s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

the name of James Vernon Worth?"
"Why, yes. His books have been read to me by my wife. But he is not a child,
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surely?"
"He is your son Jay."
And then Peter told them the whole story. Their incredulity was soon overcome,
the situation made clear, and evidence presented chief of all the evidence of
Jay himself.
"But, you rascal," protested his guardian, "when I read the first book which
you say is yours, I dictated a letter to you to be sent to the author!"
"Yes, Uncle," said Jay, "and it made me mighty proud, too."
"I'm not sure whether I ought to be proud of you, or whether you played me a
shabby trick," said Mr. Curtis.
"You ought to be very proud," said Peter Welles. "It was not an unwillingness
to confide in you, or that he meant to deprive you of the pleasure of knowing
what he had done. These children do not wish or need adult assistance, any
more than any adult author if as much. We must never betray their pen names.
Their achievements must be kept in hiding, under aliases. But they do need to
learn history as you can teach it, and I have come here daring to hope that
you will do for these other youngsters what you have done for Jay."
"I made him promise he wouldn't ask you to let me go," said Jay. "But please,
if you do go, may I go with you?"
"The whole thing is immensely appealing," said Mr. Curtis, "but I hardly like
to consider trying to teach again "
"Of course you'll do it, John," said his wife firmly. "You can write books as
well there as here. We haven't taken root in this town forever, have we? And
Jay must be with those other youngsters, but he won't go without us. Salary
doesn't matter there needn't be any. I'll teach languages, too, if you like;
I'm a good linguist. We want to have a big share in this wonderful thing,
don't we, John?"
"Yes, we do," said Mr. Curtis. "And thank you very much for the invitation,
Dr. Welles."
So that, thought Peter as the plane sped him homeward, was that. The expense
of the special trip was well repaid. He had Jay, and he had two fine teachers
besides. He could start out the next month to interview more prospects,
without nagging worries about either Jay or Stella. More problems would arise,
but they could be solved in their turn. Everything was under control. Peter
could relax. He slept.
PROBLEMS
Peter Welles and Timothy Paul stood together looking at their school, and
sighed contentedly.
"It's all ready," said Tim blissfully. "It's all ready, Peter, and the other
children are on their way now."
"Your dream came true quickly," replied Welles, smiling down at the boy.
"Three months ago it was only a faint hope in the back of our minds, and here
we are, ready to launch the venture. But it is too bad we couldn't have the
buildings you first planned."
"Prefabs are good enough," said Tim. "After all, we are already fourteen years
old, and the group may not stay together more than five or six years. That
seems like such a short time, Peter! I know you didn't have time to get more
than four new boys and girls last month, but I do wish everyone could be here
from the beginning. And yet the only way to do that would be to postpone the
beginning."
"Perhaps it is best not to have too many to start with," answered Dr. Welles.
"We may have problems."
"Elsie and Stella had problems," said Tim, "and you put them straight in no
time at all."
Dr. Welles shook his head.
"Elsie and Stella were eager to be helped," he said. "Suppose we get a boy or
girl who refuses to be helped?"
"You mean someone who doesn't just have a problem, but is a problem?" frowned
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Tim. "Well, you can take care of that, too, Peter. You know you can."
"Some doctors can bury their failures, as the old joke says," answered the
psychiatrist, "but I can't do that, Tim. You must face the facts. We can't
expect a hundred per cent success with the Wonder Children, any more than with
any other group. Dr. Foxwell and I will do all we can to help them, but they
may have more problems than you can realize, and some of them, by the law of
averages, will be tougher problems than Elsie and Stella. For that matter, the
girls seem to be on the right track now, but either of them may go off it
again. Frankly, Tim, I am glad I do not have to cope with twenty or thirty
completely unknown Wonder Children all dumped into my lap at once."
Tim stared at his friend, appalled.
"But surely," he cried, "they are all so intelligent! and under expert care [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]