The Fourth R

by George O. Smith

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The arrival of Mrs. Bagley changed James Holden's way of life far morethan he'd expected. His basic idea had been to free himself from thehours of dishwashing, bedmaking, dusting, cleaning and straighteningand from the irking chore of planning his meals far enough ahead toobtain sustenance either through mail or carried note. He gave up hishaphazard chores readily. Mrs. Bagley's menus often served him dishesthat he wouldn't have given house-room; but he also enjoyed many mealsthat he could not or would not have taken the time to prepare.

  He did have some faint notion that being freed from the household toilwould allow him sixteen or eighteen hours at the typewriter, but he wasnot greatly dismayed to find that this did not work.

  When he wrote himself out, he relaxed by reading, or sitting quietlyplanning his next piece. Even that did not fill his entire day. To takesome advantage of his time, James began to indulge in talk-fests withMrs. Bagley.

  These were informative. He was learning from her how the outside worldwas run, from one who had no close association with his own former life.Mrs. Bagley was by no means well-informed on all sides of life, but shedid have her opinions and her experiences and a fair idea of how thingswent on in her own level. And, of course, James had made this choicebecause of the girl. He wanted a companion of his own age. Regardless ofwhat Mrs. Bagley really thought of this matter of rapid education, Jamesproposed to use it on Martha. That would give him a companion of his ownlike, they would come closer to understanding one another than he couldever hope to find understanding elsewhere.

  So he talked and played with Martha in his moments of relaxation. And hefound her grasp of life completely unreal.

  James could not get through to her. He could not make her stopplay-acting in everything that she did not ignore completely. It worriedhim.

  With the arrival of summer, James and Martha played outside in the freshair. They made a few shopping excursions into town, walking the mile andmore by taking their time, and returning with their shopping load in thestation-master's taxicab mail car. But on these expeditions, James hungclose to Martha lest her babbling prattle start an unwelcome line ofthought. She never did it, but James was forever on edge.

  This source of possible danger drove him hard. The machine that wasgrowing in a mare's-nest on the second floor began to evolve faster.

  James Holden's work was a strangely crude efficiency. The prototype hadbeen built by his father bit by bit and step by step as its designdemanded. Sections were added as needed, and other sections believedneeded were abandoned as the research showed them unnecessary. LouisHolden had been a fine instrumentation engineer, but his first modelswere hay-wired in the breadboard form. James copied his father'swork--including his father's casual breadboard style. And he added someinefficiencies of his own.

  Furthermore, James was not strong enough to lift the heavier assembliesinto place. James parked the parts wherever they would sit.

  To Mrs. Bagley, the whole thing was bizarre and unreasonable. Given heropinion, with no other evidence, she would have rejected the idea atonce. She simply did not understand anything of a technical nature.

  One day she bluntly asked him how he knew what he was doing.

  James grinned. "I really _don't_ know what I'm doing," he admitted. "I'monly following some very explicit directions. If I knew the pure theoryof my father's machine I could not design the instrumentation that wouldmake it work. But I can build a reproduction of my father's machine fromthe directions."

  "How can that be?"

  James stopped working and sat on a packing case. "If you bought alawn-mower," he said, "it might come neatly packed in a little box withall the parts nested in cardboard formers and all the little nuts andbolts packed in a bag. There would be a set of assembly directions,written in such a way as to explain to anybody who can read that Part Ais fastened to Bracket B using Bolt C, Lockwasher D, and Nut E. Myfather's one and only recognition of the dangers of the unforeseeablefuture was to drill deep in my brain these directions. For instance," andhe pointed to a boxed device, "that thing is an infra-low frequencyamplifier. Now, I haven't much more than a faint glimmer of what thething is and how it differs from a standard amplifier, but I know that itmust be built precisely thus-and-so, and finally it must be fitted intothe machine per instructions. Look, Mrs. Bagley." James picked up arecently-received package, swept a place clear on the packing case anddumped it out. It disgorged several paper bags of parts, some largeplates and a box. He handed her a booklet. "Try it yourself," he said."That's a piece of test equipment made in kit form by a commercial outfitin Michigan. Follow those directions and build it for me."

  "But I don't know anything about this sort of thing."

  "You can read," said James with a complete lack of respect. He turnedback to his own work, leaving Mrs. Bagley leafing her way through theassembly manual.

  To the woman it was meaningless. But as she read, a secondary thoughtrose in her mind. James was building this devilish-looking nightmare, andhe had every intention of using it on her daughter! She accepted withoutunderstanding the fact that James Holden's superior education had come ofsuch a machine--but it had been a machine built by a competent mechanic.She stole a look at James. The anomaly puzzled her.

  When the lad talked, his size and even the thin boyish voice were negatedby the intelligence of his words, the size of his vocabulary, the clarityof his statements. Now that he was silent, he became no more than aneight-year-old lad who could not possibly be doing anything constructivewith this mad array of equipment. The messiness of the place merely madethe madness of the whole program seem worse.

  But she turned back to her booklet. Maybe James was right. If she couldassemble this doodad without knowing the first principle of itsoperation, without even knowing from the name what the thing did, thenshe might be willing to admit that--messy as it looked--the machine couldbe reconstructed.

  Trapped by her own interest, Mrs. Bagley pitched in.

  They took a week off to rearrange the place. They built wooden shelves tohold the parts in better order. These were by no means the work of acarpenter, for Mrs. Bagley's aim with a saw was haphazard, and herbatting average with a hammer was about .470; but James lacked thestrength, so the construction job was hers. Crude as it was, the placelooked less like a junkshop when they were done. Work resumed on theassembly of the educator.

  Of course the writing suffered.

  The budget ran low. James was forced to abandon the project for histypewriter. He drove himself hard, fretting and worrying himself into astew time after time. And then as August approached, Nature stepped in toadd more disorder.

  James entered a "period of growth." In three weeks he gained two inches.

  His muscles, his bones and his nervous system ceased to coordinate. Hebecame clumsy. His handwriting underwent a change, so severe that Jameshad to practically forge his own signature of Charles Maxwell. To avoidtrouble he stopped the practice of writing individual checks for thebills and transferred a block sum of money to an operating account inMrs. Bagley's name.

  His fine regimen went to pieces.

  He embarked on a haphazard program of sleeping, eating and working at oddhours, and his appetite became positively voracious. He wanted what hewanted when he wanted it, even if it were the middle of the night. Hepouted and groused when he didn't get it. In calmer moments he hatedhimself for these tantrums, but no amount of self-rationalization stoppedthem.

  During this period, James was by no means an efficient youngster. Hiswriting suffered the ills of both his period of growth and his upsetstate of mind. His fingers failed to coordinate on his typewriter and hismanuscript copy turned out rough, with strikeovers, xxx-outs, and grossmistakes. The pile of discarded paper massed higher than his finishedcopy until Mrs. Bagley took over and began to retype his rough scriptfor him.

  His state of mind remained chaotic.

  Mrs. Bagley began to treat him with special care. She served him warmmilk and insisted that he rest. Fi
nally she asked him why he drovehimself so hard.

  "We are approaching the end of summer," he said, "and we are notprepared."

  "Prepared for what?"

  They were relaxing in the living room, James fretting and Mrs. Bagleyseated, Martha Bagley asprawl on the floor turning the pages of acrayon-coloring book. "Look at us," he said. "I am a boy of eight, yourdaughter is a girl of seven. By careful dress and action I could pass fora child one year younger, but that would still make me seven. Last summerwhen I was seven, I passed for six."

  "Yes, but--?"

  "Mrs. Bagley, there are laws about compulsory education. Sooner or latersomeone is going to get very curious about us."

  "What do you intend to do about it?"

  "That's the problem," he said. "I don't really know. With a lot ofconcentrated effort I can probably enter school if I have to, and keep myeducation covered up. But Martha is another story."

  "I don't see--?" Mrs. Bagley bit her lip.

  "We can't permit her to attend school," said James.

  "You shouldn't have advertised for a woman with a girl child!" said Mrs.Bagley.

  "Perhaps not. But I wanted someone of my own age and size around so thatwe can grow together. I'm a bit of a misfit until I'm granted the rightto use my education as I see fit."

  "And you hope to make Martha another misfit?"

  "If you care to put it that way," admitted James. "Someone has to start.Someday all kids will be educated with my machine and then there'll be nomisfits."

  "But until then--?"

  "Mrs. Bagley, I am not worried about what is going to happen next year. Iam worried about what is going to happen next month."

  Mrs. Bagley sat and watched him for a moment. This boy was worried, shecould see that. But assuming that any part of his story was true--and itwas impossible to doubt it--he had ample cause.

  The past years had given Mrs. Bagley a hard shell because it was usefulfor survival; to keep herself and her child alive she had had to bepermanently alert for every threat. Clearly this was a threat. Martha wasinvolved. Martha's future was, at the least, bound to be affected by whatJames did.

  And the ties of blood and habit made Martha's future the firstconsideration in Janet Bagley's thoughts.

  But not the only consideration; for there is an in-born trait in thehuman race which demands that any helpless child should be helped. Jameswas hardly helpless; but he certainly was a child. It was easy to forgetit, talking to him--until something came up that the child could nothandle.

  Mrs. Bagley sighed. In a different tone she asked, "What did you do lastyear?"

  "Played with Rags on the lawn," James said promptly. "A boy and his dogis a perfectly normal sight--in the summer. Then, when school opened, Istayed in the house as much as I could. When I had to go out I tried tomake myself look younger. Short pants, dirty face. I don't think I couldget away with it this year."

  "I think you're right," Mrs. Bagley admitted. "Well, suppose you could dowhat you wish this year? What would that be?"

  James said: "I want to get my machine working. Then I want to use it onMartha."

  "On Martha! But--"

  James said patiently: "It won't hurt her, Mrs. Bagley. There isn't anyother way. The first thing she needs is a good command of English."

  "English?" Mrs. Bagley hesitated, and was lost. After all, what was wrongwith the girl's learning proper speech?

  "Martha is a child both physically and intellectually. She has beentalked to about 'right' and 'wrong' and she knows that 'telling thetruth' is right, but she doesn't recognize that talking about fairies isa misstatement of the truth. Question her carefully about how we live,and you'll get a fair approximation of the truth."

  "So?"

  "But suppose someone asks Martha about the Hermit of Martin's Hill?"

  "What do you fear?"

  "We might play upon her make-believe stronger than we have. She play-actshis existence very well. But suppose someone asks her what he eats, orwhere he gets his exercise, or some other personal question. She hasn'tthe command of logic to improvise a convincing background."

  "But why should anybody ask such personal questions?" asked Mrs. Bagley.

  James said patiently: "To ask personal questions of an adult is 'prying'and is therefore considered improper and antisocial. To ask the samequestions of a child is proper and social. It indicates a polite interestin the world of the child. You and I, Mrs. Bagley, have a completepicture of the Hermit all prepared, and with our education we canimprovise plausible answers. I've hoped to finish my machine early enoughto provide Martha with the ability to do the same."

  "So what can we do?"

  "About the only thing we can do is to hide," said James. "Luckily,most of the business is conducted out of this place by mail. Writeletters to some boarding school situated a good many miles from here.Ask the usual routine questions about entering a seven-year-old girland an eight-year-old boy for one semester. Robert Holmes, ourpostmaster-taxicab driver-station-master, reads everything that isn'tsealed. He will read the addresses, and he will see replies and readtheir return address."

  "And then we'll pretend to send you and Martha to boarding school?"

  James nodded. "Confinement is going to be difficult, but in this climatethe weather gets nasty early and that keeps people out of one another'shair."

  "But this station-master business--?"

  "We've got to pull some wool over Robert's eyes," said James. "Somehow,we've got to make it entirely plausible. You've got to take Martha and meaway and come back alone just as if we were in school."

  "We should have a car," said Mrs. Bagley.

  "A car is one piece of hardware that I could never justify," said James."Nor," he chuckled, "buy from a mail-order house because I couldn'taccept delivery. I bought furniture from Sears and had it deliveredaccording to mailed instructions. But I figured it better to have thefolks in Shipmont wondering why Charles Maxwell didn't own a car than tohave them puzzling why he owned one that never was used, nor even moved.Besides, a car--costs--"

  Mrs. Bagley smiled with real satisfaction. "There," she said, "I think Ican help. I can buy the car."

  James was startled. "But can you afford it?"

  Mrs. Bagley nodded seriously. "James," she said, "I've been scratchingout an existence on hard terms and I've had to make sure of tomorrow.Even when things were worst, I tried to put something away--some weeks itwas only a few pennies, sometimes nothing at all. But--well, I'm notafraid of tomorrow any more."

  James was oddly pleased. While he was trying to find a way to say it,Mrs. Bagley relieved him of the necessity. "It won't be a brand-newconvertible," she warned. "But they tell me you can get something thatruns for two or three hundred dollars. Tim Fisher has some that lookabout right in his garage--and besides," she said, clinching it, "itgives me a chance to give out a little more Maxwell and boarding-schoolpropaganda."