One of those Small Breakthroughs

I'd been wondering how to deliver how much Fern loves Wilbur. The bottle feedings four or five times daily. The way he falls asleep in her baby carriage. His long lashes, and the rest of it. This we have to know so that what happens later in the story hits us hard. The stakes are high for the characters in this story. That's what every scene must build.
Anyway, this is what I came up with: One day at school Miss B. assigns an essay. Tell what you love about someone you love. Fern's classmates disappear into darkness. She sits alone at her desk with her pencil and scribbler and begins, "What I Love About Wilbur," by Fern Arable. Her essay, printed in a sure but early hand, will say, in the end, Every day is a happy day, and every night is peaceful.
This monologue--will it be sung?--will bump up against the big old world of pork production, in which Wilbur's got to be sold. He's eating scraps, not just warm milk, and I'm not (says Mr. Arable) willing to provide for him any longer. 
Fern is in anguish but, in one of the story's wise-parent moments, she and her father arrive at the solution: she'll sell the pig to her Uncle Homer for $6.00. She can go down the road to visit Wilbur any time she wants. 
And Wilbur finds his home in Zuckerman's barn.

You know how the rest of it goes. The fact that Wilbur is a pig means the butcher is never far off. He avoids his pig destiny only through the writerly intervention by his dear friend Charlotte. 

But not to get ahead of myself. For now, maybe, Fern's monologue/essay shows us the devotion we must feel with her, which, in turn, enriches what she and her father achieve in the Zuckerman deal.