John F. appealed to an agency for assistance. He told a story of having wandered with his brother since he was a young boy. ``My father was insane from what my uncle did to my mother. He drowned her. The house caught on fire and he blamed her for it. She said she didn't. She was too sick to get up and he took her out of the house and his big son pumped water on her. She was pretty near dead anyhow. We was too little to do anything. I seen it. I remember that all right. I can see that yet Brother and sister died about 3 years ago. Brother took sick from sleeping out. We slept around in barns for 2 years. Father was in an insane hospital in Kansas. I think my uncle was hanged at N. Junction. We did not stay there. I remember yet when they went to put my mother in the grave. I jumped in with her. We put right out and after awhile folks wrote that father was dead.'' So much attention would not have been paid to this gruesome tale had it not been repeated to various people during the course of several months. The boy wrote letters reiterating these incidents. His stories always went on to include the most surprising amount of abuse. It seemed that everywhere he had been illtreated. Farmers had whipped him, or clothed him badly, or defrauded him of his wages. Physically, we found John to be in good general condition. A strong active country boy. No serious defect of any kind was discovered. On mental tests he did better than we expected. To be sure he was very backward in arithmetic, but then his story was that he had hardly ever been to school at all. He certainly did well in many of our tests with concrete material, but the results as a whole were curiously irregular, even if we allowed for his deficient schooling. At that time we were disinclined to pass ultimate judgment on his mentality without knowing more about his antecedents. On the ``Aussage'' Test he gave only 11 bare items on free recital. On questioning 19 more details were added. Of the entire number only 3 were incorrect, and these were not serious mistakes. Of 6 suggestions offered he accepted 3.