"Tell me another story!" begged Wilbur.
So Charlotte told him about another cousin of hers
who was an aeronaut.
"What is an aeronaut?" asked Wilbur.
"A balloonist," said Charlotte.
"My cousin used to stand on her head and let out enough thread to from a balloon.
Then she'd let go and be lifted into the air and carried upward on the warm wind."
"Is that ture?" asked Wilbur. "Or are you just making it up?"
"It's ture," replied Charlotte.
"I have some very remarkable cousins.
And now, Wilbur, it's time you went to sleep."
"Sing something!" begged Wilbur, closing his eyes.
So Charlotte sang a lullaby,
while crickets chirped in the grass and the barn grew dark.
This was the song she sang.
"Sleep, sleep, my love, my only,
Deep, deep, in the dung and the dark;
Be not afraid and be not lonely!
This is the hour when frogs and thrushes
Praise the world from the woods and the rushes/
Rest from care, my one and only,
Deep in the dung and the dark!"
But Wilbur was already asleep.
When the song ended,
Fern got up and went home.
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