_The next day his aunt and uncle had talked to his mother and Carl listened at the window. He knew that he wasn't supposed to eavesdrop but he was puzzled, and scared. At first, his mother answered the proposal with a flat "no", but his uncle's persuasions won out in the end. Tearfully, she finally agreed that a year or two in the school might be of some help in correcting his too obvious imagination. The news spread rapidly and the tongue-waggers worked overtime._ _"Did you hear about the Sloan boy?" one would ask._ _"Oh, yes," another would answer. "Crazy as a loon, quite."_ _"I always knew that there was something wrong with that boy, him never getting sick and all that. His head always was too big for the rest of him. I knew all along that he was crazy, all right."_ _"They're going to ship him off to school, I understand. Well, good riddance I say. Wouldn't want my Henry associating with a goofy kid."_ _He didn't like to recall the school. It was dim and foreboding and the beds always seemed to be cold and dank. He learned quickly that none of the institutional authorities were interested in his Gift and after the first several rebuffs and their consequential punishments, he never again talked about it to anyone. He was, by force, a recluse; but he learned the lessons that they thought that he should learn, and, if they were much more simple than his intellect warranted, he didn't blame the teachers._ As if he could feel the stares of the curious people, Carl raised his head. The prosecutor was still examining the superintendent. "Then he was released as fit to be assimilated by society when he was eighteen?" The witness leaned forward in the box. "Yes," she said intently. "The exact disposition of his case history was 'Simple minded, but perfectly harmless'." * * * * * _Simple minded? Yes, if shyness and averseness to people constitute simple mindedness. He did odd jobs for the townspeople and they tolerated him. Gardening, fetching and carrying, sweeping out the library. He read. Avidly he read everything that he could find. He learned about Mendel and his peas, and he knew what he was. An ugly word, a Mutant. It made him different and gave him a Gift that no one believed that he had, or wanted him to exercise._ _That crazy Sloan, or that half wit Sloan, the townspeople called him, but he didn't care. He had never had any friends or companions and therefore felt no need for any. The small animals were his friends, and the children. He was never too busy to make a kite, or mend a toy or a skinned knee. He never mentioned his Gift but silently, unnoticed, as he went his shy way around the town, performed the small services that he was able to, unknown to the recipients. Some little aid, some little kindness every day. He was happy._