The Fourth "R"
Copyright© 2025 by George O. Smith
Chapter 6
Paul Brennan moved into the Holden house with Jimmy.
Jimmy had the run of the house—almost. Uncle Paul closed off the upper sitting room, which the late parents had converted into their laboratory. That was locked. But the rest of the house was free, and Jimmy was once more among the things he had never hoped to see again.
Brennan’s next step was to hire a middle-aged couple to take care of house and boy. Their name was Mitchell; they were childless and regretted it; they lavished on Jimmy the special love and care that comes only from childless child-lovers.
Though Jimmy was wary to the point of paranoia, he discovered that he wanted for nothing. He was kept clean and his home kept tidy. He was fed well—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 a collection of Little Golden Books.
His advanced Mecanno set was “broken”—so Mrs. Mitchell told him. Uncle Paul had accidentally crushed it. “But you’ll like this better,” she beamed, handing him a fresh new box from the toy store. It contained bright-colored modular blocks.
Jimmy’s parents had given him canvasboard and oil paints; now they were gone. Jimmy would have admitted he was no artist; but he didn’t enjoy retrogressing to his uncle’s selection—finger paints.
His supply of drawing paper was not tampered with. But it was not replaced. When it was gone, Jimmy was presented with a blackboard and boxes of colored chalk.
By Christmas every possession was gone—replaced—the new toys tailored to Jimmy’s physical age. There was a Christmas tree, and under it a pile of gay bright boxes. Jimmy had hardly the heart to open them, for he knew what they would contain.
He was right.
Jimmy had everything that would keep a five-year-old boy contented ... and not one iota more. He objected; his objections got him nowhere. Mrs. Mitchell was reproachful: Ingratitude, Jimmy! Mr. Mitchell was 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. Jimmy could have whatever he liked. There was just this one step that must be taken 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 his best to copy their manners and to reproduce their halting speech and imperfect grammar. For the first couple of weeks he was not noticed.
The teacher, with forty-eight young new minds to study, gave him his 2.08% of her total time and attention. Jimmy Holden was not a deportment problem; his answers to the few questions she directed at him were correct. Therefore he needed less attention and got less; she spent her time on the loud, the unruly and those who lagged behind in education.
Because his total acquaintance with children of his own age had been among the slum kids that hung around Jake Caslow’s Place, Jimmy found his new companions an interesting bunch.
He watched them, and he listened to them. He copied them and in two weeks Jimmy found them pitifully lacking and hopelessly misinformed. They could not remember at noon what they had been told at ten o’clock. They had difficulty in reading the simple pages of the First Reader.
But he swallowed his pride and stumbled on and on, mimicking his friends and remaining generally unnoticed.
If written examinations were the rule in the First Grade, Jimmy would have been discovered on the first one. But with less than that 2% of the teacher’s time directed at him, Jimmy’s run of correct answers did not attract notice. His boredom and his lack of attention during daydreams made him seem quite normal.
He began to keep score on his classmates on the fly-leaf of one of his books. Jimmy was a far harsher judge than the teacher. He marked them either wrong or right; he gave no credit for trying, or for their stumbling efforts to express their muddled ideas and incomplete grasp. He found their games fun at first, but quickly grew bored. When he tried to introduce a note of strategy they ignored him because they did not understand. They made rules as they went along and changed them as they saw fit. Then, instead of complying with their own rules, they pouted-up and sulked when they couldn’t do as they wanted.
But in the end it was Jimmy’s lack of experience in acting that tripped him.
Having kept score on his playmates’ answers, Jimmy knew that some fairly high percentage of answers must inevitably be wrong. So he embarked upon a program of supplying a certain proportion of errors. He discovered that supplying a wrong answer that was consistent with the age of his contemporaries took too much of his intellect to keep his actions straight. He forgot to employ halting speech and childlike grammar. His errors 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 times nine?”
“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 out until Jimmy, finding no escape, said, “Yes’m.”
“Well,” she said with a bright smile. “It’s nice to know that you do. Can you 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 say it. Go ahead.” And then as Jimmy hesitated still, she addressed the class. “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 the better off you all will be. Knowledge,” she quoted proudly, “is power! Now, Jimmy!”
Jimmy began with two-times-two and worked his way through the long table to the twelves. When he finished, his teacher appointed one of the better-behaved children to watch the class. “Jimmy,” she said, “I’m going to see if we can’t put you up in the next grade. You don’t belong here. Come along.”