The Fourth "R"
George O. Smith
 At the beginning of the story, Jimmy's mother and father are murdered by their best friend, who is also the youngster's godfather and appointed guardian as well as the inventors' trustee. It leaves the protagonist—who has had the plans of his parents' invention eidetically and indelibly imprinted in his mind—to destroy the physical copies of these plans before his "uncle" can finish him off as well. Jimmy must survive his guardian's efforts to squeeze the secret of the invention out of him (whereupon his death will most certainly be arranged, just as his parents' were), and then escape into hiding until he can grow into a physical stature commensurate with his mental age. In the process, the character must make for himself a living and a safe place of residence, and Smith uses his protagonist's situation and capabilities to examine the nature of childhood and the "protections" (including incapacitations) imposed upon legal infants in American civil society at the time of writing.