Homepage
Login
Profile
BookClubs
dmBox
Read Ebook: Tree Spare that Woodman by Dryfoos Dave
Font size:
Background color:
Text color:
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page
Ebook has 186 lines and 11828 words, and 4 pages
Would he notice how her voice had gone up half an octave, become flat and shrill?
"I'm coming down," Richard said. "Let me down, tree."
He seemed to be struggling. The branches were cagelike. He was caught!
"The tree let me up, Mommie," Richard explained solemnly, "but he won't let me down!" He whimpered a little.
She leaned against the cabin for support. Ted came out and slipped his arm around her.
"Break off a few leaves, Richard," he suggested. "That'll show your tree who's boss!"
Standing close against her husband, Naomi tried to stop shaking. But she lacked firm support, for Ted shook, too.
His advice to Richard was sound, though. What had been a trap became, through grudging movement of the branches, a ladder. Richard climbed down, scolding at the tree like an angry squirrel.
Naomi thought she'd succeeded in shutting her mind. But when her little boy slid down the final bit of trunk and came for his present, Naomi broke. Like a startled animal, she thrust the book into his hands, picked him up and ran. Her mind was a jelly, red and quaking.
She stopped momentarily after running fifty yards. "Burn the trees!" she screamed over her shoulder. "Burn the cabin! Burn it all!" She ran on, Ted's answering shouts beyond her comprehension.
Fatigue halted her. At the top of the rise between Cappy's farm and their own, pain and dizziness began flowing over her in waves. She set Richard down on the mauve soil and collapsed beside him.
When she sat up, Richard squatted just out of reach, watching curiously. She made an effort at casualness: "Let's see what Daddy's doing back there."
"He's doing just what you said to, Mommie!" Richard answered indignantly.
Her men were standing together, Naomi realized. She laughed. After a moment, Richard joined her. Then he looked for his book, found it a few paces away, and brought it to her.
"Read to me, Mommie."
"At home," she said.
Activity at Cappy's interested her now. Wisps of smoke were licking around the trees. A tongue of flame lapped at one while she watched. Branches writhed. The trees were too slow-moving to escape ...
But where was Ted? What had she exposed him to, with her hysterical orders? She held her breath till he moved within sight, standing quietly by a pile of salvaged tools. Behind him the cabin began to smoke.
Ted wasn't afraid, then. He understood what he faced. And Richard wasn't afraid, either, because he didn't understand.
"Daddy seems to be staying there," she said. "Let's wait for him at home, Richard."
She jumped as if stung. Then, consciously womanlike, she sought relief in talk.
"How, Richard?"
"If I'm pilot, he's navigator. Or ship, maybe. But he's so dumb, Mommie! I always have to tell him everything. Doesn't know what a fairy is, or Goldilocks, or anything!"
He clutched his book affectionately, rubbing his face on it. "Hurry up, Mommie. It'll be bedtime before you ever read to me!"
She touched his head briefly. "You can look at the book while I fix your supper."
But to explain Cappy's pictures--crudely crayoned cartoons, really--she had to fill in the story they illustrated. She told it while Richard ate: how the intrepid Spaceman gallantly used his ray gun against the villainous Martians to aid the green-haired Princess. Richard spooned up the thrills with his mush, gazing fascinated at Cappy's colorful and fantastic pictures, propped before him on the table. Had Ted been home, the scene might almost have been blissful.
It might have been ... if their own tree hadn't reminded her of Cappy's. Still, she'd almost managed to stuff her fear back into that mental pigeon-hole before their own tree. It was unbelievable, but she'd been glancing out the window every few minutes, so she saw it start. Their own tree began to walk.
Down the hill it came--right there!--framed in the window behind Richard's head, moving slowly but inexorably on a root system that writhed along the surface. Like some ancient sculpture of Serpents Supporting the Tree of Life. Except that it brought death ...
"Are you sick, Mommie?"
No, not sick. Just something the matter with her throat, preventing a quick answer, leaving no way to keep Richard from turning to look out the window.
"I think our tree is coming to play with me, Mommie."
No, no! Not Richard!
"Remember how you used to say that about Cappy? When he was really coming to see your daddy?"
"But Daddy isn't home!"
"He'll get here, dear. Now eat your supper."
No! Expose him to such danger? How could she think of it?
"But you haven't finished my story!"
"I will when Daddy gets home. And if I'm not here, you tell Daddy to do it."
"Where are you going, Mommie?"
"I might see Cappy, dear. Now go and wash, please!"
"Sure, Mommie. Don't cry."
Who's he going to kiss when you're not here?
The tree has stopped. Our little tree is having its supper. How nice. Sucking sustenance direct from soil with aid of sun and air in true plant fashion--but exhausting our mineral resources.
The lecture--come on, let's go back to the lecture! Let's free our soil from every tree or we'll not hold the joint in fee. No, not joint. A vulgarism, teacher would say. Methinks the times are out of joint. Aroint thee, tree!
Now a pinch. Pinch yourself hard in the same old place so it'll hurt real bad. Then straighten your face and go stick your head out the window. Your son is talking--your son, your sun.
Smile, stupid. Your son speaks. Answer him.
"What, dear?"
"I see Daddy! He just came over the hill. He's running! Can I go meet him, Mommie?"
"No, dear. It's too far."
Too far. Far too far.
"Did you say something to me, Richard?"
Add to tbrJar First Page Next Page Prev Page