“Do you remember what books you liked then?”
“Books about animals, I remember. And geographies. It was funny about animals—”
Once you got Timothy started, thought Welles, it wasn’t hard to get him to go on talking.
“One day I was at the zoo,” said Tim, “and by the cages alone. Grandmother was resting on a bench and she let me walk along by myself. People were talking about the animals and I began to tell them all I knew. It must have been funny in a way, because I had read a lot of words I couldn’t pronounce correctly, words I had never heard spoken. They listened and asked me questions and I thought I was just like grandfather, teaching them the way he sometimes taught me. And then they called another man to come, and said, ‘Listen to this kid; he’s a scream!’ and I saw they were all laughing at me.”
Timothy’s face was redder than usual, but he tried to smile as he added, “I can see now how it must have sounded funny. And unexpected, too; that’s a big point in humor. But my little feelings were so dreadfully hurt that I ran back to my grandmother crying, and she couldn’t find out why. But it served me right for disobeying her. She always told me not to tell people things; she said a child had nothing to teach its elders.”
“Not in that way, perhaps—at that age.”
“But, honestly, some grown people don’t know very much,” said Tim. “When we went on the train last year, a woman came up and sat beside me and started to tell me things a little boy should know about California. I told her I’d lived here all my life, but I guess she didn’t even know we are taught things in school, and she tried to tell me things, and almost everything was wrong.”
“Such as what?” asked Welles, who had also suffered from tourists.
“We… she said so many things… but I thought this was the funniest: She said all the Missions were so old and interesting, and I said yes, and she said, ‘You know, they were all built long before Columbus discovered America,’ and I thought she meant it for a joke, so I laughed. She looked very serious and said, ‘Yes, those people all come up here from Mexico.’ I suppose she thought they were Aztec temples.”
Welles, shaking with laughter, could not but agree that many adults were sadly lacking in the rudiments of knowledge.
“After that Zoo experience, and a few others like it, I began to get wise to myself,” continued Tim. “People who knew things didn’t want to hear me repeating them, and people who didn’t know, wouldn’t be taught by a four-year-old baby. I guess I was four when I began to write.”
“How?”
“Oh, I just thought if I couldn’t say anything to anybody at any time, I’d burst. So I began to put it down—in printing, like in books. Then I found out about writing, and we had some old-fashioned schoolbooks that taught how to write. I’m left-handed. When I went to school, I had to use my right hand. But by then I had learned how to pretend that I didn’t know things. I watched the others and did as they did. My grandmother told me to do that.”
“I wonder why she said that,” marveled Welles.
“She knew I wasn’t used to other children, she said, and it was the first time she had left me to anyone else’s care. So, she told me to do what the others did and what my teacher said,” explained Tim simply, “and I followed her advice literally. I pretended I didn’t know anything, until the others began to know it, too. Lucky I was so shy. But there were things to learn, all right. Do you know, when I was first sent to school, I was disappointed because the teacher dressed like other women. The only picture of teachers I had noticed were those in an old Mother Goose book, and I thought that all teachers wore hoop skirts. But as soon as I saw her, after the little shock of surprise, I knew it was silly, and I never told.”
The psychiatrist and the boy laughed together.
“We played games. I had to learn to play with children, and not be surprised when they slapped or pushed me. I just couldn’t figure out why they’d do that, or what good it did them. But if it was to surprise me, I’d say ‘Boo’ and surprise them some time later; and if they were mad because I had taken a ball or something they wanted, I’d play with them.”
“Anybody ever try to beat you up?”
“Oh, yes. But I had a book about boxing—with pictures. You can’t learn much from pictures, but I got some practice too, and that helped. I didn’t want to win, anyway. That’s what I like about games of strength or skill—I’m fairly matched, and I don’t have to be always watching in case I might show off or try to boss somebody around.”
“You must have tried bossing sometimes.”
“In books, they all cluster around the boy who can teach new games and think up new things to play. But I found out that doesn’t work. They just want to do the same thing all the time—like hide and seek. It’s no fun if the first one to be caught is ‘it’ next time. The rest just walk in any old way and don’t try to hide or even to run, because it doesn’t matter whether they are caught. But you can’t get the boys to see that, and play right, so the last one caught is ‘it’.”
Timothy looked at his watch.
“Time to go,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, Dr. Welles. I hope I haven’t bored you too much.”
Welles recognized the echo and smiled appreciatively at the small boy.
“You didn’t tell me about the writing. Did you start to keep a diary?”
“No. It was a newspaper. One page a day, no more and no less. I still keep it,” confided Tim. “But I get more on the page now. I type it.”
“And you write with either hand now?”
“My left hand is my own secret writing. For school and things like that I use my right hand.”
When Timothy had left, Welles congratulated himself. But for the next month he got no more. Tim would not reveal a single significant fact. He talked about ball-playing, he described his grandmother’s astonished delight over the beautiful kitten, he told of its growth and the tricks it played. He gravely related such enthralling facts as that he liked to ride on trains, that his favorite wild animal was the lion, and that he greatly desired to see snow falling. But not a word of what Welles wanted to hear. The psychiatrist, knowing that he was again being tested, waited patiently.
Then one afternoon when Welles, fortunately unoccupied with a patient, was smoking a pipe on his front porch, Timothy Paul strode into the yard.
“Yesterday Miss Page asked me if I was seeing you and I said yes. She said she hoped my grandparents didn’t find it too expensive, because you had told her I was all right and didn’t need to have her worrying about me. And then I said to grandma, was it expensive for you to talk to me, and she said, ‘Oh no, dear; the school pays for that. It was your teacher’s idea that you have a few talks with Dr. Welles.’ ”
“I’m glad you came to me, Tim, and I’m sure you didn’t give me away to either of them. Nobody’s paying me. The school pays for my services if a child is in a bad way and his parents are poor. It’s a new service, since 1956. Many maladjusted children can be helped— much more cheaply to the state than the cost of having them go crazy or become criminals or something. You understand all that. But—sit down, Tim!—I can’t charge the state for you, and I can’t charge your grandparents. You’re adjusted marvelously well in every way, as far as I can see; and when I see the rest, I’ll be even more sure of it.”
“Well—gosh! I wouldn’t have come—” Tim was stammering in confusion. “You ought to be paid. I take up so much of your time. Maybe I’d better not come any more.”