link, lever and coil, section by section and piece by piece. It was
incomprehensible information, about in the same way that the printing
press "knows" the context of its metal plate. Step by step he could
rebuild it once he had the means of procuring the parts, and it would
work even though he had not the foggiest notion (now) of what the various
parts did.

So if the delicate heart of his father's machine were utterly destroyed,
Paul Brennan would be extremely careful about preserving the life of
James Quincy Holden.

He considered his position and what he knew:

Physically, he was a five-year-old. He stood forty-one inches tall and
weighed thirty-nine pounds. A machinist's hammer was a two-handed tool
and a five-pound sack of sugar was a burden. Doorknobs and latches were a
problem in manipulation. The negotiation of a swinging door was a feat of
muscular engineering. Electric light switches were placed at a tiptoe
reach because, naturally, everything in the adult world is designed by
the adults for the convenience of adults. This makes it difficult for the
child who has no adult to do his bidding.

Intellectually, Jimmy Holden was something else.

Reverting to a curriculum considered sound prior to Mr. Dewey's
often-questionable and more often misused programs of schooling, Jimmy's
parents had trained and educated their young man quite well in the
primary informations of fact. He read with facility and spoke with a fine
vocabulary--although no amount of intellectual training could make his
voice change until his glands did. His knowledge of history, geography