ating periods of complete idiocy and high
intelligence?"

"Not totally unpredictable."

"Oh?"

"At least three things suggest a pattern. One is that his relapses,
though erratic, are becoming ever shorter in duration and more widely
separated."

"Yes, they are infrequent now and quickly ended."

"The second is that his grasp of the social pattern in which he
lives--his environment, in all its subtleties--is constantly improving."

"Right again. At the age of six he can in many ways match a bright lad
twice his age. Not in the subtleties, though--I disagree there. You can
give him a simple or even a not-so-simple explanation of something he
hears on the radio, dealing with it as a general theme in sociology,
and he seems to grasp the broad outline with little difficulty, but in
trivial matters of social behavior and human relations he's frequently
uncertain, as likely as not to pull a howling bloomer. Seems unusually
baffled and exasperated by some of the social mores he runs into, such
as the many tabu subjects for conversation, or taking your clothes off
whenever or wherever you feel inclined to. Poor Helen. She tries to
explain and he keeps doggedly after her with ruthless logic, obviously
trying hard to understand, and ... you know ... it's surprising how few
really sound, logical reasons there are for half the accepted
conventions that rule our lives.

"He's pinned me down several times to the conclusion that a certain
convention exists solely because people can't be trusted to behave
rationally without restraining rules. It's rather a dismaying conclusion
when it's dragged out in the open like that, and it seems to horrify
him. An ordinary kid learns by experience and accepts the rules with
sporadic rebellion, but our boy acts as if they were beyond
comprehension. And I think they are ... to him.

"The first crime drama he happened to see on TV turned him white as
a sheet, and when he stuck his nose out the gate a few days later and
watched some neighborhood kids playing cowboys and Indians with cap
pistols, he was sick on the grass. Explaining the 'glamour' of the early
west made it worse. He drew back from me as though I were contagious.
I had the feeling that he _pitied_ me. I wonder, sometimes, whether he
makes any real sense at all out of what is said to him. He's very slow
to interpret the shades of expression possible in voice and face. I feel
that potentially he has an exceptional mind, but the gr