exhausting our mineral resources.

(How wise of Ted to make you go to those lectures! You wouldn't want to
die in ignorance, would you?)

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.

Can your son be eclipsed by a tree? A matter of special spatial
relationships, and the space is shrinking, friend. The tree is only a
few hundred feet from the house. It has finished its little supper and
is now running around. Like Richard. _With_ Richard! Congenial, what?

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?"

"No. I was talking to the tree. I'm the Spaceman and he's the Martian.
But he doesn't want to be the Martian!"

Richard plays. Let us play. Let us play.

You're close enough to get into the game, surely. A hundred and fifty
feet, maybe. Effective range, fifty feet. Rate of motion? Projected
time-interval? Depends on which system you observe it from. Richard has
a system.

"He doesn't want to play, Mommie. He wants to see you!"

"You tell that tree your Mommie _never_ sees strangers when Daddy isn't
home!"

"I'll _make_ him wait!"

Stoutly your pot-bellied little protector prevents his protective mother
from going to pot.

"If he won't play, I'll use my ray gun on him!"

Obviously, the tree won't play. Watch your son lift empty hands, arm
himself with a weapon yet to be invented, and open fire on the advancing
foe.

"Aa-aa-aa!"

So _that's_ how a ray gun sounds!

"You're dead, tree! You're dead! Now you _can't_ play with me any more.
You're dead!"

* * * * *

Seeing it happen, then, watching the tree accept the little boy's
fantasy as fact, Naomi wondered why she'd never thought of that herself.

So the tree was a treacherous medicine-man, was it? A true-believing
witch-doctor? And who could be more susceptible to the poisoning of fear
than a witch-doctor who has made fear work--and believes it's being used
agai