The letter was a masterpiece of dissembling. It suggested, without
promising, that Charles Maxwell intended to send his young charge to
boarding school along with his housekeeper's daughter. It asked the
school's advice and explained the deformity that made Charles Maxwell a
recluse. The reply could hardly have been better if they'd penned it
themselves for the signature of the faculty advisor. It discussed the
pros and cons of away-from-home schooling and went on at great length to
discuss the attitude of children and their upbringing amid strange
surroundings. It invited a long and inconclusive correspondence--just
what James wanted.
The supposed departure for school went off neatly, no one in the town of
Shipmont was surprised when Mrs. Bagley turned up buying an automobile of
several years' vintage because this was a community where everybody had
one.
The letters continued at the rate of one every two or three weeks. They
were picked up by Mrs. Bagley who let it be known that these were
progress reports. In reality, they were little tracts on the theory of
child education. They kept up the correspondence for the information it
contained, and also because Mrs. Bagley enjoyed this contact with an
outer world that contained adults.
Meanwhile, James ended his spurt of growth and settled down. Work on his
machine continued when he could afford to buy the parts, and his writing
settled down into a comfortable channel once more. In his spare time
James began to work on Martha's diction.
Martha could not have been called a retarded child. Her trouble was lack
of constant parental attention during her early years. With father gone
and mother struggling to live, Martha had never overcome some of the
babytalk-diction faults. There was still a trace of the omitted 'B' here
and there. 'Y' was a difficult sound; the color of a lemon was "Lellow."
Martha's English construction still bore marks of the baby. "Do you have
to--" came out as "Does you has to--?"
James Holden's father had struggled in just this way through his early
experimental days, when he despaired of ever getting the infant James out
of the baby-prattle stage. He could not force, he could not even coerce.
All that his father could do was to watch quietly as baby James acquired
the awareness of things. Then he could step in and supply the correct
word-sound to name the object. In those early days the progress of James
Holden was no greater than the progress of any other infant. Holden
Senior followed the theory of ciphers; no cryptologist can start
unravelling a secret message until he is aware of the fact that some
hidden message exists. No infant can be taught a language until some
awareness tells the tiny brain that there is some definite connection
between sound and sight.
* * * * *
For the next few weeks James worked with Martha on her speech, and hated
it. So slow, so dreary! But it was necessary, he thought, to keep her
from establishing any more permanent errors, so that when the machine was
ready there would be at least a blank slate to write on, not one all
scribbled over with mistakes.
Time passed; the weather grew colder; the machine spread its scattered
parts over his workroom.
Janet Bagley knew that the machine was growing, but it had not occurred
to her that it would be finished. She had grown accustomed to her life on
Martin's Hill. By her standards, it was easy. She made three meals each
day, cleaned the rooms, hung curtains, sewed clothing for Martha and
herself, did the shopping and had time enough left over to take
excursions in her little car and keep her daughter out of mischief. It
was pleasant. It was more than pleasant, it was safe.
And then the machine was finished.
Mrs. Bagley took a sandwich and a glass of milk to James and found him
sitting on a chair, a heavy headset covering most of his skull, reading
aloud from a textbook on electronic theory.
Mrs. Bagley stopped at the door, unaccountably startled.
James looked up and shut off his work. "It's finished," he said with
grave pride.
"All of it?"
"Well," he said, pondering, "the basic part. It works."
Mrs. Bagley looked at the scramble of equipment in the room as though it
were an enemy. It didn't look finished. It didn't even look safe. But she
trusted James, although she felt at that moment that she would grow old
and die before she understood why and how any collection of apparatus
could be functional and still be so untidy. "It--could teach me?"
"If you had something you want to memorize."
"I'd like to memorize some of the pet recipes from my cookbook."
"Get it," directed James.
She hesitated. "How does it work?" she wanted to know first.