she said. "Richard may have seen I was scared just now."

Outside again, under the tree, she called, "Here's Cappy's present, Richard. He's gone away and left it for you."

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!

Naomi's struggle was with her voice. "How did you ever get up there?" she called.

"The tree let me up, Mommie," Richard explained solemnly, "but he won't let me down!" He whimpered a little.

He must not become frightened! "You tell that tree you've got to come right down this instant!" she ordered.

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.

But she? Surreptitiously Naomi pinched her hip till it felt black and blue. That was for being such a fool. She must not be afraid!

"Daddy seems to be staying there," she said. "Let's wait for him at home, Richard."

"Are you going to make Daddy burn our tree?"

She jumped as if stung. Then, consciously womanlike, she sought relief in talk.

"What do you think we should do, dear?"

"Oh, I like the tree, Mommie. It's cool under there. And the tree plays with me."

"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