When Stella gets the sudden idea to go caroling, she has a little trouble getting someone to join her. Her brother, Frank, is not good at spontaneity. The Watsons are very involved in a precarious fruitcake attempt (but happy to send their pig, Mercy, out for the occasion). Eugenia Lincoln declines, a bit rudely, to accompany on her accordion, and Horace Broom is too busy studying planetary movement. Will Stella need to sing by herself -- with enthusiastic...

In ordinary Somerset County, a young farm girl named Fern rescues the runt of a litter of pigs from her father's ax. Fern names the pig Wilbur, takes care of him, and continues to visit him every day after he is moved to her Uncle Homer Zuckerman's barn across the road. But it's Wilbur's friendship with Charlotte the spider that ultimately saves him from the "smoke house" when Charlotte's talent for weaving praiseworthy words about Wilbur into her...

A piglet destined for eventual butchering arrives at the farmyard, is adopted by an old sheep dog, and discovers a special secret to success.