1
Tree, Spare that Woodman, by Dave Dryfoos
The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tree, Spare that Woodman, by Dave Dryfoos This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Tree, Spare that Woodman
Author: Dave Dryfoos
Illustrator: Fries
Release Date: August 24, 2009 [EBook #29794]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREE, SPARE THAT WOODMAN ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: Illustrated by FRIES]
Tree, Spare That Woodman
By DAVE DRYFOOS
The single thing to fear was fear--ghastly, walking fear!
Stiff with shock, Naomi Heckscher stood just inside the door to Cappy's one-room cabin, where she'd happened to be when her husband discovered the old man's body.
Her nearest neighbor--old Cappy--dead. After all his wire-pulling to get into the First Group, and his slaving to make a farm on this alien planet, dead in bed!
Naomi's mind circled frantically, contrasting her happy anticipations with this shocking actuality. She'd come to call on a friend, she reminded herself, a beloved friend--round, white-haired, rosy-cheeked; lonely because he'd recently become a widower. To her little boy, Cappy was a combination Grandpa and Santa Claus; to herself, a sort of newly met Old Beau.
Her mouth had been set for a sip of his home brew, her eyes had