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Teacher and Psychiatrist
Chapter 14


The schoolteacher was a young woman, beautiful, dark-haired, dark-eyed, with intelligence in her expressive eyes and both decision and humor in her pronounced mouth. The way Andy smiled at her showed that their relationship was somewhat more than mere friendship.
“Howdy, Helen. Thank you for coming out here.”
“I’m glad to, Andy. Nothing is wrong, is there?”
“No. I just wanted you to meet my new friend Sydney. He has a favor to ask of you.”
Helen put out her hand with a ready smile, and Sydney took it.
“I’m pleased to meet you.”
“As am I, Mr. Sydney.”
“Please—just Sydney.”
“Sydney, then. You’re new to town?”
“Just passing through. One of my companions decided to take a detour into your town’s very pleasant jail.”
Helen looked puzzled. “Oh!”
“Sydney here’s a friend of Jarod’s, Helen,” Andy put in.
“Are you really? How sad that you just missed him!”
“Sad…quite. That seems to be the way of it with us. Jarod’s work takes him to so many different places we never quite knew where he’s going to be. I can’t say how many times we’ve just missed him.”
“What a shame! But what can I do for you?”
“I understand you receive the New York Times, and I was wondering if I could look through your back issues.”
“Oh, of course. Would you like to come to my house?”
“I would be honored, Miss Crump.”
“Helen.” She hooked her hand through his arm. “Do you mind walking? It’s not far.”
“Not at all.”
“Thanks, Helen,” Andy said. “I’d better get back to my prisoner.”
“Goodbye, Andy.” As they left the hotel, Helen asked, “Why is Andy guarding a prisoner in the hotel?”
“My companion is a young woman who foolishly allowed herself to be arrested. Andy’s kind Aunt Bee suggested she might enjoy a proper room to freshen up in.”
“Oh, I see. Aunt Bee is the sweetest woman. I wonder why she didn’t just take her home, then.”
“Take a prisoner home?”
“Oh, sure. The Taylors do all the time.”
Sydney’s brow wrinkled. “Well, I did notice that Andy has been keeping his son away since Miss Parker has been in his jail.”
“Really? Opie usually has the run of the jail. That’s very odd.”
“Perhaps not so odd. If you saw Miss Parker, you would understand why a father would want to keep a little boy away from her.” He said it neutrally, but he felt Helen give him a sharp glance and wondered if she could guess at his sadness about Miss Parker.
“So, how do you know Jarod, Sydney?”
“I met him when he was a very little boy. I was his…teacher.”
A smile flashed across Helen’s face. “How wonderful! You’re a teacher, too.”
“Actually, I’m a psychiatrist. Jarod’s gifts were my special area of study. I helped him develop them.”
“Oh, Sydney, what a wonderful job! To have the sole training of a single little genius! It’s a teacher’s dream.”
“It should have been,” he said absently. “Yes, it should have been.”
Helen’s hand tightened just a little on his arm. “But it wasn’t?”
“In retrospect, no, though at the time I would have said yes. We pushed him too hard. We thought his genius meant he didn’t need to be a normal little boy. Now he blames me—and rightly—for his lost childhood. Our techniques were…all wrong.”
“That must be very difficult,” Helen said with another sympathetic pressure on his arm. “To be so sure you are doing what is best for a child, and then to find out you were wrong. I started out that way, with Opie.”
“Even that would be easier than to realize you really didn’t care about what was best for the child, until it was too late.” Why was he saying all this? He didn’t even know this woman. He had never spoken these things to anyone, had scarcely even let himself think them. But in some way she could understand. She, too, was responsible for the intellectual development of a little boy.
“But you must have done something right, Sydney. Jarod is one of the kindest, most compassionate and helpful men I have ever met. A child doesn’t develop a character like that in a vacuum.”
“Jarod is naturally compassionate. It is in his nature to be. I am not responsible for that.”
Helen shook her head. “I think you’re wrong. Of course, I am not a psychiatrist, and I don’t know either of you very well, but I know that adult influences have a huge role in the development of a child’s natural tendencies. The sweetest child can be taught to be cruel.”
Faces flashed into Sydney’s mind. Kyle. Lyle. Parker. And in comparison, Jarod. Jarod had a strength none of them had—but even his strength could have been broken. But it wasn’t.
“How did he look, when he was here?” he asked.
“Very well. Very healthy—very handsome,” Helen smiled. “He had the eye of most of the girls in town. The men might have hated him for that, but they didn’t. You couldn’t help but like him. And he loved Mayberry. He thought everyone and everything in it was wonderful.”
“He would.” Sydney smiled back. “I wish I could have seen him here and enjoyed your town with him.” He realized with sudden bleakness, I have never, ever had a normal interaction with Jarod. We have never walked down a street together, sat down together over a meal, had a conversation which did not involve some dysfunction. But then, neither of them had lives conducive to any kind of normality with anyone. This beautiful, peaceful town and its conventional lives were alien to them both.
“This is my house,” Helen said and led him inside.









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