“Yes you have done something else,” was the rejoinder. “You scraped away several inches of filth off this floor, and whitewashed and scrubbed it, it is all wet yet.”
“Oh well,” said she, “the poor old woman down there was not able to keep him clean at all. She is eighty years old and the most devoted loving mother possible, feeding him with her own hands and providing for him every delicacy, like strawberries and such things as that.”
“Well, now what was the reason you had John confined here?”
“John studied too hard when he tried to get into the High School and turned his brain. When he was first wrong his brother Joseph, who is the kindest hearted man alive, had him taken to a public institution; but his mother got uneasy about him and he was brought home again; and Dr. Goddard was called in to attend him. The doctor said he needed nothing but kindness and skillful nursing, which they gave him with an affection beautiful to behold.”
In reply to an inquiry of how long the poor fellow had been locked up in this room, she said:
“He wasn’t locked up here at all. He had the range of the whole house.”
“How long has he been out of his mind?” asked a gentleman.
“Somewhere about eighteen years.”
“Are you a relation of his?”
“Oh, no, I am only a neighbor, and came in to stay with his poor old mother, who is nearly scared to death.”