 How did the children come to be at the Farm?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957. MOTHER GOOSE Dr. David Lessing found Jack Dorffman and the boy waiting in his office when he arrived at the Hoffman Center that morning. "He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's leaving the Farm. Two letters were waiting on Lessing's desk that morning. The first was from Roberts Bros., announcing another shift of deadline on the book, and demanding the galley proofs two weeks earlier than scheduled. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck up daytime hours. And now, as the book approached publication date, Lessing wondered if he would ever really get back to work again. "A Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development." When they were finally forced to recognize that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds, with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. They were trying to study phenomena which made no sense, observing things that defied logic. And the more they struggled, the thicker and more impenetrable the bramble bush became— But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a theory to work by— At his elbow the intercom buzzed. "Within the stronghold of psionic research at last.
 Some children are sent to the Farm by their parents for boarding school. Others are orphans and runaways.
 Dr. Lessing bought them from their parents.  Some children are sent to the Farm by their parents for boarding school. Others are orphans and runaways.  The children come from migrant and refugee camps.  Dr. Lessing bought them from human traffickers.