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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is the turning point of the chapter: every happy day under the apple tree ends here. E.B. White's craft is worth copying closely. The calm aside 'which simply means that he was born in springtime' makes 'spring pig' sound harmless one sentence before the farm meaning arrives: born in spring, sold by summer. The echo of 'to sell' and 'to be sold' makes the sale feel like a rule no one can argue with, and then two very short sentences carry the collision — Fern's grief in five words, her father's firmness in seven. Copying it gives practice with a long explaining sentence followed by short, heavy ones.
Wilbur was what farmers call a spring pig, which simply means that he was born in springtime. When he was five weeks old, Mr. Arable said he was now big enough to sell, and would have to be sold. Fern...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell this chapter in two halves. First describe the happy routine Fern builds for Wilbur — the feedings, the yard under the apple tree, the doll carriage, the trip to the brook. Then tell how the chapter turns when Mr. Arable says Wilbur is big enough to sell, and finish with where Wilbur goes to live at the very end.
Discussion Questions
- Fern ties a bib on Wilbur for his bottle, and when he tires on their walks she tucks him into the doll carriage beside the doll — the narrator even says she wheels it slowly 'so as not to wake her infants.' Why do you think Fern cares for a pig the way a mother cares for a baby, and what do the details of her daily routine — the warmed milk, the four feedings, the good-bye wave at the bus — tell us about the place Wilbur has taken in her family?
- When Fern worries that Wilbur will be cold at night, her father does not simply answer. He says, 'You watch and see what he does' — and Wilbur digs a tunnel in the straw and disappears inside it. Why might Mr. Arable want Fern to watch for herself instead of being told, and what does the straw scene let Fern discover about what Wilbur can do without her help? Use Wilbur's actions at the box and Fern's reaction afterward.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Looking at someone with deep love, the way Wilbur gazed up at Fern while she warmed his bottle.
Item 2
Very young babies — the narrator's word for Wilbur and the doll as Fern wheels them slowly.
Item 3
A small cart on wheels for pushing a baby; Fern's held both a doll and a tired pig.
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Critical Thinking
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