CHAPTER SIX
Paul Brennan moved into the Holden house with Jimmy.
Jimmy had the run of the house--almost. Uncle Paul closed off the uppersitting room, which the late parents had converted into their laboratory._That_ was locked. But the rest of the house was free, and Jimmy was oncemore among the things he had never hoped to see again.
Brennan's next step was to hire a middle-aged couple to take care ofhouse and boy. Their name was Mitchell; they were childless and regrettedit; they lavished on Jimmy the special love and care that comes only fromchildless child-lovers.
Though Jimmy was wary to the point of paranoia, he discovered that hewanted for nothing. He was kept clean and his home kept tidy. He was fedwell--not only in terms of nourishment, but in terms of what he liked.
Then ... Jimmy began to notice changes.
_Huckleberry Finn_ turned up missing. In its place on the shelf was acollection of Little Golden Books.
His advanced Mecanno set was "broken"--so Mrs. Mitchell told him. UnclePaul had accidentally crushed it. "But you'll like this better," shebeamed, handing him a fresh new box from the toy store. It containedbright-colored modular blocks.
Jimmy's parents had given him canvasboard and oil paints; now they weregone. Jimmy would have admitted he was no artist; but he didn't enjoyretrogressing to his uncle's selection--finger paints.
His supply of drawing paper was not tampered with. But it was notreplaced. When it was gone, Jimmy was presented with a blackboard andboxes of colored chalk.
By Christmas every possession was gone--replaced--the new toys tailoredto Jimmy's physical age. There was a Christmas tree, and under it a pileof gay bright boxes. Jimmy had hardly the heart to open them, for he knewwhat they would contain.
He was right.
Jimmy had everything that would keep a five-year-old boycontented ... and not one iota more. He objected; his objections got himnowhere. Mrs. Mitchell was reproachful: Ingratitude, Jimmy! Mr. Mitchellwas scornful: Maybe James would like to vote and smoke a pipe?
And Paul Brennan was very clear. There was a way out of this, yes. Jimmycould have whatever he liked. There was just this one step that must betaken first; the machine must be put back together again.
When it came time for Jimmy to start school he was absolutely delighted;nothing, nothing could be worse than this.
At first it was a novel experience.
He sat at a desk along with forty-seven other children of his size,neatly stacked in six aisles with eight desks to the tier. He did hisbest to copy their manners and to reproduce their halting speech andimperfect grammar. For the first couple of weeks he was not noticed.
The teacher, with forty-eight young new minds to study, gave him his2.08% of her total time and attention. Jimmy Holden was not a deportmentproblem; his answers to the few questions she directed at him werecorrect. Therefore he needed less attention and got less; she spent hertime on the loud, the unruly and those who lagged behind in education.
Because his total acquaintance with children of his own age had beenamong the slum kids that hung around Jake Caslow's Place, Jimmy found hisnew companions an interesting bunch.
He watched them, and he listened to them. He copied them and in two weeksJimmy found them pitifully lacking and hopelessly misinformed. They couldnot remember at noon what they had been told at ten o'clock. They haddifficulty in reading the simple pages of the First Reader.
But he swallowed his pride and stumbled on and on, mimicking his friendsand remaining generally unnoticed.
If written examinations were the rule in the First Grade, Jimmy wouldhave been discovered on the first one. But with less than that 2% of theteacher's time directed at him, Jimmy's run of correct answers did notattract notice. His boredom and his lack of attention during daydreamsmade him seem quite normal.
He began to keep score on his classmates on the fly-leaf of one of hisbooks. Jimmy was a far harsher judge than the teacher. He marked themeither wrong or right; he gave no credit for trying, or for theirstumbling efforts to express their muddled ideas and incomplete grasp. Hefound their games fun at first, but quickly grew bored. When he tried tointroduce a note of strategy they ignored him because they did notunderstand. They made rules as they went along and changed them as theysaw fit. Then, instead of complying with their own rules, they pouted-upand sulked when they couldn't do as they wanted.
But in the end it was Jimmy's lack of experience in acting that trippedhim.
Having kept score on his playmates' answers, Jimmy knew that some fairlyhigh percentage of answers must inevitably be wrong. So he embarked upona program of supplying a certain proportion of errors. He discovered thatsupplying a wrong answer that was consistent with the age of hiscontemporaries took too much of his intellect to keep his actionsstraight. He forgot to employ halting speech and childlike grammar. Hiserrors were delivered in faultless grammar and excellent self-expression;his correct answers came out in the English of his companions;mispronounced, ill-composed, and badly delivered.
The contrast was enough to attract even 2.08% of a teacher.
During the third week of school, Jimmy was day-dreaming during class.Abruptly his teacher snapped, "James Holden, how much is seven timesnine?"
"Sixty-three," replied Jimmy, completely automatic.
"James," she said softly, "do you know the rest of your numbers?"
Jimmy looked around like a trapped animal. His teacher waited him outuntil Jimmy, finding no escape, said, "Yes'm."
"Well," she said with a bright smile. "It's nice to know that you do. Canyou do the multiplication table?"
"Yes'm."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes'm."
"Let's hear you."
Jimmy looked around. "No, Jimmy," said his teacher. "I want you to sayit. Go ahead." And then as Jimmy hesitated still, she addressed theclass. "This is important," she said. "Someday you will have to learn it,too. You will use it all through life and the earlier you learn it thebetter off you all will be. _Knowledge_," she quoted proudly, "_ispower_! Now, Jimmy!"
Jimmy began with two-times-two and worked his way through the long tableto the twelves. When he finished, his teacher appointed one of thebetter-behaved children to watch the class. "Jimmy," she said, "I'm goingto see if we can't put you up in the next grade. You don't belong here.Come along."
They went to the principal's office. "Mr. Whitworth," said Jimmy'steacher, "I have a young genius in my class."
"A young genius, Miss Tilden?"
"Yes, indeed. He already knows the multiplication table."
"You do, James? Where did you learn it?"
"My father taught me."
Principal and teacher looked at each another. They said nothing but theywere both recalling stories and rumors about the brilliance of hisparents. The accident and death had not escaped notice.
"What else did they teach you, James?" asked Mr. Whitworth. "To read andwrite, of course?"
"Yes sir."
"History?"
Jimmy squirmed inwardly. He did not know how much to admit. "Some," hesaid noncommittally.
"When did Columbus discover America?"
"In Fourteen Ninety-Two."
"Fine," said Mr. Whitworth with a broad smile. He looked at Miss Tilden."You're right. Young James should be advanced." He looked down at JimmyHolden. "James," he said, "we're going to place you in the Second Gradefor a tryout. Unless we're wrong, you'll stay and go up with them."
Jimmy's entry into Second Grade brought a different attitude. He hadentered school quietly just for the sake of getting away from PaulBrennan. Now he was beginning to form a plan. If he could go from Firstto Second in a matter of three weeks, then, by carefully disclosing hisstore of knowledge bit-by-bit at the proper moment, he might be able togo through school in a short time. Moreover, he had tasted the firstfruits of recognition. He craved more.
Somewhere was born the quaint notion that getting through school wouldautomatically make him an adult, with all attendant
privileges.
So Jimmy Holden dropped all pretense. His answers were as right as hecould make them. He dropped the covering mimickry of childish speechand took personal pride in using grammar as good as that of his teacher.
This got him nothing. The Second Grade teacher was of the "progressive"school; she firmly believed that everybody, having been created equal,had to stay that way. She pointedly avoided giving Jimmy any opportunityto show his capability.
He bided his time with little grace.
He found his opportunity during the visit of a school superintendent.During this session Jimmy hooted when one of his fellows said thatColumbus proved the world was round.
Angrily she demanded that Jimmy tell her who did prove it, and JimmyHolden replied that he didn't know whether it was Pythagoras or one ofhis followers, but he did know that it was one of the few things thatAristotle ever got right. This touched her on a sore spot. She admiredAristotle and couldn't bear to hear the great man accused of error.
She started baiting Jimmy with loaded questions and stopped whenJimmy stated that Napoleon Bonaparte was responsible for the inventionof canned food, the adoption of the metric system, and the developmentof the semaphore telegraph. This stopped all proceedings until Jimmyhimself found the references in the Britannica. That little feat ofresearch-reference impressed the visiting superintendent. Jimmy Holdenwas jumped into Third Grade.
Convinced that he was on the right trolley, Jimmy proceeded to plunge inwith both feet. Third Grade Teacher helped. Within a week he was beingcalled upon to aid the laggards. He stood out like a lighthouse; he wasthe one who could supply the right answers when the class was stumped.His teacher soon began to take a delight in belaboring the class for aminute before turning to Jimmy for the answer. Heaven forgive him, Jimmyenjoyed it. He began to hold back slyly, like a comedian building up thetension before a punch-line.
His classmates began to call him "old know-it-all." Jimmy did not realizethat it was their resentment speaking. He accepted it as deference to hissuperior knowledge. The fact that he was not a part of their playtimelife did not bother him one iota. He knew very well that his size alonewould cut him out of the rough and heavy games of his classmates; he didnot know that he was cut out of their games because they disliked him.
As time wore on, some of the rougher ones changed his nickname from"know-it-all" to "teacher's pet"; one of them used rougher languagestill. To this Jimmy replied in terms he'd learned from Jake Caslow'sgutters. All that saved him from a beating was his size; even the oneswho disliked him would not stand for the bully's beating up a smallerchild.
But in other ways they picked on him. Jimmy reasoned out his ownrelationship between intelligence and violence. He had yet to learn thepsychology of vandalism--but he was experiencing it.
Finding no enjoyment out of play periods, Jimmy took to staying in. Thepermissive school encouraged it; if Jimmy Holden preferred to tinker witha typewriter instead of playing noisy games, his teacher saw no wrong init--for his Third Grade teacher was something of an intellectual herself.
In April, one week after his sixth birthday, Jimmy Holden was jumpedagain.
Jimmy entered Fourth Grade to find that his fame had gone before him; hewas received with sullen glances and turned backs.
But he did not care. For his birthday, he received a typewriter from PaulBrennan. Brennan never found out that the note suggesting it from Jimmy'sThird Grade teacher had been written after Jimmy's prompting.
So while other children played, Jimmy wrote.
He was not immediately successful. His first several stories werereturned; but eventually he drew a winner and a check. Armed withsuperior knowledge, Jimmy mailed it to a bank that was strong inadvertising "mail-order" banking. With his first check he opened apay-by-the-item, no-minimum-balance checking account.
Gradually his batting average went up, but there were enough returnedrejections to make Paul Brennan view Jimmy's literary effort with quietamusement. Still, slowly and in secret, Jimmy built up his bank balanceby twenties, fifties, an occasional hundred.
For above everything, by now Jimmy knew that he could not go on throughschool as he'd planned.
If his entry into Fourth Grade had been against scowls and resentmentfrom his classmates, Fifth and Sixth would be more so. Eventually the daywould come when he would be held back. He was already mingling withchildren far beyond his size. The same permissive school that graduateddolts so that their stupid personalities wouldn't be warped would keephim back by virtue of the same idiotic reasoning.
He laid his plans well. He covered his absence from school one morningand thereby gained six free hours to start going about his own businessbefore his absence could be noticed.
This was his third escape. He prayed that it would be permanent.
BOOK TWO:
THE HERMIT