbur before making its balloon.
"We're leaving here on the warm
updraft. This is our moment for setting
forth. We are aeronauts and we are going
out into the world to make webs for
ourselves."
"But where?" asked Wilbur.
"Wherever the wind takes us. High,
low. Near, far. East, west. North, south.
We take to the breeze, we go as we
please."
"Are all of you going?" asked
Wilbur. "You can't all go. I would be left
alone, with no friends. Your mother
wouldn't want that to happen, I'm sure."
The air was now so full of
balloonists that the barn cellar looked
almost as though a mist had gathered.
Balloons by the dozen were rising,
circling, and drifting away through the
door, sailing off on the gentle wind.
Cries of "Good-bye, good-bye, goodbye!"
came weakly to Wilbur's ears. He
couldn't bear to watch any more. In
sorrow he sank to the ground and closed
his eyes. This seemed like the end of the
world, to be deserted by Charlotte's
children. Wilbur cried himself to sleep.
When he woke it was late
afternoon. He looked at the egg sac. It
was empty. He looked into the air. The
balloonists were gone. Then he walked
drearily to the doorway, where
Charlotte's web used to be. He was
standing there, thinking of her, when he
heard a small voice.
"Salutations!" it said. "I'm up here."
"So am I," said another tiny voice.
"So am I," said a third voice.
"Three of us are staying. We like this
place, and we like you."
Wilbur looked up. At the top of the
doorway three small webs were being
constructed. On each web, working
busily was one of Charlotte's daughters.
"Can I take this to mean," asked
Wilbur, "that you have definitely decided
to live here in the barn cellar, and that I
am going to have three friends?"
"You can indeed," said the spiders.
"What are your names, please?"
asked Wilbur, trembling with joy.
"I'll tell you my name," replied the
first little spider, "if you'll tell me why
you are trembling."
"I'm trembling with joy," said
Wilbur.
"Then my name is Joy," said the
first spider.
"What was my mother's middle
initial?" asked the second spider.
"A," said Wilbur.
"Then my name is Aranea," said the
spider.
"How about me?" asked the third
spider. "Will you just pick out a nice
sensible name for me - something not too
long, not too fancy, and not too dumb?"
Wilbur thought hard.
"Nellie?" he suggested.
"Fine, I like that very much," said
the third spider. "You may call me
Nellie." She daintily fastened her orb
line to the next spoke of the web.
Wilbur's' heart brimmed with
happiness. He felt that he should make a
short speech on this very important
occasion.
"Joy! Aranea! Nellie!" he began.
"Welcome to the barn cellar. You have
chosen a hallowed doorway from which
to string your webs. I think it is only fair
to tell you that I was devoted to your
mother. I owe my very life to her. She
was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the
end. I shall always treasure her memory.
To you, her daughters, I pledge my
friendship, forever and ever."
"I pledge mine," said Joy.
"I do, too," said Aranea.
"And so do I," said Nellie, who had
just managed to catch a small gnat.
It was a happy day for Wilbur. And
many more happy, tranquil days
followed.
As time went on, and the months
and years came, and went, he was never
without friends. Fern did not come
regularly to the barn any more. She was
growing up, and was careful to avoid
childish things, like sitting on a milk
stool near a pigpen. But Charlotte's
children and grandchildren and great
grandchildren, year after year, lived in
the doorway. Each spring there were
new little spiders hatching out to take the
place of the old. Most of them sailed
away, on their balloons. But always two
or three stayed and set up housekeeping
in the doorway.
Mr. Zuckerman took fine care of
Wilbur all the rest of his days, and the
pig was often visited by friends and
admirers, for nobody ever forgot the
year of his triumph and the miracle of the
web. Life in the barn was very good -
night and day, winter and summer, spring
and fall, dull days and bright days. It
was the best place to be, thought Wilbur,
this warm delicious cellar, with the
garrulous geese, the changing seasons,
the heat of the sun, the passage of
swallows, the nearness of rats, the
sameness of sheep, the love of spiders,
the smell of manure, and the glory of
everything.
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte.
Although he loved her children and
grandchildren dearly, none of the new
spiders ever quite took her place in his
heart. She was in a class by herself. It is
not often that someone comes along who
is a true friend and a good writer.
Charlotte was both. (End)
