The Lady knew what had to be done and did not flinch, realizing it would cause her death. But she was the only one capable of the deed, and besides -- it sounded like fun.
The day of the Animal Farm Rebellion, the Lady did her part. She menaced Jones to shepherd him in the direction he needed to go: out! When the rules were being memorized, she toiled to write them nice and low for the smaller animals. Unable to plant, harvest, or build a windmill, she contributed her utmost, including hundreds of offspring, to the valiant and noble cause of animal liberation.
It was inevitable that she would be seen as an enemy.
The unraveling of her position came the day when Muriel the goat trotted up to Napoleon and asked why the pigs got milk in their mash.
"Who in the name of Old Major told you such a thing?" he squealed.
"I read it. And you needn't yell at me," Muriel answered, lowering her head for a moment as if to remind him of her pointy little horns.
"You read it," the pig spluttered. "Where?"
"On the web, of course. Charlotte's web."
"That liar!"
A line of glistening thread plummeted toward Napoleon's head, stopping just shy of his snout.
"Surely you're not talking about me?" The graceful arachnid twirled about like a pendulum on a plumb line.
The pig's eyes crossed and uncrossed trying to track her. "Dogs!" he yelled. "Come to the aid of the Rebellion and silence this traitor!"
Nine beasts roared into the barn, their paws dislodging manure and straw and dirt as they rounded the corner of the horses' stall. Sun trickling down from the rafters glinted off the brass on their collars -- collars apparently not considered clothing nor in a league with the forbidden ribbons of Mollie the cart horse.
The slavering canines took one look at Charlotte's fangs, which were bared in a patient smile, and cringed. It was common knowledge that her major source of food was blood.
"Why do you cower there whimpering?" asked the panting pig. "She is one and you are many. Destroy her!"
Charlotte's voice floated, soft as a silken web. "I seem to remember when spinning the primary tenets of Animalism that 'No animal shall kill any other animal.' "
"Y-y-you--" Napoleon frothed.
"You are not an animal," came the calm voice of Squealer. "You are an arachnid. You don't have the right number of legs."
"Or wings," added Moses the raven from his perch on the former tack shelf. He flapped his appendages, sending the scent of leather drifting down.
"Yes," agreed Squealer. "Four legs good, two legs bad."
The sheep recognized the familiar words and took their cue, bleating the phrase over and over until the dogs left, ears drooping from the ricocheting din.
"Excuse me," the voice of the Lady sliced through the noise, "but what does that make an eight-legged creature, I wonder: twice as good or four times as bad?"
Benjamin the donkey gave a hee-haw that sounded quite like laughter.
The cat, balancing on the wall, swatted a paw in Charlotte's direction. "Might not be as faithful as they thought, eh, Aranea? What do you have to say for yourself now?"
The orb spider retracted herself and said, "This discussion did not begin with my activities, but rather the question of why the missing milk turned up in the pigs' mash."
Before anyone could start a riot, steady Boxer the horse declared, "Napoleon is always right."
The animals dispersed, some slinking, others with knees raised in triumphant steps, and one climbing up her line to make a new message.
Next morning, her web read: "Is Man the only real enemy? Or is it our greed?" But few animals took time to read it; they were hurrying to work on the windmill.
The Sunday of the announcement regarding the trade of hay and wheat and eggs, the sun sparkled on a spangled statement, spun underneath the skull of Old Major. "No animal must engage in trade."
Squealer reminded the assembly Charlotte could spin whatever she liked, but it was not tantamount to proof of being Old Major's prophesied policy. Some animals, he sniffed, only wanted attention and didn't work at all on practical projects such as farming or masonry.
The last straw, or last thread, came when the pigs moved into the farmhouse. The spider knew it would be useless to remind the others of prohibitions from the early tenets; the pigs would merely counter her assertions with twisted rewrites of the Rules.
Action was needed.
Each daughter was assigned a room in the house; being barn spiders, they didn't mind hiding in the closets and close spaces. Then, on a thundering night, the retribution began.
Napoleon dashed through buckets of rain, scurrying to shelter by the kitchen door, but was held back as he tried to enter. A silken obstruction snared his snout; try as he might, it would not budge. He backed out, cursing and calling the dogs, but they were snuggled in the warm, cozy hay of the barn playing tug-o-war with some old rags. He waddled to the side door and found it unmanned, or unspidered, and slipped up the steps into the dry.
Hooves clattering on the plank floor, he sought the warmth of the kitchen fire. His skin twitched with shivers.
KA-BOOM! Shrieking as only a porker can, Napoleon skittered across the floor, his great sides heaving. Smoke billowed from the fireplace as water drenched the wood, leaving the sour smell of wet ashes.
Moses shouted down the chimney, "Too bad! Everyone was so busy tending to the windmill that nobody noticed the loose bricks!" The black prankster flew from flue to flue, dislodging one brick from each until the entire house was permeated with the dank fumes. "I doubt that you can blame Snowball; he could hardly have pushed these in from the roof, Comrade! Ha ha ha!"
The Leader clumped from chilly room to chilly room in the shadowed twilight. A burst of lightning revealed a web in the parlor. "No animal must live in the farmhouse." In the pantry, the message was repeated, and in the bedroom and water closet -- every room held the same dire reminder of his trespasses. The rain beat upon the roof like an avenging angel at an anvil; thunder shook the walls as if an unseen god were rattling a piggy bank; the wind howled unvoiced recriminations; and everywhere he looked the webs accused him.
Stumbling and slipping, the pig headed for the door to find solace with the other animals in the barn. He did not see the slight yet strong webbing a few inches from the floor, taut as a tripwire. And trip he did, tumbling down the steps higgledy-piggledy.
The rain ran in spouts off his lifeless snout, rivulets pouring across his broken neck.
At the break of day, Moses flew inside the house looking for Charlotte. Her daughters said that her time was up and she was no more.
"Nevermore will there be such a guardian of the truth," quoth the raven. "When it came to propaganda, nobody could spin like Charlotte."