"One day when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began to feel sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, he was doomed," 

he recalled. 

"This made me sad. So I started thinking of ways to save a pig's life." 

In Charlotte's Web, a spider saves a pig from slaughter. 

In real life, the author had tried to save a pig—and failed. 

A few years before Charlotte's Web, White wrote an essay about caring for a dying pig at his farm. 

Even though White had raised the pig to make bacon, at the end he found himself desperately trying to save the pig's life, 

"cast suddenly in the role of pig's friend and physician."

Although farm pigs are, in a sense, born to die—being destined for the butcher—White had always had mixed feelings about this fact of farm life. 

"One day when I was on my way to feed the pig, I began to feel sorry for the pig because, like most pigs, he was doomed," 

he recalled. 

"This made me sad. So I started thinking of ways to save a pig's life." 

Soon the story of Wilbur was born.