Mr. JENNER. Tell me this: In the time that you knew Lee, did he pretty much get his own way? Would you be able to say as to that?
Mrs. EVANS. Well, I would say he did; definitely. She would try to give him everything he wanted--that she could, I mean, and do everything he wanted her to do. I've seen that happen many times in the time that I knew them and especially while they lived at my house. I mean, she couldn't give him a lot of material things. She just didn't have much, you know, but she would try to pacify him. That boy was so inclined to be within himself, that it was hard to figure him out. I guess no one will be able to tell what was really in his mind. They called him a "loner", and I guess that's about the best description you can give him. He was certainly a quiet type boy.
Mr. JENNER. What did you observe with respect to his relations with other children? Just how did he regard them?
Mrs. EVANS. Well, to be truthful with you, I never really saw him with anyone except his mother practically.
Mr. JENNER. Do you recall when you had a discussion with Marguerite with respect to her leaving Lee with a couple?
Mrs. EVANS. Oh, yes. Marguerite told me that she had this couple at her home looking after Lee. Lee wasn't 3 at that time, you see, and so he wasn't old enough to put in a nursery, but then the neighbors began telling her that they were cruel to her child when she wasn't home, and that the child was doing a lot of crying, and so she came home from work early one day, and she said her baby was screaming, and he had welts on his legs, and that this man had beat her baby, and so she put them out that night. Now, who they were or what their names where, I don't know, but she said that no one would take Lee, and she just didn't know what to do with him while she was working, so that's why she got this couple in the first place.
Mr. JENNER. Why wouldn't anybody take Lee?
Mrs. EVANS. Well, I mean, she couldn't put him in a home.
Mrs. EVANS. Because he was too young, that's right. The older boys could be put in a home--in fact, of course, they were, but Lee was not yet 3 years old, and they have to be 3 before a home will take them.
She didn't want to go to the welfare, because once the welfare goes into a case and gets hold of a child, you have nothing but red tape and everything, and sometimes you have a hard job getting your child back, so she didn't want to fool with them, and yet she couldn't put him in the home, so she said there was nothing else for her to do but to try to get somebody to take care of him, which she did, and she was sorry she ever did that.