‘How much money should I ask for him?’ Fern wanted to know.
‘Well,’ said her father, ‘he’s a runt. Tell your Uncle Homer you’ve got a pig you’ll sell for six dollars, and see what he says.’
It was soon arranged. Fern phoned and got her Aunt Edith, and her Aunt Edith hollered for Uncle Homer and Uncle Homer came in from the barn and talked to Fern. When he heard that the price was only six dollars, he said he would buy the pig. Next day Wilbur was taken from his home under the apple tree and went to live in a manure pile in the cellar of Zuckerman’s barn.
THE BARN was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay and it smelled of manure. It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows. It often had a sort of peaceful smell – as though nothing bad could happen ever again in the world. It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope. And whenever the cat was given a fish-head to eat, the barn would smell of fish. But mostly it smelled of hay, for there was always hay in the great loft up overhead. And there was always hay being pitched down to the cows and the horses and the sheep.
The barn was pleasantly warm in winter when the animals spent most of their time indoors, and it was pleasantly cool in summer when the big doors stood wide open to the breeze. The barn had stalls on the main floor for the work horses, tie-ups on the main floor for the cows, a sheepfold down below for the sheep, a pigpen down below for Wilbur, and it was full of all sorts of things that you find in barns: ladders, grindstones, pitchforks, monkey wrenches, scythes, lawn mowers, snow shovels, axe handles, milk pails, water buckets, empty grain sacks, and rusty rat traps. It was the kind of barn that swallows like to build their nests in. It was the kind of barn that children like to play in. And the whole thing was owned by Fern’s uncle, Mr Homer L. Zuckerman.
Wilbur’s new home was in the lower part of the barn, directly underneath the cows. Mr Zuckerman knew that a manure pile is a good place to keep a young pig. Pigs needed warmth, and it was warm and comfortable down there in the barn cellar on the south side.
Fern came, almost every day, to visit him. She found an old milking stool that had been discarded, and she placed the stool in the sheepfold next to Wilbur’s pen. Here she sat quietly during the long afternoons, thinking and listening and watching Wilbur. The sheep soon got to know her and trust her. So did the geese, who lived with the sheep. All the animals trusted her, she was so quiet and friendly. Mr Zuckerman did not allow her to take Wilbur out, and he did not allow her to get into the pigpen. But he told Fern that she could sit on the stool and watch Wilbur as long as she wanted to. It made her happy just to be near the pig, and it made Wilbur happy to know that she was sitting there, right outside his pen. But he never had any fun – no walks, no rides, no swims.
One afternoon in June, when Wilbur was almost two months old, he wandered out into his small yard outside the barn. Fern had not arrived for her usual visit. Wilbur stood in the sun feeling lonely and bored.
‘There’s never anything to do round here,’ he thought. He walked slowly to his food trough and sniffed to see if anything had been overlooked at lunch. He found a small strip of potato skin and ate it. His back itched, so he leaned against the fence and rubbed against the boards. When he tired of this, he walked indoors, climbed to the top of the manure pile, and sat down. He didn’t feel like going to sleep, he didn’t feel like digging, he was tired of standing still, tired of lying down. ‘I’m less than two months old and I’m tired of living,’ he said. He walked out to the yard again.
‘When I’m out here,’ he said, ‘there’s no place to go but in. When I’m indoors, there’s no place to go but out in the yard.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong, my friend, my friend,’ said a voice.
Wilbur looked through the fence and saw the goose standing there.
‘You don’t have to stay in that dirty-little dirty-little dirty-little yard,’ said the goose, who talked rather fast. ‘One of the boards is loose. Push on it, push-push-push on it, and come on out!’
‘What?’ said Wilbur. ‘Say it slower!’
‘At-at-at, at the risk of repeating myself,’ said the goose, ‘I suggest that you come on out. It’s wonderful out here.’
‘Did you say a board was loose?’
‘That I did, that I did,’ said the goose.
Wilbur walked up to the fence and saw that the goose was right – one board was loose. He put his head down, shut his eyes, and pushed. The board gave way. In a minute he had squeezed through the fence and was standing in the long grass outside his yard. The goose chuckled.
‘How does it feel to be free?’ she asked.
‘I like it,’ said Wilbur. ‘That is, I guess I like it.’ Actually, Wilbur felt queer to be outside his fence, with nothing between him and the big world.
‘Where do you think I’d better go?’
‘Anywhere you like, anywhere you like,’ said the goose. ‘Go down through the orchard, root up the sod! Go down through the garden, dig up the radishes! Root up everything! Eat grass! Look for corn! Look for oats! Run all over! Skip and dance, jump and prance! Go down through the orchard and stroll in the woods! The world is a wonderful place when you’re young.’
‘I can see that,’ replied Wilbur. He gave a jump in the air, twirled, ran a few steps, stopped, looked all round, sniffed the smells of afternoon, and then set off walking down through the orchard. Pausing in the shade of an apple tree, he put his strong snout into the ground and began pushing, digging, and rooting. He felt very happy. He had ploughed up quite a piece of ground before anyone noticed him. Mrs Zuckerman was the first to see him. She saw him from the kitchen window, and she immediately shouted for the men.
‘Ho-mer!’ she cried. ‘Pig’s out! Lurvy! Pig’s out! Homer! Lurvy! Pig’s out. He’s down there under that apple tree.’
‘Now the trouble starts,’ thought Wilbur. ‘Now I’ll catch it.’
The goose heard the racket and she, too, started hollering. ‘Run-run-run downhill, make for the woods, the woods!’ she shouted to Wilbur. ‘They’ll never-never-never catch you in the woods.’
The cocker spaniel heard the commotion and he ran out from the barn to join in the chase. Mr Zuckerman heard, and he came out of the machine shed where he was mending a tool. Lurvy, the hired man, heard the noise and came up from the asparagus patch where he was pulling weeds. Everybody walked towards Wilbur and Wilbur didn’t know what to do. The woods seemed a long way off, and anyway, he had never been down there in the woods and wasn’t sure he would like it.
‘Get round behind him, Lurvy,’ said Mr Zuckerman, ‘and drive him towards the barn! And take it easy – don’t rush him! I’ll go and get a bucket of slops.’
The news of Wilbur’s escape spread rapidly among the animals on the place. Whenever any creature broke loose on Zuckerman’s farm, the event was of great interest to the others. The goose shouted to the nearest cow that Wilbur was free, and soon all the cows knew. Then one of the cows told one of the sheep, and soon all the sheep knew. The lambs learned about it from their mothers. The horses, in their stalls in the barn, pricked up their ears when they heard the goose hollering; and soon the horses had caught on to what was happening. ‘Wilbur’s out,’ they said. Every animal stirred its head and became excited to know that one of its friends had got free and was no longer penned up or tied fast.
Wilbur didn’t know what to do or which way to run. It seemed as though everybody