第25章 (第3/3页)
o 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 kkep a young pig. Pigs need 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 afternoos, 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 to git 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 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 redes, no swims.
One afternoon in June, when Wilbur was almost two months old, he wandered out into his smalll 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 around 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 manured 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 freiend," said a voice.
Wilbur looked through the fence and saw the goose standing there.
"You don't have to stay in that dirty-llittle dirty-little dirty-little yard," said the goose, who talded rather fast. "One of the boards is loose. Push on it, push-push-push on it, and come on out!"