Charlotte's Web

Do you remember reading Charlotte's Web when you were a kid? Or at the very least, watching the fab movie they made of it? I love the movie-- I love it when Templeton sings "A Fair is a Veritable Smorgesbord".

Last night, we babysat a friend's 8 year old little girl. They were going to see Madame Butterfly and their babysitters (four of them!) fell through, one by one. So they called us. Since our Friday night plans had been tentative anyway, we figured we'd stay in and be parental.

We watched the new version of Peter Pan, which was very good, and I don't think did very well in the theater. But then we read the first five chapters of Charlotte's Web.

I own the book because I saw it once at Sam's, in a "big giant" version, and had to buy it for the future Wells kids. As we read the story, the cute little girl on one side of me, Andrew on the other, and the cat on my tummy, really and truly seeming to listen too, I remembered my own days of reading this story. God knows, I have to have read this story about twenty times. I have always liked to read stories more than once, and Charlotte's Web has always been a favorite. Reading it aloud to a young kid is interesting. I do "the voices"-- which sometimes made the cat stare at me, startled, but which is fun. You can do a "baaaaa voice" when the sheep are talking, and of course, the goose has to be loud and old lady-ish. She's a goose, for Heaven's sake, and she's a terrible influence on Wilbur. Charlotte has to have a very soft, mellow voice. Wilbur, of course, the ultimate whiner, has to have a "poor little old me" voice.

Wilbur makes me think of something, though. In the first pages of the story, Wilbur is destined for, shall we say, bad things. Fern saves him because that's what little girls do-- save pathetic, pitiful animals. Wilbur's entire life depends upon the kindness of strangers. I mean, he would be Winter Cracklin's without Charlotte's intervention. He wouldn't have even made it to there without Fern. Yet, Wilbur often feels very put upon, very sad and lonely and like no one is there for him.

You knew some sort of comparison with human nature was coming, didn't you? Or have you not been here long? :) I think of all those times when we are stumbling along, feeling like the world is picking on us, when we may not even be aware of what fate might have had in store for us were it not for the help of someone else-- perhaps someone who loves us, but perhaps just some random stranger who doesn't even owe us anything. In my life, probably the biggest debt I owe to anyone is to those people and organizations who donate books to public libraries. If it weren't for places like the Vermillion Parrish Library in Abbeville, La, I would not have had the childhood resources that I had. The librarians there were kind, and let me check out way more books than I was supposed to, and let me take books to my mother in the big giant baskets on the back of my bicycle. And I read, and read, and read, and read.

So are we Wilbur, or are we Charlotte? Or the goose, perhaps? Or are we Fern? I think at times I've been a bit of each character. I'd like to strive in my life to be more like Fern-- someone who fights to end "injustice" before breakfast, who thinks of others just for the sake of having someone to take care of. I know, there's an awful lot of "stereotyped femininity" in Fern-- she nurses the little pig next to her dollies, and her brother is stereotyped masculinity, too. But there are good, useful traits in there to keep.

And one day, when I read this story to my own little kid, with his or her red head resting on my tummy and his or her little breath snorting through what will invariably be a runny, stuffed up nose covered with freckles, I can't wait to tell him/her about the Charlottes and Ferns in my life-- and to look out for those future ones in his/hers.