CHAPTER NINE

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 grea