When Timothy had left, Welles congratulated himself. But for the next month he got no more. Tim would not reveal a single significant fact. He talked about ball-playing, he described his grandmother’s astonished delight over the beautiful kitten, he told of its growth and the tricks it played. He gravely related such enthralling facts as that he liked to ride on trains, that his favorite wild animal was the lion, and that he greatly desired to see snow falling. But not a word of what Welles wanted to hear. The psychiatrist, knowing that he was again being tested, waited patiently.
Then one afternoon when Welles, fortunately unoccupied with a patient, was smoking a pipe on his front porch, Timothy Paul strode into the yard.
“Yesterday Miss Page asked me if I was seeing you and I said yes. She said she hoped my grandparents didn’t find it too expensive, because you had told her I was all right and didn’t need to have her worrying about me. And then I said to grandma, was it expensive for you to talk to me, and she said, ‘Oh no, dear; the school pays for that. It was your teacher’s idea that you have a few talks with Dr. Welles.’ ”
“I’m glad you came to me, Tim, and I’m sure you didn’t give me away to either of them. Nobody’s paying me. The school pays for my services if a child is in a bad way and his parents are poor. It’s a new service, since 1956. Many maladjusted children can be helped— much more cheaply to the state than the cost of having them go crazy or become criminals or something. You understand all that. But—sit down, Tim!—I can’t charge the state for you, and I can’t charge your grandparents. You’re adjusted marvelously well in every way, as far as I can see; and when I see the rest, I’ll be even more sure of it.”
“Well—gosh! I wouldn’t have come—” Tim was stammering in confusion. “You ought to be paid. I take up so much of your time. Maybe I’d better not come any more.”
“I think you’d better. Don’t you?”
“Why are you doing it for nothing, Dr. Welles?”
“I think you know why.”
The boy sat down in the glider and pushed himself meditatively back and forth. The glider squeaked.
“You’re interested. You’re curious,” he said.