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Noble knelt to look closer at his ants. He was oblivious to anything else.

"We've got to go back inside," Mommy said suddenly and reached down to seize Noble's arm, forcing him to stand.

"Why?'' he whined,

"There's something evil out there, something dark and evil circling us. Quickly," she said.

She started for the house. I followed, afraid to look back. Noble was near tears, his body turned so he could look back at his ants.

"But you said we could look at the ants!" he moaned.

"Just walk," Mommy ordered, practically dragging him along now.

As soon as we were back inside, she slammed the door shut and hurried us to the living room, where she closed the curtains. Then she went to light one of her candles.

Noble stood there looking disgusted and angry.

"I'm going to sneak out and go back to my ants," he vowed. "Don't!" I said, fearing for him. "You heard Mommy."

"I didn't see anything evil,- he said sharply and ran through the house and up to his room.

Mommy returned with a candle and placed it near the front window, which she closed quickly.

She looked at me and then at her watch. What was she so worried about? I wondered,

And then I thought.,, Daddy.

Shouldn't he be home by now?

2

Daddy's Amulet

.

Daddy was at a meeting with a prospective

home builder. When he and Mommy were first married, he had his own construction company, but it was very small and Daddy actually only did work in conjunction with bigger companies. He didn't have the financing to do much more. Mommy remained a schoolteacher until we were born. She went on extended maternity leave and then decided not to return, but instead to spend her time raising us. She said she believed the early years were the most important when it came to bringing up children.

For a while it was a financial struggle, but a little more than a year after we had been born. Grandma Gussie died and Mommy and Daddy inherited the house and the land and money left in an interest-bearing bank account that was from Grandpa Richard Jordan's life insurance policy. Little of it had been touched after he had fallen off the ladder and died. With that money Daddy and his partner formed a bigger construction company and began to build custom homes. Although he wasn't educated as an architect, his imaginative ideas attracted the interest of more discriminating home buyers, and soon he had three outstanding examples to show other prospective buyers.

One of his homes was written up in a statewide magazine and brought him even more attention. Soon he had five men working for him full time in his offices, and then he was given the opportunity to build a custom home development with a very big firm out of New York City.

Mommy was very proud of his

accomplishments. I never thought of us as being rich people, but apparently we were doing so well we could afford expensive things like a luxury car, a company jeep, a company truck, better lawn tractors and tools, and nice clothes for Noble and me. although Daddy complained often that no one saw us dressed nicely because Mommy kept us at home so much.

"I'm making all this money," he practically bellowed at her. "but you won't take an expensive vacation. You won't consider putting the children into private school. You hardly spend anything on your own wardrobe. You rarely ever want to go to a fine restaurant."

"We must not let money change us. Arthur," she warned. "It can do that." "Oh." he said, nodding and pacing about the room when he argued with her. "And where did you get that tidbit of wisdom? One of the dead relatives?"

"If you must know, yes," she said without hesitation. "I had a great-uncle. Uncle Samuel, who made a lot of money in the stock market. He forced his wife to do fancy things, dress fancy and go to balls and charity events, have her picture in the newspaper on the society pages, become friends with other wealthy women."

"So?" "She met someone who seduced her, and she became pregnant again.

"

Daddy looked at Noble and me. We were sitting at our little desks, doing our spelling