OF A CERTAIN PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY. 57 



the mother had taken the youngest child and had gone on one of her 

 frequent rounds of visiting. Upon looking in at the cottage, she found 

 the father away, too, and two children penned in a bedstead, whose 

 rags reeked with the excretions from their bodies, while in the small, 

 dark bedroom adjoining a third child was sleeping in its day clothes. 

 Besides the scant furniture, the place was cluttered with posters, 

 quarry implements, and musical instruments. The malodorous air 

 was swarming with flies, and the remains of a meal, which apparently 

 had done duty for several days, still stood on the table. This couple 

 are reported very quarrelsome in the home and with their neighbors, 

 and it is impossible to foretell how they will take an intended kindness. 

 They are also very untruthful. After a quarrel one or the other will 

 leave, threatening not to return, but so far they have always drifted 

 together again. Their children : 



VI-18, born 1906. Reported a lively, mischievous boy, saucy and 

 untruthful, with a droll manner of talking; is not thought mentally 

 deficient or backward. Staying at present with his grandmother. 



VI-19, born 1908. A queer-looking child with a broad face, squarish 

 head, very small mouth and eyes, can neither walk or talk, though he 

 is able with painful efforts to move about a little by holding on to the 

 furniture. Neighbors say he has been kept much of his life in a dry- 

 goods box with only an opening at the top large enough to let him in. 



VI-20, born 1910. A small, fair-haired slip of a child, delicate regu- 

 lar features, can walk rather unsteadily, and talk a little. Is very 

 quiet and listless. 



VI-21, born 1911. Plump, well-nourished, fair-haired little girl. 

 Sits up, but stays exactly where you put her, and never utters a sound. 



VI-22, born 1912. Some of the neighbors attribute the docility of 

 these children to the administration of drugs on the part of the parents. 

 This has not been verified. 



The youngest children of III-l were IV-14, 15. The first, bom 

 about 1873, is said to have died as a little girl of typhoid fever; the 

 second, born 1876, died in childhood of diphtheria, is stated to have 

 been neglected after his mother's elopement. 



Continuing with the children of Matthew and Molly Rode, we next 

 take up III-4, born about 1835. Pronounced feeble-minded by all 

 who knew her. Married a man who was also feeble-minded and who 

 died in the Civil War. She spent much time at the county home, but 

 finally died at the home of IV-1, Line A. Her son (IV-16), born about 

 1863, has been in and out of the home for 20 years ; a toothless, gaunt old 

 man with a bad cough ; can neither read nor write nor give an account 

 of his past. Does only roughest kind of work about county farm. 



The second daughter of Matthew and Molly Rode was III-9, born 

 about 1838. Had a fair memory but little ability to calculate. Mar- 



