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Through favourable winds Black pawn-a7 mates unassisted at the end:
1 b4        N-h6
2 b5        N-g4
3 b6        a7xb6
4 c4        h6    (waiting)
5 c5        b6xc5
6 d4        c5xd4
7 B c1-e3   d4xe3
8 N b1-d2   e3xf2#   So eight moves suffice Pawn-a7 unaided. The
supra-genre from which ordinary Helpmates derive begins with the array
RNBQKBNR, as above for the Pawn-type. No longer ''Fairies,'' Helpmates
are officially now sanctioned to be as Orthodox as Direct Mates.  
Yet they did not start Helpmates 100-150 years ago logically out of the starting array. Except Fool's Mate, these are being enumerated only now. There was preoccupation with the new world championship cycles, Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, coincident with the sporadic Heterodox revolt. Connect the dots.  Two opposing streams: Orthodoxy further dictated by the 1920s, and Heterodoxy, beaten back practically unnoticed, they hoped eradicated. Still ask an expert fide-style, what, on the board-array he/she uses over and over and over, what is the minimum possible check-mate achievable by Black King-pawn-e7 unaided? Blank look.  6.  Not a trick question. Six.  funky donkey/clunky honky/spunky monkey. e5, e4, e3, N-h6, -g4, e3xf2#.  The six moves for e-pawn Helpmated, duals okay, would go by Black as just before.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Fifth_Book/Chapter_XXV