Medicine: Better Off Dead

"I've just finished Jerry," whispered Louis Greenfield hoarsely to the doorman of his Bronx apartment house one morning last week. "I gave my little boy chloroform. . . . He's better off dead."

When the police led him away, Greenfield, a tired little milliner, told them the whole story. For 17 grey, hopeless years he had washed, dressed and fed his imbecile son. He bought him blocks and tin soldiers, read sense into his harsh animal cries. On Sundays he would lead the shuffling child, who was almost a head taller than he, past neighbors' eyes into the park. Both Louis...

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