Chapter 10 An Explosion

    Day 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, and 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 fog 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 itch1” 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 and 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 and 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 tremendous.”

　　“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 old 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 might a’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, 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.

 

　　为了想出一个主意，这只蜘蛛在网上倒悬了一天又一天。她就那么一连数小时静静地坐着，苦苦地思索。她已经对威伯许诺过要拯救他的生命，因此她决定实现自己的承诺。

　　夏洛天生就十分有耐心。以往的经验告诉她，如果耐心等待得够久，苍蝇会撞到她的网里来的；所以她知道如果对威伯的问题思考的时间足够久，一个好办法最终也会想出来的。

　　将近七月中旬的一个早晨，好主意终于来了。“为什么没早想出来，这主意多简单呐！”她自语道。“拯救威伯的办法就是对祖克曼玩一个把戏。如果我能骗一只小虫子上当，”夏洛想，“我一定也能愚弄一个人。人类未必像虫子一样聪明。”

　　这时威伯走进了他的院子里。

　　“你在想什么呢，夏洛？”他问。

　　“我正在想，”这只蜘蛛说，“人类是很容易上当的。”

　　“‘容易上当’是什么意思？”

　　“就是容易被骗，”夏洛说。

　　“那可太好了，”威伯回答着躺进栅栏的阴影里，很快就入睡了。这只蜘蛛仍然很清醒地呆在那里，深情地望着她的朋友，正在为他的将来做打算。夏天已经过去一半了。她知道她没有太多的时间了。

　　那天早上，就在威伯仍在熟睡时，埃弗里·阿拉贝尔溜达到了祖克曼先生的前院，身后跟着芬。埃弗里手里抓着一只活青蛙。芬的头上戴着一顶金灿灿的雏菊花冠。两个孩子跑进了厨房。

　　“马上就可以吃浆果馅饼了，”祖克曼太太说。

　　“看我的青蛙！”埃弗里说着把青蛙放到了水槽里，然后伸出手去要馅饼。

　　“把这东西拿走！”祖克曼太太说。

　　“他完了，”芬说。“那青蛙快死了。”

　　“他没死，”埃弗里说。“他只是两眼中间那里被我抓伤了。”青蛙跳进祖克曼太太那满是肥皂沫的洗碗桶里。

　　“你在这等着吃你的馅饼吧，”芬说。“我能去找找鸡窝里的蛋吗，伊迪丝舅妈？”

　　“上外边玩去。你们两个！不许打扰母鸡！”

　　“水溅得到处都是，”芬大喊。“他面前的馅饼上都是水！”

　　“过来，青蛙！”埃弗里叫着，去水中捞他的青蛙。青蛙又踢又蹬，把肥皂水溅到浆果馅饼上面。

　　“又是一场惨剧！”芬悲叹。

　　“我们去荡秋千吧！”

　　孩子们飞跑到谷仓去了。

　　祖克曼先生有一个村子里最棒的秋千。它是一根一端系在谷仓北门房粱上的粗壮的长绳子。绳子的末端有一个可以坐上去的宽宽的绳结。这种秋千不必靠别人推就能荡起来。你先从上面的梯子下爬到放干草的地方，再握住绳子站在那上面，这时如果往下看你可能会感到害怕和头晕。接着，你叉起腿坐在绳结上，就像坐在座位里一样。然后你就鼓起你所有的勇气，做一个深呼吸，开始往上荡。在一秒钟之内你还觉得自己好像就要跌到谷仓下面的地上了，但猛然间那绳子却拉住了你，让你以每分钟一哩的速度由谷仓门那里往天空航行，呼呼的风声掠过你的眼睛，耳朵，头发。然后你将笔直地飞升进天空里，看见云彩。绳子会盘旋起来，你也会和它扭在一起，往天上飞。然后你会下落，下落，从天空回航到谷仓里来，几乎都扎进干草堆那里了。接着你又飞出去了（这次飞得就不那么远了），再次飞出去（也不会飞那么高了），再飞出去，再飞回来，去，回；这时你该从秋千上跳下来让别人玩了。

　　附近的母亲们都为祖克曼先生的秋千担心。她们怕会有孩子从上面掉下来。但从没哪个孩子摔下来过。孩子们总是抓得比他们的父母所想象得还要牢。

　　埃弗里把青蛙装进兜里爬上了干草堆。“我上次在这荡秋千时，差点砰地一声撞到谷仓上的燕子呢。”他叫道。

　　“把青蛙拿出来！”芬命令道。

　　埃弗里叉起腿坐到绳子上荡起来。他飞出门口时，兜里的青蛙和别的东西也一起飞上了天。接着，他又飞回了谷仓。

　　“你的舌头都紫了！”芬高叫。

　　“你的也是！”埃弗里叫着，又和那只青蛙一起飞出去了。

　　“我的衣服里都是干草！痒死了！”芬喊道。

　　“挠一挠！”埃弗里飞回来时叫道。

　　“该我了，”芬说。“你下来！”

　　“芬的身上痒痒啦！”埃弗里唱了起来。

　　他跳下来，把秋千扔给了妹妹。她紧闭着眼荡了上去。她荡回来时感到有点头晕，可秋千又很快把她拉了上去。她睁开眼，在再次飞回到门口之前，看到了蓝蓝的天空。

　　他们轮流玩了一小时。

　　当孩子们荡累了，他们便去草场找覆盆子吃。他们的紫舌头都吃红了。芬在一个覆盆子里吃到了一个恶心的小虫子，才不敢再吃了。埃弗里找到一个空的糖果盒，便把青蛙装了进去。青蛙好像今早在秋千上玩累了。孩子们慢慢向谷仓晃去。他们已经累得几乎没有力气走了。

　　“让我们造一座树上的房子吧，”埃弗里建议。“我想住在树上，和我的青蛙在一起。”

　　“我要去看威伯了，”芬宣布。

　　他们爬过栅栏，进了院子，懒洋洋地往猪圈挪。听到他们的脚步声，威伯忙爬了起来。

　　埃弗里注意到了那张蜘蛛网，走上前去，就看见了夏洛。

　　“嘿，看那只大蜘蛛！”他说。“它可真大呀。”

　　“别碰它！”芬命令。“你已经有了一只青蛙了——这还不够吗？”

　　“那可是只不错的蜘蛛，我要抓到它，”埃弗里说。他掀开糖果盒的盖子，然后又拾起一根小棍子。“我要把那大蜘蛛打到这盒子里，”他说。

　　当看到他在做什么时，威伯的心跳几乎都停止了。如果这个男孩成功地抓住了她，夏洛就完了。

　　“你住手，埃弗里！”芬叫起来。

　　埃弗里一条腿迈上了栅栏旁的猪食槽。就在准备举起棍子捅夏洛时，他突然失去了平衡。他摇摇晃晃地倒栽在威伯的食槽边上。绑在那里的食槽啪地一声掉了下来，正好砸在那下面的鹅蛋上。蛋随着一声钝响爆炸了，立刻散发出一种极其可怕的气味。

　　芬尖叫。埃弗里跳起来。空气中全是这只臭蛋的可怕味道。正在家里休息的坦普尔曼急急躲进了谷仓。

　　“天哪！”埃弗里尖叫。“天哪！什么臭味儿！我们快离开这里吧！”

　　芬叫着，捏着鼻子朝房子跑去。埃弗里也捏着鼻子紧随其后。看到他逃走了，夏洛才大大松了一口气。刚才真是死里逃生。

　　那天早上晚些时候，动物们都从草场那边走回来了——绵羊，羊羔，公鹅，母鹅，七只小鹅。他们对这可怕的气味发出很多抱怨，因此威伯不得不把这个阿拉贝尔家的男孩如何想要抓夏洛，而打碎的蛋又是怎么及时地把他赶跑的故事讲了一遍又一遍。“正是那只破鹅蛋救了夏洛一命，”威伯说。

　　母鹅为这场历险中有自己的功劳而骄傲。“我很高兴那只蛋没孵出来，”她急急地说。

　　当然，可怜的坦普尔曼可悲地损失了他收藏的蛋。可他却情不自禁在那里自夸起来。“这就是收藏的回报，”他以一种不容置疑的口气说，“一只老鼠从不知道何时会发生想不到的事情。因此我从不扔掉我的任何收藏。”

　　“是呀，”一只羊羔说，“整件事情只对夏洛有好处，可对我们其余的人呢？这味儿真让人受不了。谁想住在全是臭蛋味儿的谷仓里？”

　　“不必担心，你会习惯的，”坦普尔曼说。他坐起来，揪揪长胡子，然后到垃圾堆参观去了。

　　中午时分，鲁维拎着给威伯的食桶走了过来，停到猪圈前。他抽抽鼻子作了个鬼脸。

　　“怎么了？”他说着，放下食桶，拎起埃弗里扔在那里的棍子把食槽侦察了一番。“老鼠！”他说，“对了！我早该猜到老鼠会在食槽下打洞的。我多恨老鼠！”

　　鲁维把威伯的食槽拽到了院子中间后，往耗子洞踢进了一些脏土，将那只破蛋和坦普尔曼其他的收藏品一起盖上。然后他才拎起了食桶。在食槽边等候的威伯，馋得口水都流出来了。鲁维把饲料倒下去，残渣溅得威伯满眼满耳都是。威伯打着呼噜冲过来。他吞了又吸，吸了又吞，急急挥舞着鼻子，迫不及待地吞食着每一样东西。这顿饭丰盛极了——有脱脂奶，粗麦粉，薄煎饼渣，半张油煎圈饼，南瓜皮，两片烤面包，三分之一块的脆饼干，一条鱼尾巴，一块橙子皮，面条汤里捞出的几根面条，一杯残剩的可可，一个干硬的小圆面包，食桶上剥落的纸片，还有一匙覆盆子果冻。

　　威伯吃了个痛快。他本打算给坦普尔曼留下半根面条和几滴牛奶，可是又一想老鼠也有救夏洛的功劳，而夏洛又在准备救自己，便给老鼠留了一整根儿的面条，而不是半根。

　　现在那只破蛋已经被埋起来了，空气也清新起来，谷仓又恢复了原来的气味。下午过去了，夜晚来了。影子变长了。凉爽宜人的夜风从门和窗子透过来。蹲坐在网里的夏洛，正在心事重重地吃着一只马蝇，想着以后的事情。不久，她突然振奋起来。

　　她降落到网的中央，开始把某些地方的丝拉断。她不断地，慢慢地工作着，而这时别的动物都在打瞌睡呢。所以没有一个人，甚至那只母鹅也没有注意到她在工作。深深躺在他的软床里的威伯，也正睡得呼呼的。在他们最喜欢呆的角落里，小鹅们正在哼着夜之歌。

　　夏洛已经把她的网撕开不少地方了，中间留出了很大的一块空间。然后她开始在那里重新织起来。当坦普尔曼从垃圾堆那里回来时，已是块半夜了，可夏洛还在工作着。