usy with the droolers. I like droolers. It makes me think how lucky
I am that I ain't a drooler.

I like it here in the Home. I don't like the outside. I know. I've been
around a bit, and run away, and adopted. Me for the Home, and for the
drooling ward best of all. I don't look like a drooler, do I? You can
tell the difference soon as you look at me. I'm an assistant, expert
assistant. That's going some for a feeb. Feeb? Oh, that's feeble-minded.
I thought you knew. We're all feebs in here.

But I'm a high-grade feeb. Dr. Dalrymple says I'm too smart to be in the
Home, but I never let on. It's a pretty good place. And I don't throw
fits like lots of the feebs. You see that house up there through the
trees. The high-grade epilecs all live in it by themselves. They're
stuck up because they ain't just ordinary feebs. They call it the club
house, and they say they're just as good as anybody outside, only
they're sick. I don't like them much. They laugh at me, when they ain't
busy throwing fits. But I don't care. I never have to be scared about
falling down and busting my head. Sometimes they run around in circles
trying to find a place to sit down quick, only they don't. Low-grade
epilecs are disgusting, and high-grade epilecs put on airs. I'm glad I
ain't an epilec. There ain't anything to them. They just talk big,
that's all.

Miss Kelsey says I talk too much. But I talk sense, and that's more than
the other feebs do. Dr. Dalrymple says I have the gift of language. I
know it. You ought to hear me talk when I'm by myself, or when I've got
a drooler to listen. Sometimes I think I'd like to be a politician, only
it's too much trouble. They're all great talkers; that's how they hold
their jobs.

Nobody's crazy in this institution. They're just feeble in their minds.
Let me tell you something funny. There's about a dozen high-grade girls
that set the tables in the big dining room. Sometimes when they're done
ahead of time, they all sit down in chairs in a circle and talk. I sneak
up to the door and listen, and I nearly die to keep from laughing. Do
you want to know what they talk? It's like this. They don't say a word
for a long time. And then one says, "Thank God I'm not feeble-minded."
And all the rest nod their heads and look pleased. And then nobody says
anything for a time. After which the next girl in the circle says,
"Thank God I'm not feeble-minded," and they nod their heads all over
again. And it goes on around t