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house?” yelled Otis. “My pop’s got all this lumber down-cellar, because, you know, we tore down the old garage.”
    “Terrific!” yelled Sidney. “I’ll help.”
    “So will I!” howled Otis.
    “Me too!” boomed Oliver.
    “An intercommunications command post!” bellowed Hugo. “Up in the tree house. I’ll wire it up.”
    “My horse!” screamed Cissie. “I’ll bring my horse. Knights, they always had a horse.”
    “I’ll be your page!” shouted Georgie.
    “Great!” shrieked Cissie. “I really need a page. I mean, speaking as a knight on horseback.”
    “Kid stuff!” hollered Eddy. “But okay, your hero will condescend to be your king.”
    It was bedlam. Frieda was disgusted. She pierced the tumult with a blast from her whistle(left over from last summer’s circus). “Hey, everybody, what are we here for anyway? We’ve got to guard this tree night and day.” At once they stopped screeching and looked at her blankly.
    Flipping the pages of her notebook, Frieda snatched a pencil from behind her ear and said, “Okay, you knights, raise your hands. Who’ll take nine to midnight, Monday through Friday?”

20
UGLINESS NOW
    M ORTIMER M OON GLOWERED down at the Knights of the Fellowship as they milled around under his bedroom window. The next day he took revenge by attacking with his chain saw the wooded grove along the banks of the Mill Brook across the street.
    It was true that they were not handsome trees, but it was painful to hear the
swish-thump-splash
, as one after another came crashing down.
    “Oh, Fred, dear,” said Aunt Alex, covering her ears, “can’t the Selectmen make him stop?’
    Uncle Fred squared his jaw and said, “I’ll do my best.”
    At the next meeting of the board in the Town Hall, he complained about the destruction of the Mill Brook trees, and flung out his arms in warning. “Our new tree warden,” he said, “is turning this town into a graveyard.”
    “But all those trees were diseased,” said Chairman Jerry Plummer. “That’s what Mortimer tells me.”
    “And after all,” said Donald Swallow, the new member of the board, “Mortimer should know.”
    “Of course he knows,” said Jemima Smith. “He has a degree in forestry.”
    “Mortimer explained it to me,” said Annabelle Broom. “All about some kind of beetle and then there’s this virus that jumps from tree to tree.”
    “He says the oaks have canker worm,” said Jerry.
    “And there’s blister rot in the white pines,” said Jemima.
    “And gypsy moths in the maple trees,” said Donald.
    “He explained it to me philosophically,” said Annabelle. “He said that beauty in the future means a wee bit of ugliness now.”
    “Ugliness now!” croaked Uncle Fred. “Ugliness for the next quarter of a century!”
    “Shhh, Fred,” said Jerry as the door opened. “Oh, good afternoon, Mr. Moon. How kind of you to take time out from your busy schedule of—” Jerry stopped, unable to think what sort of things a tree warden did all day, but Uncle Fred finished his sentence by growling, “Murder.”
    But Mortimer Moon only grinned at him, and said, “Why, greetings, neighbor.”
    “Oh, Mortimer,” gushed Annabelle, “you must explain it to us again, the importance of your crusade. Some of us”—Annabelle nodded at Uncle Fred—“don’t seem to understand.”
    “Well, it’s perfectly simple,” said Mortimer Moon, sitting down and beaming around the table. “If we don’t take out the sick trees, they’ll infect all the rest. In fact my neighbor and I”—he smiled forgivingly at Uncle Fred—“have a little disagreement about a badly infected tree right on the propertyline between us. It’s sad, because unless the tree is dealt with promptly, the contagion will spread into my yard. You should see the leaves. They’re infested with chewing insects.”
    “How dreadful,” said Annabelle, scowling at Uncle Fred.
    “Oh, by the way, Mortimer,” said Donald Swallow, “my own trees