Charlotte
THE NIGHT seemed long. Wilbur's stom-
ach 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 bam is never
perfectly quiet. Even at midnight there is usually some-
thing stirring.
The first time he woke, he heard Templeton gnaw-
ing 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 uncomforta-
ble. How long does it take a goose egg to hatch?"
"Approximately-oxirnately thirty days, all told," an-
swered the goose. "But I cheat a little. On warm after-
noons, 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 motion-
less. 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 some-
where on an errand. The only sound was a slight scrap-
ing noise from the rooftop, where the weather-vane
swung back and fonh. 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 de-
cided he would have to speak up. He hated to break the
lovely stillness of dawn by using his voice, but he
couldn't think of any other way to locate the mysteri-
ous new friend who was nowhere to be seen. So Wil-
bur cleared his throat.
"Attention, please!" he said in a loud, finn 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 un-
known friend.
"Attention, please!" he said. "I will repeat the mes-
sage. 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 dis-
turbing his rest; and the quickest way to spoil a friend-
ship 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. Wil-
bur 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. "Salu-what?" he cried.
"Salutations!" repeated the voice.
"What are they, and where are you?" screamed Wil-
bur. "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 where-
abouts, 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 nice-looking.
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 beedes,
moths, butterflies, tasty cockroaches, gnats, midges,
daddy longlegs, centipedes, mosquitoes, crickets-'.Uly-
thing 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 in-
sects. My mother was a trapper before me. Her mother
was a trapper before her. All our family have been trap-
pers. 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 my 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 mul-
tiply and get so numerous that they'd destroy the earth,
wipe out everything?"
"Really?" said Wilbur. "I wouldn't want that to hap-
pen. 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 wann 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 be-
yond his fence. "Well," he thought, "I've got a new
friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Char-
lotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty-every-
thing 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 Char-
lotte. Underneath her rather bold and cruel exterior,
she had a kind heart, and she was to prove loyal and
true to the very end.