ter 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.

He countered with another question. "How do we memorize anything?"

She thought. "Why, by repeating and repeating and rehearsing and
rehearsing."

"Yes," said James.