When I had arrived at Turner Hall, Mrs. Urquhart had directed me to the basement and showed me where to put my clothes.  Then up to the dormitory to show me where my bed was.  The dormitory took up all of the second floor, except where the stairs came up and the bathroom that was for the use of the boys during the night.  My bed was located in about the middle of the second row from the east wall.  The Urquharts' apartment was on the first floor, in the northwest corner of the cottage.  I was never in their apartment but it couldn't have been more than one room and a bathroom.
    Returning downstairs, she took me through the day room, down a hallway towards the back door of the cottage.  Halfway down the hallway we turned right, into the washroom.  Here were commodes for the boys' use and sinks for us to clean up in.  Here she told me to clean up for lunch and when I was done to join the other boys in the day room.
    I was still eleven years old when I was transferred to Turner Hall, it was still three or four weeks until my twelfth birthday.  Looking back on that time, I believe I was transferred before I was twelve because they felt I was the ringleader in White Hall. (I surely don't understand why they would think that)  All of the other boys in Turner Hall were well past their twelfth birthday, a few were thirteen.  By placing me with older boys I think they felt I would no longer be a ringleader or even possibly stop me from running away.  Oh well, we all have our little fantasies.
    That very first day Mrs. Urquhart showed me the paddle Mr. Urquhart had already used on me.  That is when I noticed the engravings on the paddle.  I don't know if she noticed but a shudder or two had passed through my body as I stood there looking at it hanging on the wall.  I was remembering when it had been used on me the first time, not much more than a month before.  She had joked and even laughed about it, telling how it controlled all of the boys.  Telling me how one time Mr. Urquhart had used the paddle on one boy and straightened him out real fast.  Then taking time she explained all of the rules to me.  "Break any one of them and Mr. Urquhart will straighten you out."  There wasn't any doubt in my mind that Mr. Urquhart would use the board on me if I didn't follow the rules.  I knew it was inevitable that it would happen and I lived in fear of that day.  Just one wrong word, one misunderstood act on my part and I would get the “Board Of Control” used on me.
    Not knowing any of the boys in Turner Hall, I didn't know which boys I should try and avoid or if there were certain boys I should avoid.  I was soon to learn though there was one boy in the cottage I should have stayed clear of.  A boy everyone said was Mrs. Urquharts' "Pet."  I found out the hard way just how much of a "Pet" he was.  Shortly after entering Turner Hall, Carl Pottorff (Mrs. Urquharts' pet.  I always called him "Putoff") and I were on the ball field about three hundred feet south of our cottage.  We had been arguing about something, I don't remember what about, but we were arguing like most kids that age and like most kids when asked, "Ya, who can you prove it by?"  I had replied, "I can prove it by God."  I suppose we had argued a little while longer before he went up to the cottage.  When he left I went on talking with some other boys.  More like listening for they were older than I was and they didn't want to hear much from a "Little Boy."
    After Carl had left, it couldn't have been much more than fifteen minutes and he was back.  He had come over to me and told me Mrs. Urquhart wanted me.
    I had asked him, in a worried voice, "What does she want me for?  I haven't done anything."
    In a sarcastic voice, he told me, "I don't know but you sure are in a lot of trouble."
    Mrs. Urquhart was sitting in the day room when I had gotten there.  She asked me, "Were you swearing outside a little bit ago?"
    I had answered, "No Mam, I wasn't swearing."  As a tinge of fear had ran through me.  I had felt there was some mistake, that it was really some other boy she had heard was swearing for I never swore at any time.
    By now she was standing in front of me.  She was a large muscular woman and towered well above me.  She was angry, "Don't you lie to me. I was told you used God's name in vain."
    It flashed to me then, something I had said to Carl only minutes before when I had been arguing with him.  At first I hadn't been afraid for I thought it was all a mistake and she would soon understand that.  But now I was afraid, as I tried to explain how Carl and I had been arguing, I said, "Mrs. Urquhart, all I said, was I could prove it by God."
    That only made matters worse, she had put the emphasis on the last part of the sentence.  Her hand was so fast I didn't see it coming.  It had been a solid slap along the side of my face, almost knocking me off of my feet.  Yelling at me, "You were swearing, then coming in here and lying to me about it."  She had grabbed me by my hair and pulled me into the washroom and with a bar of soap she had washed my mouth out.  From there on out, I avoided Carl.  I wouldn't stand, walk, nor sit near him.  Even if he talked to me I wouldn't answer him.
    By the first of May, a couple weeks before my twelfth birthday, I had made a couple of trips to the University Hospital in Iowa City.  Whenever they told me I was going, I was always happy to go.  I didn't care what they did to me at the hospital for it was a whole lot better there than it was at the juvenile home.
    At the hospital they always did pretty much the same things they had done to me the times before.  They had wrote to the juvenile home and told them I was completely deaf in my right ear and had mixed deafness in my leaf ear, making it difficult for me to understand what was being said to me.  They had said I should be taught lip reading, but by then I knew some already.  They had recommended I return to the hospital on May 16, three days after my twelfth birthday but I couldn't make that date for I was in Isolation.
    It had been shortly after the first week of May, I had ran away for the first time from Turner Hall.  It had all started one night after all of us boys had taken our baths and had gotten into our pajamas.  All of us boys were lounging around the day room, waiting for the time to go to bed.  About five of us boys were standing behind Mrs. Urquhart watching her playing a card game of "Solitaire."  I had something stuck between my teeth and I had made a sucking sound trying to get it out.  It had hardly been an audible sound but Mrs. Urquhart had heard it.  I was standing behind her and slightly to her left, with a boy partially between us.  When she had heard the noise I had made as I tried to clear my teeth, she had quickly gotten up from the table and shoved the boy aside who was standing between us out of her way, then she had back-handed me across the mouth.  "Don't you ever snicker at me."  She had yelled. Boy was she mad.  She had thought I had snickered at the way she was playing cards, as though she had made a bad play and I had snickered at it.
    "But Mrs. Urquhart. . . ."  I had tried to explain just before she had hit me the second time, this time on the side of my face.  The first time she had hit me, she had hit me so hard it had cut my lip and it was bleeding down the front of my pajamas top.
    "Get into the washroom and clean yourself up before you get blood all over the place."  She disgustedly said.  She showed no remorse in what she had done to me.  She had done right and that was all there was to it.  That is the way it always was when I was punished, they were right and I was wrong.  There was no discussing it, before or afterwards.  They felt I deserved everything that happened to me.
    I went into the washroom, cupping my hands under the cold water faucet I filled my mouth full of water.  After rinsing my mouth out I took a cold, wet washcloth and wiped the blood from my mouth, chin, and the best I could from my pajamas top.  By now the swelling had already started in my lip.
    Returning to the day room holding the wet rag to my mouth, I seen the smirk on Carl's face but all of the other boys seemed to ignore me, which was the usual custom among us boys when another was punished.  Mrs. Urquhart, seeing I had returned to the day room, told all of us boys to put things up and then line up in a single file to go up to the dormitory.  I didn't have anything to put up so I was near the front of the line.  Carl, as usual, was being helpful to Mrs.  Urquhart so when all of us boys were ready to go upstairs he was at the rear of the line where he could be near Mrs. Urquhart.
    When we had all gotten into bed, Mrs. Urquhart as usual gave us her final warning about behaving ourselves and going to sleep.  Then she turned all but the night light out, which was directly over my bed.
    Waiting until I was sure everyone was asleep I went to the nearest window.  My bed was out in the middle of the dormitory so I had to pick a window by another boy's bed.  On the east side of the cottage, the day room on the first floor protruded out past the dormitory and the roof to that part of the day room was slightly left of the window I had selected to make my escape from.  Opening the window, I pushed the screen out then climbed out onto the roof.  Laying down, I slid off of the roof until I was hanging from the eaves of the roof.  From the eaves, it was over a fifteen foot drop to the ground.  I wasn't much more than four feet, ten inches tall, weighing about eighty pounds and I knew that from the bottom of my feet it was a long ways down but no matter what, I had been determined to go.  I let go of the eaves and fell to the ground, collapsing as I hit the ground.  I had hit hard, my knees buckled and hit me in the face, bright lights flashed before my eyes, the taste of bone was in my mouth and pain shot up my back.  I thought, as I laid there in pain, I had broken both of my legs and loosened all of my teeth.  But gradually my head had cleared and the pain had subsided.  I don't know how long I had laid there before things started coming back to me but I know I had laid there for several minutes, even after my head had cleared.
    I was outside now, all I had on was my pajamas.  I knew I couldn't get back into my cottage but I knew where new clothes were kept in the basement of the administration building.  So staying in the shadows, I worked my way towards  the administration building.  The chapel and the double cottage for the oldest boys in the institution were between my destination and me.
    I had reached the south doors of the administration building with no problems.  I was in luck, for I found the heavy double doors were unlocked.  Once inside, I started running as hard as I could for the stairs that led to the basement where the clothes were kept.  The hallway I was in ran all of the way to the north side of the building where there was another set of double doors that were eight to nine feet high and about six feet wide.  Halfway across the building, there was another hallway going west, down the length of the building to Mr. Ladd's office.  As I passed that hallway on my way to the stairs, a night watchman came out of one of the rooms about halfway down the hallway and seen me.  He had yelled at me to stop.
    The north doors were just ahead of me and with a burst of speed that surprised me, I hit those doors with all of my strength.  They went flying back on their hinges with a bang.  Ahead of me, descending to the ground, were about a half dozen or more steps.  I cleared all of them in one leap and was running hard when I hit the ground.  Running west down the driveway I came to the street running in front of the institution, crossing it, I then passed between two houses where there were thorny bushes which tore at my bare arms.  At the ally behind the houses, I turned north and ran to the end of the ally, where I stopped to catch my breath.  I frantically thought, "If I keep running like this, someone is going to see me."
    I decided the safest place for me was in one of the weeping willow trees behind Mr. Ladd's house.  I had passed his house as I ran down the driveway so I didn't have far to go.  From where I was standing in the ally I went back east to the corner of the street I had crossed.  To my right, across the street and south of me about a half block was Mr. Ladd's house.  There wasn't much cover for me as I ran to the north side of his house but I had been able to get into the shadows of his house without anyone seeing me.
    There were a lot of bushes extending from the northeast side of the house to the weeping willow tree I wanted.  So staying in the shadows of the bushes, I worked my way to the tree about fifty feet southeast of the house.  To the south of the tree, about two-hundred feet, was the administration building and the door I had come out of.  As I had neared the tree, I could see the night watchman talking to some other men and pointing down the driveway in the direction I had gone.  I had completely circled back.  Realizing what I had done made me feel good, making me think they would be looking off the grounds of the institution and not in Mr. Ladd's own back yard.
    I had climbed high into the branches of the weeping willow tree and I hadn't been there but a few minutes when the two men on their way to the street in front of the juvenile home had stopped under the tree.  One of them said, "Do you think he could be hiding up in one of these trees?"
    "No." The other man had replied, "He is probably blocks from here by now."   Then they had walked towards the front of the institution, in the direction I had ran.
    They hadn't been gone more than five minutes when the branch I had been sitting on broke.  I had tried to get my arms around the trunk of the tree to stop my fall but the best I could do was to slow my decent.  As I hit each branch below me it also broke, until I came to the bottom branch, which was heavy enough to hold me.  The inside of both of my elbows had been scraped raw.  Sitting there for a while, I listened for sounds of someone who may have heard me fall.  But for once, I was in luck.
    It was now about ten o'clock and it was quiet.  I was still in my pajamas.  I knew the only way I was going to get clothes, was to wait until morning when everyone went to breakfast and get them out of my cottage.  I knew I needed to be near my cottage by morning, so when everyone went to breakfast I wouldn't be seen going into the cottage.
    Across the campus, over a thousand feet away was my cottage.  There were bushes near it where I could hide until morning.  To get there, the best cover for me was for me to circle behind the girls' cottages and the dining hall.
    Sitting in the tree, I was essentially on the girls' side of the institution.  All of the sidewalks were well lighted.  The area between the administration building and me was open.  If I tried to go that way and retrace my steps back to my cottage, I knew I would be quickly caught.  The campus between the girls' and boys' cottages was also open and well lighted.  It was dark behind the girls' cottages so that was the only way open for me to go.
    I dropped from the tree and keeping low, I worked my way over to a building between the first girls' cottage and me.  The building housed apartments for some of the staff and lights were on in some of the apartments so I was cautious as I worked my way around the north side of the building, staying as close to the building as the bushes would permit me.  There was an open space between the staffs' quarters and the first girls' cottage.  Lights along the sidewalk in front of the cottage dimly lit the area.  Directly north of me was the hospital and to the east of it was an open area where the girls played baseball. East, beyond the ball field was White Hall.  This area was also behind and north of the girls' cottages.  Even though it was open, I decided to swing out into the ball field where it was darker.  Keeping bent over as much as I could and still be able to run, I made a wide swing out into the ball field and back up to about the second girls' cottage.  The rest of the way was easy, as I ran behind the girls' cottages and the dining hall.  At the south end of the dining hall and about another hundred feet was the root cellar and the bushes I wanted to hide in until morning.  It was open between the dining hall and the bushes but I had managed to get to the bushes without being seen.  I had crawled under the bushes as far as I could and laid down to wait for morning.  It wasn't long before I had fallen asleep.
    At the first light I was awake.  We always had breakfast between 6:00 and 6:30 in the morning.  I could see the lights on in the cottage and I knew the boys were getting ready for breakfast.  Shortly after 6:00 some of the other boys' and girls' cottages had started going to the dining hall.  At about 6:30 the boys and Mr. Urquhart came out the back door of the our cottage and all of the boys lined up in double file to go to breakfast.  As they marched towards the dining hall, Mrs. Urquhart met them at the front of the cottage.  From there, the Urquharts and Carl walked at the back of the line.  Seeing Carl walking there with the Urquharts made a wave of dislike for him flow through me.  I felt he had a face only a mother could love and I wasn't too sure about that.
    As soon as they were all in the dining hall I crawled out from under the bushes and ran across the small open space for the back door of my cottage.  Not stopping, for I didn't have much time, I ran for the basement and my clothes.  Opening my locker door, I started throwing my clothes across the bench in front of my locker.  Quickly getting out of my pajamas I pulled my T-shirt over my head.  I was pulling my briefs up when Mr. Urquhart walked in.   He must have seen me when I had crawled out from under the bushes and had returned to the cottage, catching me there in the basement.
    The first punch he threw landed on my left temple.  It had come in so fast and hit so hard I didn't realize I had been hit until I started getting up off of the floor.  It was the first time an adult had ever hit me with their fist.  There is no way a twelve year old boy is a match for a grown man.  I couldn't defend myself, I couldn't even get out of his way, being cornered there in the basement.  Thankfully, the rest of his punches he had used his open hands, I think.  But even then, I was still no match for him.  In the process of being beaten up I was slammed against one of the lockers and I felt the handle of the locker tare a two inch gash in my chest.  Within seconds, my T-shirt was covered with blood, not only from the gash in my chest but also from my bloody nose.  I guess the only thing that saved me from a worst beating than what I had gotten, was because of all of the blood.
    I had called them my "briefs" but a better name would have been "shorts" for they were like white boxer shorts.  They were open up the front but didn't have buttons or snaps up the front.  They had two strings that crossed in the front, circled around my waist and came back in front to be tied.  This kind of underwear would fit most of the boys in the institution.  I hated them.  When Mr. Urquhart had grabbed me by the back of my neck and twisted my right arm up behind my back, he never gave me a chance to tie my shorts up.  I had to hang onto one side of them, causing them to drastically droop on one side, practically exposing me, as he marched me across the campus, past the girls' cottages to Isolation, in front of some of the boys and girls who were returning to their cottage from the dining hall.
    No one even bothered to look at my injuries, except what they seen as I took a bath and then when they walked me down the stairs to Isolation.
    They put me in the northeast isolation room this time.  There was a mattress in the room when they took me down there but they had made me take it out and lean it against the hall wall.  So the next two weeks I slept naked on the concrete floor.  This time I knew what they were going to do to me when it was time for me to get out and go back to my cottage.  So I wasn't surprised when Mr. Urquhart walked in with his paddle.  I had hoped he wouldn't come but I knew he would.  When he had told me to grab my ankles I had begged him not to hit me but I did as he had told me.
    In all of the whippings I had ever had, I never fought back nor resisted them.  I always did as they had told me to do.  So when he told me to grab my ankles, I begged and pleaded with him and I may have been a little slow but I did as he told me.  To have resisted in any way would only have made matters worse.
    The whipping had been a lot harder than the first one he had given me.  But then, he had warned me the first one was only a sample of what I would be getting if I ever ran away again.  After the whipping I got dressed and then with my rear-end and the back of my legs burning, Mr. Urquhart walked me back to my cottage.  For the next few days I wasn't allowed outside of my cottage unless I was closely supervised, either by one of the Urquharts or "their boy," namely Carl.
    During the time I was on restrictions part of my punishment was to dry scrub the oak floors in my cottage using a dry scrub brush.
    It had been right after the first time I had ran away from Turner Hall, while I was still on restrictions for running away and I had been dry scrubbing the floor, I started laughing and my laughter got way out of control.  I became hysterical.  I couldn't stop laughing, the more I tried, the more I laughed.
    I was dry scrubbing the floor on the east side of the day room.  I was down on my hands and knees with the brush out in front of me, pushing it from me and pulling it back with my weight on top of it, following the run of the boards.  I was doing all right.  I was kind of tired though, for I had been doing it all day.  I know it was in the afternoon for the sun had been shining through the west window.  Mrs. Urquhart had been standing to my left, towards the middle of the room.  She had told me, pointing to a corner in front of me, "Polish it in the corner."  I crawled up towards the corner she had pointed out to me, thinking of what she had just said to me.  It sort of kept going through my mind, over and over again.  Until finally, the last two letters of the first word joined the first part of the second word.  At first, I sort of choked on the first giggle.  The next one got by a little bit more.  But the more I thought, the worse it got.  I couldn't block it out of my mind no matter how hard I tried.  I knew I was in a lot of trouble but still I couldn't stop thinking of what it sounded like she had said and my laughter got worse.
    Mrs. Urquhart had started walking away when I had started laughing.  She turned back to me and asked, "What are you laughing at?"  In a quick and sharp voice. There was no way I could have told her what I was laughing about.  For one thing, I was laying on the floor now laughing so hard I couldn't have spoken a word.  For another thing if I had told her she would have killed me.
    Mrs. Urquhart was a large woman, she stood well over a foot above me.  She out weighed me by at least a hundred pounds and was fairly strong.  She had reached down and picked me up, completely off of the floor by one of my arms and slammed me against the wall.  "You think I'm so funny?  Well, you stand there with your nose against the wall until you can tell me what is so funny."  When I had hit the wall it had jarred me enough for me to stop laughing but I never did tell her what I had been laughing about.  I stood there the rest of that afternoon, then after supper until bed time.
    This time my restrictions were interrupted by my return to the hospital in Iowa City.  By now, I was getting pretty well known by the staff at the hospital and I felt they liked me.  Helping them as much as I could, I would get water for the patients and help the nurses make beds, which by now I knew how to do very well for I had been making beds like they did in the hospital since I was seven years old.  I was also getting to know my way around the hospital well.  I especially liked evenings and the weekends when most of the staff was gone.  Those days in the hospital were some of the happiest times of my life.  I had no friends of my own age there, but still, those days were the happiest times of my life since I had been committed to an institution.  I was pretty much left alone when there wasn't tests or procedures being performed on me and I enjoyed the fun I had there.  I would spend a lot of time just running up and down the vacant hallways on the floor below mine.  At times I would get on one of the elevators and ride to the roof where it seemed I could see for miles.  It was during this stay, towards the end of May, is when a hearing aid was first brought up to me.  I didn't want any part of that for I thought only old people wore those.

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