102 p o r t l a n d monthly magazine House of the Month photos by anna gallant carter Brooklin as a summer getaway. By the end of 1937, they’d ‘winterized.’ In 1938, the Whites moved to Allen’s Cove year-round. A Flash of White’s Talent How many lovely stories did E.B. White write in this house? Many of his essays for Harpers during the late 1930s and ear- ly 1940s were made (or at least polished) here and published as One Man’s Meat in 1942. No doubt the North Brooklin house was darkened then with blackout shades as World War II raged and enemy U-boats hunted for freighters off the coast. “Both of my grandparents participat- ed in plane-spotting watches at one of the local schoolhouses, but to my knowledge there were no patrols from the property,” says his granddaughter and literary execu- tor, Martha White. Who knew that in the privacy of his thoughts, with World War II jamming the newsreels, the future author of Char- lotte’s Web could be sexy. In a New York- er reverie, Roger Angell has provided a striking example from One Man’s Meat: “The air grew still and the pond cracked and creaked under our skates…The trails of ice led off into the woods, and the little fires burned along the shore. It was enough, that spring, to remember what a girl’s hand felt like, suddenly ungloved in winter.” Snowbound Wonders S prung from White’s imagination in Maine, the classic children’s nov- el Stuart Little captured readers in 1945. Charlotte’s Web, also ‘made in Maine,’ delighted a mass audience when it hit the bookstands on October 15, 1952. In fact, it anticipated the publishing phenomena of the 21st century. Such is Charlotte’s Web’s renown that in 2017 at press time, it still commands No. 269 among all hardcover books at Amazon. By comparison, the first novel in t he Harry Potter Series, Harry Potter and the Sorcer- er’s Stone, is No. 2,518 in hardcover books. The Charlotte Subculture But was Charlotte’s Web really Har- ry Potter before Harry Potter? To this day, countless Charlotte’s Web enthusi- asts travel great distances to peer over the hedges at the source of their beloved nov- el’s inspiration. Some of them even talk their way inside the big red gate. On one occasion, a blogger insisted she have her picture taken in E.B. White’s waterfront writing shack–in exactly the same po- sition where the photographer Jill Kre- mentz, wife of Kurt Vonnegut, once snapped the rigid image of E.B. White himself. In 1977, Katharine White died of con- gestive heart failure at 84. E.B. White suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease and followed her eight years later at 86. They rest side-by-side in Brooklin Cemetery. Privacy Once Removed The Gallants knew what they were get- ting into. This farm brings them into di- rect contact with well intended Charlotte’s Web enthusiasts countless times: “I do feel the overwhelming majority are channeling The many apple trees that fill the property include Northern Spy, Victoria Sweet,and Rhode Island Greening varietals,according to seller Mary Gallant.