The Fourth "R" by George O. Smith (best way to read an ebook TXT) 📗

we're properly housed, young fellow."

"This isn't charity," replied James. "Nor the goodness of my little heart. It's a necessity."

"How so?" demanded Tim crossly. "It's my life—and Janet's."

"And—Martha's life," added James.

"You don't think I'm including her out, do you?"

"No, but you're forgetting that she isn't to be popped here and there as the fancy hits you, either. She's much to be considered."

"I'll consider her," snapped Tim. "She shall be my daughter. If she will, I'll have her use my name as well as my care and affection."

"Of course you will," agreed James. The quick gesture of Mrs. Bagley's hand towards Tim, and his equally swift caress in reply were noticed but not understood by James. "But you're not thinking deeply enough about it."

"All right. You tell me all about it."

"Martha must stay here," said James. "Neither of you—nor Martha—have any idea of how stultifying it can be to be forced into school under the supervision of teachers who cannot understand, and among classmates whose grasp of any subject is no stronger than a feeble grope in the mental dawn."

"Maybe so. But that's no reason why we must run our life your way."

"You're wrong, Mr. Fisher. Think a moment. Without hesitation, you will include the education of Martha Bagley along with the 'care and affection' you mentioned a moment ago."

"Of course."

"This means, Mr. Fisher, that Martha, approaching ten years old, represents a responsibility of about seven more years prior to her graduation from high school and another four years of college—granting that Martha is a standard, normal, healthy young lady. Am I right?"

"Sure."

"Well, since you are happy and willing to take on the responsibility of eleven years of care and affection and the expense of schooling the girl, you might as well take advantage of the possibilities here and figure on five years—or less. If we cannot give her the equal of a master's degree in three, I'm shooting in the dark. Make it five, and she'll have her doctor's degree—or at least it's equivalent. Does that make sense?"

"Of course it does. But—"

"No buts until we're finished. You'll recall the tales we told you about the necessity of hiding out. It must continue. During the school year we must not be visible to the general public."

"But dammit, I don't want to set up my family in someone else's house," objected Tim Fisher.

"Buy this one," suggested James. "Then it will be yours. I'll stay on and pay rent on my section."

"You'll—now wait a minute! What are you talking about?"

"I said, 'I'll pay rent on my section,'" said James.

"But this guy upstairs—" Tim took a long breath. "Let's get this straight," he said, "now that we're on the subject, what about Mr. Charles Maxwell?"

"I can best quote," said James with a smile, "'Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!'"

"That's Shakespeare."

"Sorry. That's Sir Walter Scott. The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Canto Six, Stanza Seventeen. The fact of the matter is that we could go on compounding this lie, but it's time to stop it. Mr. Charles Maxwell does not exist."

"I don't understand!"

"Hasn't it puzzled you that this hermit-type character that never puts a foot out of the house has been out and gone on some unstated vacation or business trip for most of the spring and summer?"

"Hadn't given it a thought," said Fisher with a fatuous look at Mrs. Bagley. She mooned back at him. For a moment they were lost in one another, giving proof to the idea that blinder than he who will not see is the fellow who has his eye on a woman.

"Charles Maxwell does not exist except in the minds of his happy readers," said James. "He is a famous writer of boys' stories and known to a lot of people for that talent. Yet he is no more a real person than Lewis Carroll."

"But Lewis Carroll did exist—"

"As Charles L. Dodgson, a mathematician famous for his work in symbolic logic."

"All right! Then who writes these stories? Who supports you—and this house?"

"I do!"

Tim blinked, looked around the room a bit wildly and then settled on Martha, looking at her helplessly.

"It's true, Tim," she said quietly. "It's crazy but it works. I've been living with it for years."

Tim considered that for a full minute. "All right," he said shortly. "So it works. But why does any kid have to live for himself?" He eyed James. "Who's responsible for you?"

"I am!"

"But—"

"Got an hour?" asked James with a smile. "Then listen—"

At the end of James Holden's long explanation, Tim Fisher said, "Me—? Now, I need a drink!"

James chuckled, "Alcoholic, of course—which is Pi to seven decimal places if you ever need it. Just count the letters."

Over his glass, Tim eyed James thoughtfully. "So if this is true, James, just who owns that fabulous machine of yours?"

"It is mine, or ours."

"You gave me to believe that it was a high-priority Government project," he said accusingly.

"Sorry. But I would lie as glibly to God Himself if it became necessary to protect myself by falsehood. I'm sorry it isn't a Government project, but it's just as important a secret."

"Anything as big as this should be the business of the Government."

"Perhaps so. But it's mine to keep or to give, and it's mine to study." James was thoughtful for a moment. "I suppose that you can argue that anything as important as this should be handed over to the authorities immediately; that a large group of men dedicated to such a study can locate its difficulties and its pitfalls and failures far swifter than a single youth of eleven. Yet by the right of invention, a process protected by the Constitution of the United States and circumvented by some very odd rulings on the part of the Supreme Court, it is mine by inheritance, to reap the exclusive rewards for my family's work. Until I'm of an age when I am deemed capable of managing my own life, I'd be 'protected' out of my rights if I handed this to anybody—including the Government. They'd start a commission full of bureaucrats who'd first use the machine to study how to best expand their own little empire, perpetuate themselves in office, and then they'd rule me out on the quaint theory that education is so important that it mustn't be wasted on the young."

Tim Fisher smiled wryly. He turned to Janet Bagley. "How do you want it?" he asked her.

"For Martha's sake, I want it his way," she said.

"All right. Then that's the way we'll have it," said Tim Fisher. He eyed James somewhat ruefully. "You know, it's a funny thing. I've always thought this was a screwy set-up, and to be honest, I've always thought you were a pretty bumptious kid. I guess you had a good reason. Anyway, I should have known Janet wouldn't have played along with it unless she had a reason that was really helping somebody."

James saw with relief that Tim had allied himself with the cause; he was, in fact, very glad to have someone knowledgeable and levelheaded in on the problem. Anyway he really liked Tim, and was happy to have the deception out of the way.

"That's all right," he said awkwardly.

Tim laughed. "Hey, will this contraption of yours teach me how to adjust a set of tappets?"

"No," said James quickly. "It will teach you the theory of how to chop down a tree but it can't show you how to swing an axe. Or," he went on with a smile, "it will teach you how to be an efficient accountant—but you have to use your own money!"

In the house on Martin's Hill, everybody won. Tim Fisher objected at first to the idea of gallivanting off on a protracted honeymoon, leaving a nine-year-old daughter in the care of a ten-year-old boy. But Janet—now Mrs. Fisher—pointed out that James and Martha were both quite competent, and furthermore there was little to be said for a honeymoon encumbered with a little pitcher that had such big ears, to say nothing of a pair of extremely curious eyes and a rather loud voice. And furthermore, if we allow the woman's privilege of adding one furthermore on top of another, it had been a long, long time since Janet had enjoyed a child-free vacation. So she won. It was not Hawaii by air for a ten-day stay. It was Hawaii by ship with a sixty-day sojourn in a hotel that offered both seclusion and company to the guests' immediate preference.

James Holden won more time. He felt that every hour was a victory. At times he despaired because time passed so crawlingly slow. All the wealth of his education could not diminish that odd sense of the time-factor that convinces all people that the length of the years diminish as age increases. Far from being a simple, amusing remark, the problem has been studied because it is universal. It is psychological, of course, and it is not hard to explain simply in terms of human experience plus the known fact that the human senses respond to the logarithm of the stimulus.

With most people, time is reasonably important. We live by the clock, and we die by the clock, and before there were clocks there were candles marked in lengths and sand flowing through narrow orifices, water dripping into jars, and posts stuck in the ground with marks for the shadow to divide the day. The ancient ones related womanhood to the moon and understood that time was vital in the course of Life.

With James, time was more important, perhaps, than to any other human being alive. He was fighting for time, always. His was not the immature desire of uneducated youth to become adult overnight for vague reasons.

With James it was an honest evaluation of his precarious position. He had to hide until he was deemed capable of handling his own affairs, after which he could fight his own battles in his own way without the interference of the laws that are set up to protect the immature.

With Tim Fisher and his brand-new bride out of the way, James took a deep breath at having leaped one more hurdle. Then he sat down to think.

Obviously there is no great sea-change that takes place at the Stroke Of Midnight on the date of the person's 21st birthday; no magic wand is waved over his scalp to convert him in a moment of time from a puling infant to a mature adult. The growth of child to adult is as gradual as the increase of his stature, which varies from one child to the next.

The fact remained that few people are confronted by the necessity of making a decision based upon the precise age of the subject. We usually cross this barrier with no trouble, taking on our rights and responsibilities as we find them necessary to our life. Only in probating an estate left by the demise of both parents in the presence of minor children does this legal matter of precise age become noticeable. Even then, the control exerted over the minor by the legal guardian diminishes by some obscure mathematical proportion that approaches zero as the minor approaches the legal age of maturity. Rare is the case of the reluctant guardian who jealously relinquishes the iron rule only after the proper litigation directs him to let go, render the accounting for audit, and turn over the keys to the treasury to the rightful heir.

James Holden was the seldom case. James Holden needed a very adroit lawyer to tell him how and when his rights and privileges as a citizen could be granted, and under what circumstances. From the evidence already at hand, James saw loopholes available in the matter of the legal age of twenty-one. But he also knew that he could not approach a lawyer with questions without giving full explanation of every why and wherefore.

So James Holden, already quite competent in the do-it-himself method of cutting his own ice, decided to study law. Without any forewarning of the monumental proportions of the task he faced, James started to acquire books on legal procedure and the law.

With the return of Tim and Janet Fisher matters progressed well. Mrs. Fisher took over the running of the household; Tim continued his running of the garage and started to dicker for the purchase of the house on Martin's Hill. The "Hermit" who had returned before the wedding remained temporarily. With a long-drawn plan, Charles Maxwell would slowly fade out of sight. Already his absence during the summer was hinting as being a medical study; during the winter he would return to the distant hospital. Later he would leave completely cured to take up residence elsewhere. Beyond this they planned to play it by ear.

James and Martha, freed from the housework routine, went deep