The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1922-12-21

DTOhen arc. Here, with Str6nES books on occult science, with other books of her own choosing, the wife lived secretly, unknown of any other human being, the long vigil of waiting for some sign or word from the spirit of one who by every token of religion and faith she could not believe dead only to her wistfu1 earthly gaze, hidden. She also hid in her heart one strangely persistent hope namely, Gargoyle! Letters from Doctor Milton had been full of significance. The last letter tr1- umphantly concluded:
 Your young John Sdznx Berber, alias Gargoyle, can talk now, with only one drawback: aS yet he doesn't know any Worvdss" THE rapidly aging mother st
 the gardeners cottage took
 worldly pride in what was happening to her youngest
 T a1Ius knowed he was smart.~ the woman insisted. My Johnuvs To think of him speaking his mind out like any one else. I aI1us took hls part could ha' told 'en he had his own notions!"
 There was no doubt as Eo Gar goyIe,s having the '+notions'. AS the slow process of speech was taught and the miracle of fitting words to things was given uuto John Berber, alias GargoyIe. it was hard for those watching over hlm to keep the riotous percen- tlons from retarding the growing mechanlstics. Close-mouthed the boy was, and, they said, always would be; but watchfuI eyes and Keen munitions penetrated to the silent orgiess going on within him. So plainly did the fever of his education begin to wear on hts physical frame that wary Doctor Mach shook his head. Here I find too many streams of thought cours1ng through one field" said the careful Swiss ''The field thus grows stony and bears nothing. Give this field only one stream that shall be nourfshfng"
 For other supernorma1 develop ments that lone stream" might have been music or sports. For Gargoyle it happened to be flow CTS The botanist with whom he was sent af1eld not only knew his science, but guessed at more than his science. His were the beauti- tudes of the blue sky; water. rocks, and trees his only living testament Under his tutelage. with the eyes of Doctor Mach ever on his growing body. and with his own special gifts of concentration and perception, at last came to Gargoyle the d d en whisper of academic sanction-namely, genius.
 He himself seemed never to hear this whisper. What things-super- imposed on the new teemtng world of material actua71tfes-he did hear, he never told. Few could reach Berber; among fellow-stu- dents he was gay, amiabIe, up to certain point even frivolous; then, as each companion in turn complained, curtain seemed to drop, coIorless wrap of uninteIli- gibf1fty enveloped him like a cha meleon's changing skin; the youth, as if he lived another life on an- other plane, walked apart
 Doctor Milton, dropping into the smoking-room of a popular con frere, got a whif of the prevailing gossip aDOut n1S prOtege.
 ''I11 be hanged if I can associate psychics with biceps like Der gers; somehow those things seem the special prerogative of anemic women in white cheese-cloth fool ing with 'planchette' and eur rents.'
 You've got another guess,s a growing neurologist volunteered. 'fWhy shouldn't psychic freaks have biceps? We keep forgetting that we've dragged our fifty-year- old carcasses into an entirely new age-a wireless, horseless, man. flying, star-chasing age. Whgb after shock upon shock of scien- tific discovery, shouldn't the human brain, like sensitive plate, be thinned down to keener, more sensitive, perceptions?
 Some one remarked that in the case of Berber, born of a simple country woman and her un- educated husband, this was impos- sible.
 Another man laughed. ''Berber may. be Martian, or perhaps he was originally destined to be the first man on Jupiter. He took the
  Why not? How do we know what agency carried pollen of human life from planet to planet?'
 Milton, smiling at it all, with drew He sat down and wrote a letter to Mrs. Strang.
 'I have asked John Berber if he would care to revisit his old home. It seemed never to have occurred to him that he had homei When suggested the thing he followed it up eagerly, as he does every new idea, asking me many keen questions as to his relatives, who had paid for his Of the actual facts of ais cure he knows little except hat there was special function ng out of gear, and that now the wheels have been greased. Doctor Mach is desperately proud of him, of the way in which he -esponds to normal diversion-en- and friendships. You must instruct his mother very care .ully as to references to his for ner condition. It is best that he 'hould not dwell upon the former Your young friend, Gar b1 L.