The Fourth "R" by George O. Smith (best novels of all time txt) 📖

act of two sub-adults, rather than a pair of precocious kids.

At any rate, James Holden felt very good. Now he had a girl. He had acquired one more of the many attitudes of the Age of Maturity.

So James settled down to read his newspaper, and on page three he saw a photograph and an article that attracted his attention. The photograph was of a girl no more than seven years old holding a baby at least a year old. Beside them was a boy of about nine. In the background was a miserable hovel made of crude lumber and patched windows. This couple and their baby had been discovered by a geological survey outfit living in the backwoods hills. Relief, aid, and help were being rushed, and the legislature was considering ways and means of their schooling. Neither of them could read or write.

James read the article, and his first thought was to proffer his help. Aid and enlightenment they needed, and they needed it quickly. And then he stopped immediately because he could do nothing to educate them unless they already possessed the ability to read.

His second thought was one of dismay. His exultation came down with a dull thud. Within seconds he realized that the acquisition of a girl was no evidence of his competent maturity. The couple photographed were human beings, but intellectually they were no more than animals with a slight edge in vocabulary. It made James Holden sick at heart to read the article and to realize that such filth and ignorance could still go on. But it took a shock of such violence to make James realize that clams, guppies, worms, fleas, cats, dogs, and the great whales reproduced their kind; intellect, education and mature competence under law had nothing to do with the process whatsoever.

And while his heart was still unhappy, he turned to page four and read an open editorial that discussed the chances of The Educational Party in the coming Election Year.

James blinked.

"Splinter" parties, the editorial said, seldom succeeded in gaining a primary objective. They only succeeded in drawing votes from the other major parties, in splitting the total ballot, and dividing public opinion. On the other hand, they did provide a useful political weathervane for the major parties to watch most carefully. If the splinter party succeeded in capturing a large vote, it was an indication that the People found their program favorable and upon such evidence it behooved the major parties to mend their political fences—or to relocate them.

Education, said the editorial, was a primary issue and had been one for years. There had been experimenting with education ever since the Industrial Revolution uncovered the fact, in about 1900, that backbreaking physical toil was going to be replaced by educated workers operating machinery.

Then the editorial quoted Judge Norman L. Carter:

"'For many years,' said Judge Carter, 'we have deplored the situation whereby a doctor or a physicist is not considered fully educated until he has reached his middle or even late twenties. Yet instead of speeding up the curriculum in the early school years, we have introduced such important studies as social graces, baton twirling, interpretive painting and dancing, and a lot of other fiddle-faddle which graduates students who cannot spell, nor read a book, nor count above ten without taking off their shoes. Perhaps such studies are necessary to make sound citizens and graceful companions. I shall not contest the point. However, I contend that a sound and basic schooling should be included—and when I so contend I am told by our great educators that the day is not long enough nor the years great enough to accomplish this very necessary end.

"'Gentlemen, we leaders of The Education Party propose to accomplish precisely that which they said cannot be done!'"

The editorial closed with the terse suggestion: Educator—Educate thyself!

James Holden sat stunned.

What was Judge Carter doing?

James Holden arrived to find the home of Judge Norman L. Carter an upset madhouse. He was stopped at the front door by a secretary at a small desk whose purpose was to screen the visitors and to log them in and out in addition to being decorative. Above her left breast was a large enamelled button, red on top, white in the middle as a broad stripe from left to right, and blue below. Across the white stripe was printed CARTER in bold, black letters. From in back of the pin depended two broad silk ribbons that cascaded forward over the stuffing in her brassiere and hung free until they disappeared behind the edge of the desk. She eyed James with curiosity. "Young man, if you're looking for throwaways for your civics class, you'll have to wait until we're better organized—"

James eyed her with cold distaste. "I am James Quincy Holden," he told her, "and you have neither the authority nor the agility necessary to prevent my entrance."

"You are—I what?"

"I live here," he told her flatly. "Or didn't they provide you with this tidbit of vital statistic?"

Wheels rotated behind the girl's eyes somewhere, and memory cells linked into comprehension. "Oh!—You're James."

"I said that first," he replied. "Where's Judge Carter?"

"He's in conference and cannot be disturbed."

"Your objection is overruled. I shall disturb him as soon as I find out precisely what has been going on."

He went on in through the short hallway and found audible confusion. Men in groups of two to four stood in corners talking in bedlam. There was a layer of blue smoke above their heads that broke into skirls as various individuals left one group to join another. Through this vocal mob scene James went veering from left to right to avoid the groupings. He stood with polite insolence directly in front of two men sitting on the stairs until they made room for his passage—still talking as he went between them. In his room, three were sitting on the bed and the chair holding glasses and, of course, smoking like the rest. James dropped his overnight bag on a low stand and headed for his bathroom. One of the men caught sight of him and said, "Hey kid, scram!"

James looked at the man coldly. "You happen to be using my bedroom. You should be asking my permission to do so, or perhaps apologizing for not having asked me before you moved in. I have no intention of leaving."

"Get the likes of him!"

"Wait a moment, Pete. This is the Holden kid."

"The little genius, huh?"

James said, "I am no genius. I do happen to have an education that provides me with the right to criticize your social behavior. I will neither be insulted nor patronized."

"Listen to him, will you!"

James turned and with the supreme gesture of contempt, he left the door open.

He wound his way through the place to Judge Carter's study and home office, strode towards it with purpose and reached for the doorknob. A voice halted him: "Hey kid, you can't go in there!"

Turning to face the new voice, James said calmly,

"You mean 'may not' which implies that I have asked your permission. Your statement is incorrect as phrased and erroneous when corrected."

He turned the knob and entered. Judge Carter sat at his desk with two men; their discussion ceased with the sound of the doorknob. The judge looked up in annoyance. "Hello, James. You shouldn't have come in here. We're busy. I'll let you know when I'm free."

"You'd better make time for me right now," said James angrily. "I'd like to know what's going on here."

"This much I'll tell you quickly. We're planning a political campaign. Now, please—"

"I know you're planning a political campaign," replied James. "But if you're proposing to campaign on the platform of a reform in education, I suggest that you educate your henchmen in the rudimentary elements of polite speech and gentle behavior. I dislike being ordered out of my room by usurpers who have the temerity to address me as 'hey kid'."

"Relax, James. I'll send them out later."

"I'd suggest that you tell them off," snapped James. He turned on his heel and left, heading for the cellar. In the workshop he found Professor White and Jack Cowling presiding over the machine. In the chair with the headset on sat the crowning insult of all:

Paul Brennan leafing through a heavy sheaf of papers, reading and intoning the words of political oratory.

Unable to lick them, Brennan had joined them—or, wondered young Holden, was Judge Norman L. Carter paying for Brennan's silence with some plum of political patronage?

As he stood there, the years of persecution rose strong in the mind of James Holden. Brennan, the man who'd got away with murder and would continue to get away with it because there was no shred of evidence, no witness, nothing but James Holden's knowledge of Brennan's actions when he'd thought himself unseen in his calloused treatment of James Holden's dying mother; Brennan's critical inspection of the smashed body of his father, coldly checking the dead flesh to be sure beyond doubt; the cruel search about the scene of the 'accident' for James himself—interrupted only by the arrival of a Samaritan, whose name was never known to James Holden. In James rose the violent resentment of the years, the certain knowledge that any act of revenge upon Paul Brennan would be viewed as cold-blooded premeditated murder without cause or motive.

And then came the angry knowledge that simple slaughter was too good for Paul Brennan. He was not a dog to be quickly released from misery by a merciful death. Paul Brennan should suffer until he cried for death as a blessed release from daily living.

James Holden, angry, silently, unseen by the preoccupied workers, stole across the room to the main switch-panel, flipped up a small half-concealed cover, and flipped a small button.

There came a sharp Crack! that shattered the silence and re-echoed again and again through the room. The panel that held the repeater-circuit of the Holden Educator bulged outward; jets of smoke lanced out of broken metal, bulged corners, holes and skirled into little clouds that drifted upward—trailing a flowing billow of thick, black, pungent smoke that reached the low ceiling and spread outward, fanwise, obscuring the ceiling like a low-lying nimbus.

At the sound of the report, the man in the chair jumped as if he'd been stabbed where he sat.

"Ouyeowwww!" yowled Brennan in a pitiful ululation. He fell forward from the chair, asprawl on wobbly hands and knees, on elbows and knees as he tried to press away the torrent of agony that hammered back and forth from temple to temple. James watched Brennan with cold detachment, Professor White and Jack Cowling looked on in paralyzed horror. Slowly, oh, so slowly, Paul Brennan managed to squirm around until he was sitting on the floor still cradling his head between his hands.

James said, "I'm afraid that you're going to have a rough time whenever you hear the word 'entrenched'." And then, as Brennan made no response, James Holden went on, "Or were you by chance reading the word 'pedagogue'?"

At the word, Brennan howled again; the pain was too much for him and he toppled sidewise to writhe in kicking agony.

James smiled coldly, "I'm sorry that you weren't reading the word 'the'. The English language uses more of them than the word 'pedagogue'."

With remarkable effort, Brennan struggled to his feet; he lurched toward James. "I'll teach you, you little—"

"Pedagogue?" asked James.

The shock rocked Brennan right to the floor again.

"Better sit there and think," said James coldly. "You come within a dozen yards of me and I'll say—"

"No! Don't!" screamed Paul Brennan. "Not again!"

"Now," asked James, "what's going on here?"

"He was memorizing a political speech," said Jack Cowling. "What did you do?"

"I merely fixed my machine so that it will not be used again."

"But you shouldn't have done that!"

"You shouldn't have been using it for this purpose," replied James. "It wasn't intended to further political ambitions."

"But Judge Carter—"

"Judge Carter doesn't own it," said James. "I do."

"I'm sure that Judge Carter can explain everything."

"Tell him so. Then add that if he'd bothered to give me the time of day, I'd be less angry. He's not to be interrupted, is he? I'm ordered out of my room, am I? Well, go tell the judge that his political campaign has been stopped by a fourteen-year-old boy who knows which button to push! I'll wait here."

Professor White took off; Jack Cowling smiled crookedly and shook his head at James. "You're a rash young man," he said. "What did you do to Brennan, here?"

James pointed at the smoke curling up out of the panel. "I put in a destructive charge to addle the circuit as a preventive measure against capture or use by unauthorized persons," he replied. "So I pushed the button just as Brennan was trying to memorize the word—"

"Don't!" cried Brennan in a pleading scream.

"You mean he's going to