Well-worn and well-loved

One of my favorite books of all time is Charlotte's Web. I have loved it ever since I was a child, and I love it even more as an adult (it's funnier when you read it as an adult). I have a worn, battered copy of it that I think my mom had when she lived in the West Indies before she was married. (And she's been married almost 42 years, so...hi Mom! No, I'm not telling everyone how old you are!) Anyway, I'm one of those horrible readers who dogears the corner of books to save my place, and if it's any indication how much this copy of Charlotte's Web has been read, there's a dogeared corner on almost every page in the book. And I have to confess--I never pass a spider's web without double-checking to see if it says, "Some Pig" on it.

Those adults who haven't read this book or haven't read it since elementary school, do yourself a favor and get a copy now. It's filled with the most marvelous quotes, which I try to work into everyday life as much as possible. Here's a sampling:

"This is the most terrible case of injustice I ever heard of."

"I only distribute pigs to early risers. Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result she now has a pig…It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly."

"An hour of freedom is worth a barrel of slops."

"'Will the party who addressed me at bedtime last night, kindly make himself or herself known by giving an appropriate sign of signal!' 'Stop your nonsense, Wilbur,' said the oldest sheep. 'If you have a new friend here, you are probably disturbing his rest; and the quickest way to spoil a friendship is to wake somebody up in the morning before he is ready.'"

"'I am sure,' she said, 'that every one of us here will be gratified to learn that after four weeks of unremitting effort and patience on the part of our friend the goose, she now has something to show for it. The goslings have arrived. May I offer my sincere congratulations!'"

"'Well,' said the spider, plucking thoughtfully at her web, 'the old sheep has been around this barn a long time. She has seen many a spring pig come and go. If she says they plan to kill you, I’m sure it’s true. It’s also the dirtiest trick I ever heard of. What people don’t think of!'”

"I am going to save you, and I want you to quiet down immediately. You’re carrying on in a childish way. Stop your crying! I can’t stand hysterics.”

"'Let Wilbur alone!' she said. 'He has a perfect right to smell, considering his surroundings. You’re no bundle of sweet peas yourself. Furthermore, you are interrupting a very pleasant conversation. What were we talking about, Wilbur, when we were so rudely interrupted?'"

"'If I can fool a bug,' thought Charlotte, 'I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.'"

“'But Charlotte,' said Wilbur, 'I’m not terrific.' 'That doesn’t make a particle of difference,' replied Charlotte. 'Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print. Does anybody here know how to spell ‘terrific’?'”

"Templeton poked his head up through the straw. 'Struggle if you must, said he, 'but kindly remember that I’m hiding down here in this crate and I don’t want to be stepped on, or kicked in the face, or pummeled, or crushed in any way, or squashed, or buffeted about, or bruised, or lacerated, or scarred, or biffed. Just watch what you’re doing, Mr. Radiant, when they get shoving you in!'” [You'd be amazed how many times you can use this one!]

“One thing is certain, he has a most unattractive personality. He is too familiar, too noisy, and he cracks weak jokes. Also, he’s not anywhere near as clean as you are, nor as pleasant. I took quite a dislike to him in our brief interview.” [ha, this one too!]

When Elaine was still an infant, I got a number of books on CD to listen to while I was feeding her. One of them was Charlotte's Web, read incomparably by the author himself, E.B.White. He reads it in a soothing, emotionless, almost-monotone voice, and I have to say that I was late to work one day because I just had to sit and hear the end of it without interruption.

Every night when Lucy goes to bed, she likes to listen to an audio book. She's worked her way through Henry Huggins, Little House in the Big Woods, two All-of-a-Kind-Family books, plus quite a few others. Someone had given us the DVD of Charlotte's Web as a gift, but I held onto it because she really needed to experience the text first. She started listening a couple of weeks ago and loved it. This week, I let her watch the movie for the first time. When it got near the end, I came in and watched the rest with her. When it was finished, she got off her chair without any expression on her face, came over, buried her face in my lap, and began to cry. She cried and cried and cried and cried.

We talked a lot about it, and she seemed OK after a while. Later on when I was giving the girls supper, she asked me, "Mom, when Wilbur got to be an old, old pig, did he go back to the fair and die where Charlotte did?" She barely finished the sentence before she put her head down on the table and began to sob again.

Of course anyone knows it makes you feel terrible when your children are sad. But part of me also loved that she had fallen under the spell of this story of the greatest sort of friendship and was broken-hearted that an old gray spider had given her life for a little pig she loved.

The last lines of the book nearly finish me off every time I read them: "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."

That night when I tucked Lucy into bed, I asked her the question I always do, "What do you want to listen to tonight, Baby?"

She whispered, "Charlotte's Web, Mom. Start it again at the beginning."