Radio Boys Cronies
by
Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
Part 2 out of 3
It took but a short time to repair the break; before many other days had
passed the Pelton wheel, a direct action turbine, was going at a
tremendous rate, driven by a nozzled stream from the pipe. It was
necessary to belt it down from a small to a larger pulley to run the
generator at a slower speed, which was 1200 a minute. Then came the
boxing in, the wiring to the house, and the making of connections with
the wiring to the house after the town company's service was dispensed
with, and it was a proud moment when Gus turned on the first bulb and
got a full and brilliant glare.
Mr. Hooper clasped the hands of both boys, compelled them to spend the
evening, ordered special refreshments for the occasion, told Grace to
invite a lot of the young folks and when, at dusk all the lights of the
house went on with an illumination that fairly startled the guests, the
host proposed a cheer for the boys which found an eager and unanimous
response. Mr. Hooper attempted to make a speech, with his matronly and
contented wife laughing and making sly digs at his effort, and his
daughter encouraging him.
"Now, young fellers," he began, "these boys--uh, Mister Bill Brown an'
Mister 'Gustus Grier,--I says to them,--in the first place, I says:
'Perfesser, these here kids don't know enough to build a chicken coop,'
I says, an' Perfesser Gray he says to me, he says, he would back them
fellers to build a battleship or tunnel through to Chiny, he says. So I
says: 'You kids kin go ahead,' I says, an' these blame boys they went
ahead an' shucks! you all see what they, Bill an' Gus, has done. You
fellers has got to have a lot o' credit an' you are goin' to git it!
"Now, my wife she don't think I'm any good at makin' a speech an 'I
ain't, but I'm a-makin' it jes' the same fer these boys, Bill an' Gus,
b'jinks! They got to git credit fer what they done, jes' two kids doin'
a reg'lar man's job. An' I reckon that not even that feller Eddy's son,
that there chap they call the 'Wizard of Menlo Park,' I reckon he
couldn't 'lectrocute nothin' no better'n these here boys, Bill an' Gus,
has lighted this here domycile. An'--oh, you kin laugh, Ma Hooper,
b'jinks, but I reckon you're as proud o' these here young Eddy's son's
sons as I be. Now, Mister Bill an' Mister Gus, you kin bet all these
folks'd like to have a few words. Now, as they say in prayer meetin',
'Mister Bill Brown'll lead us in a speech.' Hooray!"
Bill seized his crutch, got it carefully under his arm and arose. He was
not just a rattle-box, a mere word slinger, for he always had something
to say worth listening to; talking to a crowd was no great task for him
and he had a genius for verbal expression.
"I hope my partner in mechanical effort and now in misery will let me
speak for him, too, for he couldn't get up here and say a word if you'd
promise him the moon for a watch charm. Our host, Mr. Hooper, would have
given us enough credit if he had just stated that we were two
persevering ginks, bent on making the best of a good chance and using,
perhaps with some judgment, the directions of our superior, Professor
Gray, along with some of our own ideas that fitted, in. But to compare
us and our small job here, which was pretty well all mapped out for us,
to the wonderful endeavors of Thomas Alva Edison is more than even our
combined conceit can stand for. If we deserved such praise, even in the
smallest way, you'd see us with our chests swelled out so far that we'd
look like a couple of garden toads.
"Edison! Mr. Hooper, did you, even in your intended kindness in
flattering Gus and myself, really stop to think what it could mean to
compare us with that wonderful man? I know you could not mean to
belittle him, but you certainly gave us an honor far beyond what any
other man in the world, regarding electrical and mechanical things,
could deserve. If we could hope to do a hundredth part of the great
things Edison has done, it would, as Professor Gray says, indeed make
life worth living.
"But we thank you, Mr. Hooper, for your kind words and for inviting all
these good friends and our classmates, and we thank you and good Mrs.
Hooper for this bully spread and everything!"
Bill started to sit down amidst a hearty hand-clapping, but Cora Siebold
waved her hand for silence and demanded:
"Tell us more about Edison, Billy, as you did after the talk over the
radio! You see, we missed the last of it and I'll bet we'd all like to
hear more--"
"Yes!" "Yes!" "Sure!" "Me, too!" "Go on, Billy!" came from Dot Myers,
Skeets, Grace Hooper, Ted Bissell and Gus. In her enthusiastic efforts
at showing an abundant appreciation, the fat girl wriggled too far out
on the edge of her chair, which tilted and slid out from under her,
causing sufficient hilarious diversion for Bill to take a sneak out of
the room. When Cora and Grace captured and brought him back, the keen
edge of the idea had worn off enough for him to dodge the issue.
"I'll tell you what we're going to do," he said, and it will be better
than anything we can think of just between us here. You all read, didn't
you, that the lectures were to be repeated by request in two months
after the last talk? We didn't hear it because Professor went away, and
now three weeks of the time have gone by. But I'll tell you what Gus and
I are going to do: we're going to build a radio receiver and get it done
in time to get those talks on Edison all over again."
"Really?"
"Do you think you can do it?"
"If Billy says he can, why, the--"
"Oh, you Edison's son!" This from the irrepressible Ted.
"Go to it, Bill!"
"Can we all listen in?"
"Why, of course," said Bill, replying to the last question.
"Everybody'll be invited and there will be a horn. But don't forget
this: We've only got a little over four weeks to do it and it's some
job! So, if you're disappointed--"
"We won't be."
"No; Bill'll get there."
"Hurrah for old Bill!"
"Say, people, enough of this. I'm no candidate for President of the
United States, and remember that Gus is in this, too, as much as I am."
"Hurrah for Gus!" This was a general shout.
Gus turned and ran.
CHAPTER XVI
THE DOUBTERS
The party was on the point of breaking up, with much laughter over the
embarrassment of poor Gus, when Skeets unexpectedly furnished further
entertainment. She had paused to lean comfortably against a center
table, but its easy rolling casters objected to her weight, rolled away
hastily and deposited her without warning on the floor. Ted, who
gallantly helped her to her feet, remarked, with a grunt due to extreme
effort, that she really might as well stand up or enlist the entire four
legs of a chair to support her.
Bill, about to take leave of the host and hostess, felt a slight jerk at
his sleeve and looking round was surprised to find Thad at his elbow.
The youth said in a low voice:
"Want to see you out yonder among the trees. Give the rest the slip. Got
a pipe of an idea."
Bill nodded, wondering much. A moment later Mr. Hooper was repeating
that he was proud of the work done by the boys and glad that he had
trusted them. Then he added:
"But say, young feller, much as I believe in you and Gus, seein' your
smartness, I got to doubt all that there bunk you give them young people
'bout that there what you call radier. I been borned a long time--goin'
on to seventy year now,--an' I seen all sorts of contraptions like
reapers an' binders, ridin' plows, typewritin'-machines, telephones,
phonygraphs, flyin'-machines, submarines an' all such, but b'jinks, I
ain't a-believin' that nobody kin hear jes' common talk through the air
without no wires. An' hundreds o' miles! 'Tain't natch'all an' 'taint
possible now, is it?"
"Why, yes, Mr. Hooper; it's both poss--"
"Come on, Billy! Good-night, Mr. Hooper and Mrs. Hooper. We all had a
dandy time." And Bill was led away. But he was able, by hanging back a
little, to whisper to Gus that he was on the track of something from
Thad,--for Bill could only think that the young man would make a
confession or commit himself in some way.
"See you in the morning," he added and turned back.
Thad was waiting and called to Bill from his seat on a bench beneath the
shade of a big maple. The fellow plunged at once into his subject,
evidently holding the notion that youth in general possesses a shady
sense of honor.
"See here, Brown. I think I get you and I believe you've got wit enough
to get Uncle Hooper. Did he say anything to you as you came out about
being shy on this radio business?"
Bill nodded.
"Say, he don't believe it's any more possible than a horse car can turn
into a buzzard! Fact! He told me you fellows might fool him on a lot of
things and that you were awful smart for kids, but he'd be hanged for a
quarter of beef if you could make him swallow this bunk about talking
through the air. You know the way he talks."
"I think he can and will be convinced," said Bill, "and you can't blame
him for his notion, for he has never chanced to inquire about radio and
I expect he doesn't read that department in the paper. If he meets a
plain statement about radio broadcasting or receiving, it either makes
no impression on him, or he regards it as a sort of joke. But, anyway,
what of it?"
"Why, just this and you ought to catch on to it without being told:
Unk's a stubborn old rat and he hasn't really a grain of sense, in spite
of all the money he made. All you've got to do is to egg him on as if
you thought it might be a little uncertain and then sort o' dare to make
a big bet with him. I'll get busy and tell him that this radio business
is the biggest kind of an expert job and that you fellows are blamed
doubtful about it. Then, when you get your set working and let Unk
listen in, he'll pay up and we'll divide the money. See? Easy as pie. Or
we might work it another way: I'll make the bet with him and you fellows
let on to fall down. Or we might--"
"Well, I've listened to your schemes," said Bill, "and I'm going to say
this about them: I think you are the dirtiest, meanest skunk I ever ran
across. You--"
"Say, now, what's the matter?"
"You're a guest under your uncle's roof; eating his grub, accepting his
hospitality, pretending to be his friend--"
"Aw, cut that out, now! You needn't let on you're so awful fine."
"And then deliberately trying to hatch a scheme to rob him! Of all the
rotten, contemptible--" Unable to voice his righteous indignation, Bill
clenched his fist and struck Thad square in the eye.
Thad had risen and was standing in front of Bill, trembling with rage as
impotent as though _he_ were little and lame, leaning, like Bill, on the
crutch a less valiant cripple would have used instead of his bare fist.
With a look of fiendish hatred, instead of returning blow for blow, Thad
made a sudden grab and tore Bill's crutch out of the hand which had felt
no impulse to use it in defense against his able-bodied antagonist.
"Now, you blow to Uncle and I'll break this crutch!"
Strange, isn't it, how we often are reminded of funny things even in the
midst of danger? Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the
agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker,
showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was
reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to
break the umbrella of his rival found in the vestibule of his girl's
house, then going out and praying for rain!
Thad, astonished at Bill's sudden mirth, held the crutch mid-air, and
demanded with a malignant leer:
"Huh! Laugh, will you?"
"Go ahead and break it, but it won't be a circumstance to what I'll do
to you. I can imagine your uncle--"
"So? Listen, you pusillanimous, knock-kneed shrimp? I'm going to mash
your jaw so you'll never wag it again! And right now, too, you--"
Possibly there was as much determination back of this as any evil
intent, but it also was doomed to failure. There was a quick step from
the deeper shadows and a figure loomed suddenly in front of Thad who,
with uplifted crutch, was still glaring at Bill. Only two words were
spoken, a "_You_, huh?" from the larger chap; then a quick tackle, a
short straining scuffle, and Thad was thrown so violently sidewise and
hurtled against the bench from which Bill had just risen, that it and
Thad went over on the ground together. The bench and the lad seemed to
lie there equally helpless. Gus picked up the crutch and handed it to
his chum.
"Let's go. He won't be able to get up till we've gone."
But as they passed out from among the shadows there followed them a
threat which seemed to be bursting with the hatred of a demon:
"Oh, I'll get even with you two little devils. I'll blow you to--"
The two boys looked at each other and only laughed.
"Notice his right eye when you see him again," chuckled Bill.
CHAPTER XVII
THE UNEXPECTED
"Where did you come from, Gus?" Bill asked, still inclined to laugh.
"The road. Slipped away from the others for I was wondering whether you
might not get into trouble. Couldn't imagine that chump would spring
anything that wouldn't make you mad, and I knew you'd talk back. So I
did the gumshoe."
"Well, I suppose he would have made it quite interesting for me and I am
eternally grateful to you. If it weren't for you, Gus, I guess, I'd have
a hard time in--"
"By cracky, if it weren't for you, old scout, where would I be? Nowhere,
or anywhere, but never somewhere."
"That sounds to me something like what Professor Gray calls a paradox,"
laughed Bill.
"I don't suppose you're going to peach on Thad," Gus offered.
"No; but wouldn't I like to? It's a rotten shame to have that lowdown
scamp under Mr. Hooper's roof. It's a wonder Grace doesn't give him
away; she must know what a piker he is."
"Bill, it's really none of our business," Gus said. "Well, see you in
the morning early."
The boys wished once more to go over carefully all the completed details
of the water power plant; they had left the Pelton wheel flying around
with that hissing blow of the water on the paddles and the splashing
which made Bill think of a circular log saw in buckwheat-cake batter.
The generator, when thrown in gear, had been running as smoothly as a
spinning top; there were no leaks in the pipe or the dam. But now they
found water trickling from a joint that showed the crushing marks of a
sledge, the end of the nozzle smashed so that only enough of the stream
struck the wheel to turn it, and there was evidence of sand in the
generator bearings.
Then appeared George, with an expression of mingled sorrow, shame,
wonder and injured pride on his big ebony features, his eyes rolling
about like those of a dying calf. At first he was mute.
"Know anything about this business, George?" asked Bill.
"Don't know a thing but what Ah does know an' dat's a plenty. What's
happened here?"
"The plant has been damaged; that's all."
"Damage? When? Las' night, close on t' mawnin'? Well, suh, Ah 'low that
there ghos' done it."
"Ghost? What--where was any ghost?"
"Right yer at de tool house. Come walkin' roun' de corner fo' Ah could
grab up man stick an' Ah jes' lef' de place."
"What? Ran away and from your duty? You were put here to guard the
plant; not to let any old--"
"Didn't 'low t' guard it 'gainst no ghos'es. Dey don' count in de
contrac'. Folks is one thing an' ghos'es--"
"Ghosts! Bosh! There's no such thing as a ghost! If you had swung your
club at the silly thing you'd have knocked over some dub of a man that
we could pretty well describe right now, and saved us a heap of trouble
and expense--and you'd have kept your job!" Bill was disgusted and
angry.
"Lawsee! Ah ain't gwine lose mah job jes' fo' dodgin' a ghos', is I?"
"What did this fellow look like?" asked Gus.
"Ah nevah could tell 'bout it; didn't take no time for' t' look sharp.
Ah wuz on'y jes' leavin'."
"Now, see here, George," said Bill, his native gentleness dominating,
"if you'll promise to say nothing about this, keep on the job and grab
the next ghost, we'll let you stay on. And we'll make an awful good
guess when we tell you that you'll find the ghost is Mr. Hooper's
nephew. If you do grab him, George, and lock him in the tool house,
we'll see that you're very nicely rewarded,--a matter of cold cash. Are
you on?"
"Ah shore is, an' Ah'll git him, fo' Ah reckon he's gwine come again.
'Tain't no fun tacklin' whut looks lak a ghos', but Ah reckon Ah'll make
that smahty think he's real flesh an' blood fo' Ah gits through with
him!"
The boys were two days making repairs, which time encroached upon their
plan to get their promised radio receiver into action. Having no shop
nor proper tools for finer work, they would be handicapped, for they had
decided, because of the pleasure and satisfaction in so doing, to make
many of the necessary parts that generally are purchased outright. Bill
made the suggestion, on account of this delay, that they abandon their
original plan, but Gus, ever hopeful, believed that something might turn
up to carry out their first ideas.
The afternoon that they had everything in normal condition again, Mr.
Hooper came down to see them; he knew nothing of the tampering with the
work, but it became evident at once that his nephew had slyly and
forcibly put it into his head that amateur radio construction was
largely newspaper bunk, without any real foundation of fact. Thad may
have had some new scheme, but at any rate the unlettered old man would
swallow pretty nearly everything Thad said, even though he often
repudiated Thad's acts. Again Mr. Hooper, Bill and Gus got on the
subject of radio and the old gentleman repeated his convictions:
"I ain't sayin' you boys can't do wonders, an' I'm fer you all the time,
but I'm not goin' t' b'lieve you kin do what's pretty nigh out o'
reason. Listen to me, now, fer a minute: If you fellers kin rig up a
machine to fetch old man Eddy's son's talk right here about two hundred
an' fifty mile, I'll hand out to each o' you a good hundred dollars;
yes, b'jinks. I'll make it a couple a hun--"
"No, Mr. Hooper, we value your friendship altogether too much to take
your money and that's too much like a wager, anyway." Bill was most
earnest. "But you must take our word for it that it can be done."
"Fetch old man Eddy's son's voice--!"
"Just that exactly--similar things have been done a-plenty. People are
talking into the radio broadcasters and their voices are heard
distinctly thousands of miles. But, Mr. Hooper, you wouldn't know Mr.
Edison's voice if you heard it, would you?"
"N--no, can't say as how I would--but listen here. I do know a feller
what works with him--they say he's close to the ol' man. Bill Medders.
Knowed Bill when he was a little cack, knee-high to a grasshopper. They
say he wrote a book about Eddy's son. I'd know Bill Medder's voice if I
heard it in a b'iler factory."
Bill Brown could hardly repress a smile. "I guess you must mean William
H. Meadowcroft. His 'Boys' Life of Edison' sure is a dandy book. I liked
it best of all. Sometimes no one can see Mr. Edison for weeks at a time,
when he's buried in one of his 'world-beaters.' But I reckon we can let
you hear Mr. Meadowcroft's voice. He wrote me a pippin of a letter once
about the Chief."
"All righty. I'll take Medders's. I know Bill, an' you can't fool me on
that voice."
"Mr. Hooper, I'll tell you what," said the all-practical Bill eagerly.
"This demonstration will be almost as interesting to you as it is to us,
and you can help us out. We can get what little power we need from any
power plant. But we want a shop most of all--a loft or attic with room
enough to work in. We're going to get all the tools we need--"
"No. I'll get 'em fer you an' you kin have all that there room over the
garage." (The old gentleman pronounced this word as though it rhymed
with carriage.) "An' anything else you're a mind to have you kin have.
Some old junk up there, I reckon," he went on. "You kin throw it out, er
make use of it. An' now, let's see what you kin do!"
The boys were eager to acknowledge this liberal offer, and they
expressed themselves in no measured terms. They would do better than
make one receiver; they would make two and one would be installed in Mr.
Hooper's library,--but of this they said nothing at first. Get busy they
did, with a zeal and energy that overmatched even that given the power
plant. That afternoon they moved into the new shop and were delighted
with its wide space and abundant light. The next day they went to the
city for tools and materials. Two days later a lathe, a grinder and a
boring machine, driven by a small electric motor wired from the Hooper
generator were fully installed, together with a workbench, vises, a
complete tool box and a drawing board, with its instruments. No young
laborers in the vineyard of electrical fruitage could ask for more.
"Isn't it dandy, Gus?" Bill exclaimed, surveying the place and the
result of their labors in preparation. "If we can't do things here, it's
only our fault. Now, then--"
"It is fine," said Gus, "and we're in luck, but somehow, I think we must
be on our guard. I can't get my mind off ghosts and the damage over
yonder. I'm going to take a sneak around there to-night again, along
around midnight and a little after. I did last night; didn't tell you,
for you had your mind all on this. George was on duty, challenged me,
but I've got a hunch that he knows something he doesn't want to worry us
about and thinks he can cope with."
CHAPTER XVIII
A BIT TRAGIC
"Hold up your hands, nigger!"
The voice was low and sepulchral, but either the ghostly apparition that
uttered the command had slipped up on its vernacular, or it was the
spirit of a bandit. Some demand of the kind was, however, urgently
necessary, for George did not, as formerly, show a desire to flee; his
belligerent attitude suggested fight and he was a husky specimen with a
handy club. Even though he might have suffered a qualm at again
beholding the white apparition in the moonlight, his determination to
dare the spectre was bolstered by the voice and the manner of the
command.
"Ah knows who yo' is an' Ah's gwine hol' yo' up! Yo' ain't no ghos'. Dis
club'll knock de sure 'nough breff out'n yo'; then we'll see."
To Gus, on the hillside above the power plant, it looked very much as
though this threat were going to be carried out. He had been quietly
observing, under the light of a half moon, the ghostly visitation and
even the advent of this individual before the white raiment had been
donned some distance behind the tool house and unknown to the watchful
George. All this had not surprised Gus, but he had been puzzled by the
appearance on the hillside of another figure that kept behind the scant
bushes much as Gus was doing, except that it was screened against being
seen from below and evidently did not know of Gus's presence. Now,
however, all attention was given to the altercation before the tool
house, around which the ghost had come, evidently to be disappointed at
not seeing George take to his heels.
Suddenly there was a shot. The reverberation among the hills seemed
ominous, but not more so than the staggering back and sinking down of
poor George. Gus saw the white figure stand for a moment, as though
peering down at the victim of this murderous act; then it turned and
fled straight up the hill and directly toward the one up there crouching
and--waiting? Were they in collusion? Gus had but a moment to guess.
Still crouching, unseen, though brave,--for Gus was courageous even
sometimes to the point of being foolhardy in the rougher sports, or
where danger threatened others,--he avoided now the almost certain fate
of George, for the villain was still armed and desperate, no doubt. And
Gus hoped that the arrest of the scamp would surely follow his meeting
with the other observer.
But this safe and sane attitude of the watching Gus suffered a sudden
change when, as the ascending ruffian fairly stumbled upon the other
figure crouching on the hillside, a scream, unmistakably that of a
female in dire distress, came to the ears of the witness. He could dimly
see the two struggling together, the dark figure with the white. The
next instant, forgetting all danger to himself, Gus lessened the
distance by leaps and scrambles along the declivity and flung himself
upon the assailant.
There was a short, sharp tussle; a second shot, but this time the weapon
discharged its leaden pellet harmlessly. Then the ghost, taking
advantage of the hillside, flung Gus aside and before the boy had time
to leap upon his foeman again, the white figure, his habiliments torn
off, had backed away and threatened Gus with the pistol. There was no
mistaking the voice that uttered the threat:
"Keep off, or you'll get punctured! You needn't think anybody's going to
get me. I'm going to vanish. If you try to follow me now, I'll kill
you!"
This sounded desperate enough and Gus had reason to believe the fellow
meant it. But in spite of that and driven by righteous anger, he would
again have tackled the enemy had not the voice of Grace Hooper checked
him:
"Oh, let him go; let him go!" she begged. "He'll shoot, and you--you
must not be killed! No; you shall not!"
And then, as the rascal turned and fled over the brow of the hill, Gus
turned to the girl, sitting on the ground.
"How did you come here--what--?"
"I knew something was going to happen, and I thought I might prevent it
some way. Then he fired, and I saw how desperate he was,--and he shot--"
"Yes--we must do all we can for poor George, if anything can be done.
But are you hurt?"
"Not very much; he meant to hurt me. I dodged when he struck and only my
shoulder may be--bruised."
"Then you should bathe it in hot water. Can I help you up? No, you must
not go home alone--but I must see about poor George. I heard him groan."
"I'd better go down with you."
"It might be--too horrible--for a girl, you see. Better stay here."
Gus had extended his hand to give her a lift; she took it and came
slowly to her feet; then suddenly crumpled up and lay unconscious before
him, her face white against the dark sod, her arms outflung. Gus stared
at her a few long seconds, as foolishly helpless as any boy could be. He
told Bill afterward that he never felt so flabbergasted in his life.
What to do he knew not, but he must try something, and do it quickly.
Perhaps Grace had only fainted; should he go to George first? He might
be dying--or dead! Then the thought came to him: "Women and children
first."
Gus dashed down the hill, dipped his cap, cup fashion, into the water of
the dam and fled up with it again, brimming full and spilling over. He
was able to dash a considerable quantity of reviving water into the
girl's face. With a gasp and a struggle she turned over, opened her
eyes, sat up,--her physical powers returning in advance of her mental
grasp.
"Oh, am I,--no, not dead? Please help me--up and home."
"Yes, I'll take you home in just a jiffy. Do you feel a little better?
Can you sit still here, please, till I see about George? Just a moment?"
Again the boy went down the hill, now toward the tool house; he was
brave enough, but a sort of horror gripped him as he rounded the corner
of the little shack. What, then, was his relief when he found the
watchman on his feet, a bit uncertain about his balance and leaning
against the door frame. It was evident from the way he held his club
that he meant not to desert his post and that he believed his late
assailant was returning. At sight of Gus, the colored man's relief
showed in his drawn face.
"Mist' Gus! It's you, honey! My Lawd! Ah done been shot! By the ghos',
Mist' Gus, whut ain't nothin' no mo'n dat low-down, no 'count nephew o'
ol' Mist' Hooper's. Ah reckon Ah's gwine die, but Ah ain't yit--not ef
he's comin' back!"
"Good boy, George! You're the stuff! But you're not going to die and
he's not coming back. He lit out like a rabbit. Come now; we'll go to a
doctor and then--"
"Reckon Ah can't do it. Got hit in de hip some'ers; makes mah leg total
wuthless. You-all go on an' Ah'll git me some res' yere till mawnin'."
"And maybe bleed nearly to death! No, I'll be back for you in no
time,--as soon as I get Miss Grace home. She's on the hill there. She
came out to watch that cousin of hers. You hang on till I get back."
Grace tried to show her usual energy, but seemed nearly overcome by
fatigue. She made no complaint, but presently Gus saw that she was
crying, and that scared him. In his inexperience he could not know that
it was only overwrought nerves. He felt he must make speed in carrying
out his intentions to get help to George and put the authorities on the
track of Thad. Gus could see but one thing to do properly and his
natural diffidence was cast aside by his generous and kindly nature.
"Let me give you a lift, as I do Bill, sometimes," he said, and drew the
girl's arm over his shoulder, supporting her with his other arm. In a
second or two they were going on at a rather lively pace. In a few
minutes they had reached the house. Grace entered and called loudly. Her
father and mother appeared instantly in the hallway above. The girl,
half way up the stairway, told of the incidents at the power plant and
added:
"Thad boasted to me that he was going to give the boys a lot more
trouble, and I watched and saw him leave the house. So I followed,
hoping to stop him, and after he shot George he ran into me and was so
angry that he struck me. I wish _I_ had had a pistol! I would have--"
"Gracie, dear little girl! You mustn't wish to kill or wound anyone! Oh,
are you _hurt_? Come, dear--"
"I'll be with you right off, me boy!" said Mr. Hooper to Gus, and
presently they were in the library alone.
"Listen to me, lad. This nevvy o' mine is me dead sister's child, an' I
swore t' her I'd do all I could fer him. His brother Bob, he's in the
Navy, a decent lad; won't have nothin' to do with Thad. An' you can't
blame him, fer Thad's a rapscallion. Smart, too, an' friendly enough to
his old uncle. But now, though, I'm done with him. I'm fer lettin' him
slide, not wantin' to put the law on him. I'll take care o' George. He
shall have the best doctor in the country, an' I'll keep him an' his
wife in comfort, but I don't want Thaddeus to be arrested. Now I reckon
he's gone an' so let luck take him--good, bad, er indifferent. Won't you
let him hit his own trail, foot-loose?"
"I'd like to see him arrested and jailed," said Gus, "but for you and
because of what you'll do for George and your being so good to Bill and
me, I'll keep mum on it."
"Good, me lad. An' now you git back to George an' tell him to keep
Thad's name out of it. I'll 'phone fer 'Doc' Little and 'Doc' Yardley,
an' have an ambulance sent fer the poor feller. Then you can tell his
wife. It means very little sleep fer you this night, but you can lay
abed late."
Gus went away upon these duties, but with a heavy heart; he felt that
Mr. Hooper, because of the very gentleness of the man was defeating
justice, and though he had been nearly forced to give his promise, he
felt that he must keep it.
CHAPTER XIX
CONSTRUCTION AND DESTRUCTION
Bill and Gus worked long hours and diligently. All that the power plant
construction had earned for Bill, the boy had turned in to help his
mother. But Mr. Grier, busy at house building and doing better than at
most other times, was able to add something to _his_ boy's earnings, so
that Gus could capitalize the undertaking, which he was eager to do.
The layout of the radio receiver outfits to be built alike were put at
first on paper, full size; plan, side and end elevations and tracings
were made of the same transferred to heavy manila paper. These were to
be placed on the varnished panels, so that holes could be bored through
paper and panel, thus insuring perfect spacing and arrangement.
Sketches, also, were made of all details.
The audion tubes, storage batteries and telephone receivers had been
purchased in the city. Almost all the other parts were made by the boys
out of carefully selected materials. The amplifiers consisted of iron
core transformers comprising several stages of radio frequency. The
variometers were wound of 22-gauge wire. Loose couplers were used
instead of the ordinary tuning coil. The switch arms, pivoting shafts
and attachments for same, the contact points and binding posts were
home-made. A potentiometer puzzled them most, both the making and the
application, but they mastered this rather intricate mechanism, as they
did the other parts.
In this labor, with everything at hand and a definite object in view, no
boys ever were happier, nor more profitably employed, considering the
influence upon their characters and future accomplishments. How true it
is that they who possess worthy hobbies, especially those governed by
the desire for construction and the inventive tendency, are getting
altogether the most out of life and are giving the best of themselves!
The work progressed steadily--not too hastily, but most satisfactorily.
Leaving at supper time, Bill's eyes would sparkle as he talked over
their efforts for that day, and quiet Gus would listen with nods and
make remarks of appreciation now and then.
"The way we've made that panel, Gus, with those end cleats doweled on
and the shellacking of both sides--it'll never warp. I'm proud of that
and it was mostly your idea."
"No, yours. I would have grooved the wood and used a tongue, but the
dowels are firmer."
"A tongue would have been all right."
"But, dear boy, the dowels were easier to put in."
"Oh, well, it's done now. To-morrow we'll begin the mounting and wiring.
Then for the aerial!"
But that very to-morrow brought with it the hardest blow the boys had
yet had to face. Full of high spirits, they walked the half mile out to
the Hooper place and found the garage a mass of blackened ruins. It had
caught fire, quite mysteriously, toward morning, and the gardener and
chauffeur, roused by the crackling flames, had worked like beavers but
with only time to push out the two automobiles; they could save nothing
else.
The Hoopers had just risen from breakfast when the boys arrived; at once
Grace came out, and her expressions of regret were such as to imply that
the family had lost nothing, the boys being the only sufferers. And it
_was_ a bit staggering--all their work and machinery and tools and plans
utterly ruined--the lathe and drill a heap of twisted iron. It was with
a rueful face that Bill surveyed the catastrophe.
"Never mind, Billy," said Grace, detecting evidence of moisture in his
eyes; but she went over to smiling Gus and gazed at him in wonder.
"Don't you care?" she asked.
"You bet I care; mostly on Bill's account, though. He had set his heart
mighty strong on this. I'm sorry about your loss, too."
"Oh, never mind that! Dad is 'phoning now for carpenters and his
builder. He'll be out in a minute."
Out he did come, with a shout of greeting; he, too, had sensed that the
real regrets would be with them.
"It'll be all right, me lads!" he shouted. "Herring'll be here on the
next train, with a bunch o' men, an' I'll git your dad, Gus, too. Must
have this building up just like it was in ten days. An' now count up
just what you lads have lost; the hull sum total, b'jinks! I'm goin' to
be the insurance comp'ny in this deal."
"The insurance company!" Bill exclaimed and Gus stared.
"Sure. Goin' to make up your loss an' then some. I'm a heap int'rested
in this Eddy's son business, ain't I? Think I ain't wantin' to see that
there contraption that hears a hunderd miles off? Get busy an' give me
the expense. We've got to git a-goin'."
"But, Mr. Hooper, our loss isn't yours and you have got enough to--"
"Don't talk; figger! I'm runnin' this loss business. Don't want to make
me mad; eh? Git at it an' hurry up!" He turned and walked away. Grace
followed in a moment, but over her shoulder remarked to the wondering
boys:
"Do as Dad says if you want to keep our friendship. Dad isn't any sort
of a piker,--you know that."
The insistency was too direct; "the queen's wish was a command." The
boys would have to comply and they could get square with their good
friends in the end. So at it they went, Bill with pad and pencil, Gus
calling out the items as his eye or his memory gleaned them from the
hard-looking objects in the burned mass as he raked it over. Presently
Grace came out again.
"Dad wants the list and the amount," she said. "He's got to go to the
city with Mr. Herring."
Bill handed over his pad and she was gone, to return as quickly in a few
minutes.
"Here is an order on the bank; you can draw the cash as you need it. You
can start working in the stable loft; then bring your stuff over. There
will be a watchman on the grounds from to-night, so don't worry about
any more fires. I must go help get Dad off."
Once more she retreated; again she stopped to say something, as an
afterthought, over her shoulder:
"And, boys, won't you let Skeets and me help you some? Skeets will be
here again next week and I love to tinker and contrive and make all
sorts of things; it'll be fun to see the radio receiver grow."
"Sure, you can," said Gus; and Bill nodded, adding: "We have only a
limited time now, and any help will count a lot."
Going down to the bank, Bill again outlined the work in detail,
suggesting the purchases of even better machinery and tools, of only the
best grades of materials. There must be another trip to the city, the
most strenuous part of the work.
"We'll get it through on time, I guess," said Bill.
"I'm not thinking so much of that as about how that fire started," said
Gus.
"It couldn't have been any of our chemicals, could it?"
"Chem--? My eye! Don't you know, old chap? I'll bet Mr. Hooper and Grace
have the correct suspicion."
"More crooked business? You don't mean--"
"Sure, I do! Thad, of course. And, Bill, we're going to get him, sooner
or later. Mr. Hooper won't want to stand this sort of thing forever.
I've got a hunch that we're not through with that game yet."
CHAPTER XX
"TO LABOR AND TO WAIT"
It was truly astonishing what well organized labor could do under
intelligent direction; the boys had a fine example of this before them
and a fine lesson in the accomplishment. The new garage grew into a new
and somewhat larger building, on the site of the old, almost over night.
There were three eight-hour shifts of men and two foremen, with the
supervising architect and Mr. Grier apparently always on the job. As
soon as the second floor was laid, the roof on and the sheathing in
place, Bill and Gus moved in. The men gave them every aid and Mr. Grier
gave special attention to building their benches, trusses, a
drawing-board stand, shelving and tool chests. Then, how those new radio
receivers did come on!
Grace and Skeets were given little odd jobs during the very few hours of
their insistent helping. They varnished, polished, oiled, cleaned copper
wire, unpacked material, even swept up the _debris_ left by the
carpenters; at least, they did until Skeets managed to fall headlong
down about one-half of the unfinished stairway and to sprain her ankle.
Then Grace's loyalty compelled her attention to her friend.
Mr. Hooper breezed in from time to time, but never to take a hand; to do
so would have seemed quite out of place, though the old gentleman
laughingly made an excuse for this:
"Lads, I ain't no tinker man; never was. Drivin' a pesky nail's a
huckleberry above my persimmon. Cattle is all I know, an' I kin still
learn about them, I reckon. But I know what I kin see an' hear an',
b'jinks, I'm still doubtin' I'm ever goin' to hear that there Eddy's son
do this talkin'. But get busy, lads; get busy!"
"Oh, fudge, Dad! Can't you see they're dreadfully busy? You can't hurry
them one bit faster." Grace was ever just.
"No," said Skeets, who had borrowed Bill's crutch to get into the shop
for a little while. "No, Mr. Hooper; if they were to stay up all night,
go without eats and work twenty-five hours a day they couldn't do any--"
And just then the end of the too-much inclined crutch skated outward and
the habitually unfortunate girl dropped kerplunk on the floor. Gus and
Grace picked her up. She was not hurt by her fall. Her very plumpness
had saved her.
"For goodness' sake, Skeets, are you ever going to get the habit of
keeping yourself upright?" asked Grace, who laughed harder than the
others, except Skeets herself; the stout girl generally got the utmost
enjoyment out of her own troubles.
Quiet restored, Mr. Hooper returned to his subject.
"I reckon you lads, when you git this thing made that's goin' to hoodoo
the air, will be startin' in an' tryin' somethin' else; eh?" he
ventured, grinning.
"Later, perhaps, but not just yet," Bill replied. "Not until we can
manage to learn a lot more, Gus and I. Mr. Grier says that the
competition of brains nowadays is a lot sharper than it was in Edison's
young days, and even he had to study and work a lot before he really did
any big inventing. Professor Gray says that a technical education is
best for anyone who is going to do things, though it is a long way from
making a fellow perfect and must be followed up by hard practice."
"And we can wait, I guess," put in Gus.
"Until we can manage in some way to scrape together enough cash to buy
books and get apparatus for experiments and go on with our schooling."
"We want more physics and especially electricity," said Gus.
"And other knowledge as well, along with that," Bill amended.
"I reckon you fellers is right," said Mr. Hooper, "but I don't know
anything about it. I quit school when I was eleven, but that ain't
sayin' I don't miss it. If I had an eddication now, like you lads is
goin' to git, er like the Perfesser has, I'd give more'n half what I
own. Boys that think they're smart to quit school an' go to work is
natchal fools. A feller may git along an' make money, but he'd make a
heap more an' be a heap happier, 'long of everything else, if he'd got a
schoolin'. An' any boy that's got real sand in his gizzard can buckle
down to books an' get a schoolin', even if he don't like it. What I'm a
learnin' nowadays makes me know that a feller can make any old study
int'restin' if he jes' sets down an' looks at it the right way."
"That's what Gus and I think. There are studies we don't like very much,
but we can make ourselves like them for we've got to know a lot about
them."
"Grammar, for instance," said Gus.
"Sure. It is tiresome stuff, learning a lot of rules that work only
half. But if a fellow is going to be anybody and wants to stand in with
people, he's got to know how to talk correctly and write, too." Bill's
logic was sound.
"Daddy should have had a drilling in grammar," commented Grace,
laughing.
"Oh, you!" blurted Skeets. "Mr. Hooper can talk so that people
understand him--and when you _do_ talk," she turned to the old
gentleman, "I notice folks are glad to listen, and so is Grace."
"But, my dear," protested the subject of criticism, "they'd listen
better an' grin less if I didn't sling words about like one o' these
here Eye-talians shovelin' dirt."
"You just keep a-shovelin', Mr. Hooper, your own way," said Bill, "and
if we catch anybody even daring to grin at you, why, I'll have Gus land
on them with his famous grapple!"
Mr. Hooper threw back his coat, thrust his thumbs into the armholes of
his big, white vest and swelled out his chest.
"Now, listen to that! An' this from a lad who ain't got a thing to
expect from me an' ain't had as much as he's a-givin' me, either--an'
knows it. But that's nothin' else but Simon pure frien'ship, I take it.
An' Gus, here, him an' Bill, they think about alike; eh, Gus?" Gus
nodded and the old gentleman continued, addressing his remarks to his
daughter and Skeets:
"Now, if I know anything at all about anything at all I know what I'm
goin' to do. I ain't got no eddication, but that ain't goin' to keep me
from seein' some others git it. You Gracie, fer one, an' you, too,
Skeeter, if your old daddy'll let you come an' go to school with Gracie.
But that ain't all; if you lads kin git ol' Eddy's son out o' the air on
this contraption you're makin' an' hear him talk fer sure, I'm goin' to
see to it that you kin git all the tec--tec--what you call
it?--eddication there is goin' an' I'm goin' to put Perfesser Gray wise
on that, too, soon's he comes back. No--don't you say a word now. I
know what I'm a-doin'." With that the old gentleman turned and marched
out of the shop. But at the bottom of the garage steps he called back:
"Say, boys, I gotta go away fer a couple o' weeks, or mebbe three. Push
it right along an' mebbe you'll be hearin' from old man Eddy's son when
I git back!"
CHAPTER XXI
EARLY STRUGGLES
The receiving outfits were completed; the aerials had been put up, one
installed at the garage, the other at the mansion. Grace naturally had
all, the say about placing the one in her home. The aerial, of four
wires, each thirty feet long and parallel, were attached equi-distant,
and at each end to springy pieces of ash ten feet long, these being
insulators in part and sustained by spiral spring cables, each divided
by a glass insulator block, the extended cables being fastened to a
maple tree and the house chimney. The ground wire went down the side of
the house beside a drain pipe.
The house receiver, in a cabinet that had cost the boys much painstaking
labor, was set by a window and, after Grace and Skeets had been
instructed how to tune the instrument to varying wave lengths, they and
good Mrs. Hooper enjoyed many delightful periods of listening in, all
zealously consulting the published programs from the great broadcasting
stations.
The other outfit made by the boys, which, except the elaborate box and
stand, was an exact duplicate of the Hooper receiver, was taken to the
Brown cottage. Gus insisted that Bill had the best right to it, and as
the Griers and Mrs. Brown had long been the best of friends and lived
almost next door to each other, all the members of the carpenter's
family would be welcome to listen in whenever they wanted to. The little
evening gatherings at certain times for this purpose were both mirthful
and delightful.
The boys' aerial was a three-wire affair, stretching forty feet, and
erected in much the same way as that at the Hooper house, except that
one mast had to be put up as high as the gable end of the cottage, which
was the other support, thirty-five feet high.
Then, when the announcement was made that the talks on Edison were to be
repeated, Bill and Gus told the class and others of their friends, so
the Hoopers came also, the merry crowd filling the Brown living-room.
Mr. Hooper's absence was noted and regretted from the first, as his
eagerness "to be shown" was well known to them all.
The first lectures concerning Edison's boyhood were repeated. The second
and third talks were each better attended than the preceding ones. Cora,
Dot, Skeets and two other girls occupied the front row; Ted Bissell and
Terry Watkins were present. Bill presided with much dignity, most
carefully tuning in, making the announcements, then becoming the most
interested listener, the theme being ever dear to him.
On the occasion of the third lecture, Bill said:
"Now, then, classmates and other folks, this is a new one to all of us.
The last was where we left off in June on the Professor's receiver. You
can just bet this is going to be a pippin. First off, though, is a
violin solo by--by--oh, I forget his name,--and may it be short and
sweet!"
After the music, the now well-known voice came from the horn:
"This is the third talk on the career and accomplishments of Thomas Alva
Edison:
"In a little while young Edison began to get tired of the humdrum life
of a telegraph operator in Boston. As I have told you, after the
vote-recorder, he had invented a stock ticker and started a quotation
service in Boston. He opened operations from a room over the Gold
Exchange with thirty to forty subscribers.
"He also engaged in putting up private lines, upon which he used an
alphabetical dial instrument for telegraphing between business
establishments, a forerunner of modern telephony. This instrument was
very simple and practical, and any one could work it after a few
minutes' explanation.
"The inventor has described an accident he suffered and its effect on
him:
"'In the laboratory,' he says, 'I had a large induction coil. One day I
got hold of both electrodes of this coil, and it clinched my hands on
them so that I could not let go!
"'The battery was on a shelf. The only way I could get free was to back
off and pull the coil, so that the battery wires would pull the cells
off the shelf and thus break the circuit. I shut my eyes and pulled, but
the nitric acid splashed all over my face and ran down my back.
"'I rushed to a sink, which was only half big enough, and got in as well
as I could, and wiggled around for several minutes to let the water
dilute the acid and stop the pain. My face and back were streaked with
yellow; the skin was thoroughly oxidized.
"'I did not go on the street by daylight for two weeks, as the
appearance of my face was dreadful. The skin, however, peeled off, and
new skin replaced it without any damage.'
"The young inventor went to New York City to seek better fortunes. First
he tried to sell his stock printer and failed in the effort. Then he
returned to Boston and got up a duplex telegraph--for sending two
messages at once over one wire. He tried to demonstrate it between
Rochester and New York City. After a week's trial, his test did not
work, partly because of the inefficiency of his assistant.
"He had run in debt eight hundred dollars to build this duplex
apparatus. His other inventions had cost considerable money to make, and
he had failed to sell them. So his books, apparatus and other belongings
were left in Boston, and when he returned to New York he arrived there
with but a few cents in his pocket. He was very hungry. He walked the
streets in the early morning looking for breakfast but with so little
money left that he did not wish to spend it.
"Passing a wholesale tea house, he saw a man testing tea by tasting it.
The young inventor asked the 'taster' for some of the tea. The man
smiled and held out a cup of the fragrant drink. That tea was Thomas A.
Edison's first breakfast in New York City.
"He walked back and forth hunting for a telegraph operator he had known,
but that young man was also out of work. When Edison finally found him,
all his friend could do was to lend him a dollar!
"By this time Edison was nearly starved. With such limited resources he
gave solemn thought to what he should select that would be most
satisfying. He decided to buy apple dumplings and coffee, and in telling
afterward of his first real 'eats' in New York, Mr. Edison said he never
had anything that tasted so good.
"Just as young Ben Franklin, on arriving in New York City from Boston,
looked for a job in a printing office, the youthful modern inventor
applied for work in a telegraph office there. As there was no vacancy
and he needed the rest of his borrowed dollar for meals, Edison found
lodging in the battery room of the Gold Indicator Company.
"It was four years after the Civil War and, besides there being much
unemployment, the fluctuations in the value of gold, as compared with
the paper currency of that day, made it necessary to have gold
'indicators' something like the tickers from the Stock Exchange to-day.
Dr. Laws, presiding officer of the Gold Exchange, had recently invented
a system of gold indicators, which were placed in brokers' offices and
operated from the Gold Exchange.
"When Edison got permission to spend the night in the battery room of
this company, there were about three hundred of these instruments
operating in offices in all directions in lower New York City.
"On the third day after his arrival, while sitting in this office, the
complicated instrument sending quotations out on all the lines made a
very loud noise, and came to a sudden stop with a crash. Within two
minutes over three hundred boys---one from every broker's office in the
street--rushed upstairs and crowded the long aisle and office where
there was hardly room for one-third that number, each yelling that a
certain broker's wire was out of order, and that it must be fixed at
once.
"It was pandemonium, and the manager got so wild that he lost all
control of himself. Edison went to the indicator, and as he had already
studied it thoroughly, he knew right where the trouble was. He went
right out to see the man in charge, and found Dr. Laws there also--the
most excited man of all!
"The Doctor demanded to know what caused all the trouble, but his man
stood there, staring and dumb. As soon as Edison could get Laws'
attention he told him he knew what the matter was.
"'Fix it! Fix it! and be quick about it!' Dr. Laws shouted.
"Edison went right to work and in two hours had everything in running
order. Dr. Laws came in to ask the inventor's name and what he was
doing. When told, he asked the young man to call on him in his office
the next day. Edison did so and Laws said he had decided to place Edison
in charge of the entire plant at a salary of three hundred dollars a
month!
"This was such a big jump from any wages he had ever received that it
quite paralyzed the youthful inventor. He felt that it was too much to
last long, but he made up his mind he would do his best to earn that
salary if he had to work twenty hours a day. He kept that job, making
improvements and devising other stock tickers, until the Gold and Stock
Telegraph Company consolidated with the Gold Indicator Company."
CHAPTER XXII
FAME AND FORTUNE
"At twenty-two," the lecturer continued, "while Edison was with the Gold
and Stock Telegraph Company, he often heard Jay Gould and 'Jim' Fisk,
the great Wall Street operators of that day, talk over the money market.
At night he ate his lunches in the coffee-house in Printing House
Square, where he used to meet Henry J. Raymond, founder of _The New York
Times_, Horace Greeley of the _Tribune_ and James Gordon Bennett of the
_Herald_, the greatest trio of journalists in the world. One of the most
memorable remarks made by a frequenter of this night lunch, as recorded
by Mr. Edison was:
"'This is a great place; a plate of cakes, a cup of coffee, and a
Russian bath, all for ten cents!'
"The so-called bath was on account of the heat of the crowded room.
"Mr. Edison tells this story of the terrible panic in Wall Street, in
September, 1869, brought on chiefly by the attempt of Jay Gould and his
associates to corner the gold market:
"'On Black Friday we had a rather exciting time with our indicators. The
Gould and Fisk crowd had cornered the gold and had run up the quotations
faster than the indicator could record them. In the morning it was
quoting 150 premium while Gould's agents were bidding 165 for five
millions or less.
"'There was intense excitement. Broad and other streets in the Wall
Street district were crammed with crazy crowds. In the midst of the
excitement, Speyer, another large operator, became so insane that it
took five men to hold him. I sat on the roof of a Western Union booth
and watched the surging multitudes.
"'A Western Union man I knew came up and said to me: "Shake hands,
Edison. We're all right. We haven't got a cent to lose."'
"After the company with which our young inventor was connected had sold
out its inventions and improvements to the Gold and Stock Telegraph
Company, Mr. Edison produced a machine to print gold quotations instead
of merely indicating them. The attention of the president of the Gold
and Stock Company was attracted to the success of the wonderful young
inventor.
"Edison had produced quite a number of inventions. One of these was the
special ticker which was used many years in other large cities, because
it was so simple that it could be operated by men less expert than the
operators in New York. It was used also on the London Stock Exchange.
"After he had gotten up a good many inventions and taken out patents for
them, the president of the big company came to see him and was shown a
simple device to regulate tickers that had been printing figures wrong.
This thing saved a good deal of labor to a large number of men, and
prevented trouble for the broker himself. It impressed the president so
much that he invited Edison into his private office and said, in a stage
whisper:
"'Young man, I would like to settle with you for your inventions here.
How much do you want for them?"
"Edison had thought it all over and had come to the conclusion that, on
account of the hard night-and-day work he had been doing, he really
ought to have five thousand dollars, but he would be glad to settle for
three thousand, if they thought five thousand was too much. But when
asked point-blank, he hadn't the courage to name either sum--thousands
looked large to him then--so he hesitated a bit and said:
"'Well, General, suppose _you_ make _me_ an offer.'
"'All right,' said the president. 'How would forty thousand dollars
strike you?'
"Young Edison came as near fainting then as he ever did in his life. He
was afraid the 'General' would hear his heart thump, but he said quietly
that he thought that amount was just about right. A contract was drawn
up which Edison signed without reading.
"Forty thousand dollars was written in the first check Thomas A. Edison
ever received. With throbbing heart and trembling fingers he took it to
the bank and handed it in to the paying teller, who looked at it
disapprovingly and passed it back, saying something the young inventor
could not hear because of his deafness. Thinking he had been cheated,
Edison went out of the bank, as he said, 'to let the cold sweat
evaporate.'
"Then he hurried back to the president and demanded to know what it all
meant. The president and his secretary laughed at the green youth's
needless fears and explained that the teller had probably told him to
write his name on the back of the check. They not only showed him how to
endorse it, but sent a clerk to the bank to identify him--because of the
large amount of money to be paid over.
"Just for a joke on the 'jay,' the teller gave him the whole forty
thousand dollars in ten- and twenty-dollar bills. Edison gravely stowed
away the money till he had filled all his pockets including those in his
overcoat. He sat up all night in his room in Newark, in fear and
trembling, lest he be robbed. The president laughed next day but said
that joke had gone far enough; then he showed Thomas A. Edison how to
open his first bank account."
Again the lecturer's voice ceased to be heard; again another voice
announced that the fourth talk would be given on a certain date a few
days later. A negro song with banjo accompaniment followed and the radio
entertainment was over.
Everyone was talking, laughing and voicing pleasure in the increasingly
wonderful demonstration of getting sounds out of the air, from hundreds
of miles away. Only Gus and Bill remained and the two--as Billy always
referred to their confabs--went into "executive session." This radio
receiver was altogether absorbing, much too attractive to let alone
easily. The boys were proud of their very successful construction and
they could neither forget that fact, nor pass up the delight of
listening in.
This time Gus had the first inspiration. Billy often thought how,
sometimes strangely or by chance or correct steering, his chum seemed to
grasp the deeper matters of detection. Gus eagerly acknowledged Bill as
possessing a genius for mechanical construction and invention, without
which the comrades would get nowhere in such efforts, even admitting
Gus's skill and cleverness with tools. But when it came to having
hunches and good luck concerning matters of human mystery, Gus was the
king pin.
"I'm going to see what else we can get from near or far," Gus said,
detaching the horn and using the head clamp with its two ear 'phones
which had been added to the set. He sat down and began moving the switch
arms, one from contact to contact, the other throughout the entire range
of its contacts at each movement of the first, and proceeding thus
slowly for some minutes.
Bill had turned to the study of his Morse code, which the boys had taken
up and pursued at every opportunity during the building of the radio
sets. Gus, however, was less familiar with the dots and dashes. A
whisper, as though Gus were afraid the sound of his voice would disturb
the electric waves, suddenly switched Bill's attention.
"Two dots, three dots, two dots, one dash, one dot and dash, one dot,
one dash and two dots, same, dot, dash, dot, two dots, two dashes and
dot, four dots, one dash, two dots, two dashes, two dots." A pause. Gus
had whispered each signal to Bill; then he asked: "What do you make it?"
"I make it: 'Is it all right, then?' They have been talking some time, I
guess," said Bill; and added: "That's a good way to pick up and wrestle
with the code; it's dandy practice and we want--"
"Wait, pal, wait!" gasped Gus, bending forward again.
Words came now, instead of the code. It was evident that the person
giving them out had sought authority for so doing from headquarters.
Gus heard:
"This is to whom it may concern: Five hundred dollars' reward is to be
paid for information leading to the arrest of a party who last night
broke into the home of Nathan R. Hallowell. After deliberately and,
without apparent cause, shooting and badly wounding Mrs. Hallowell and
striking down an old servant woman, he stole several hundred dollars'
worth of jewels and silverware. Both the servant, who kept her wits
about her, and Mrs. Hallowell, who is now out of danger, have described
the assailant. He is about eighteen, of medium height, slender, dark
complexioned, one eye noticeably smaller than the other, nose long and
pointed, has a nervous habit of twitching his shoulder. He wore a light
brown suit and a gray cap. Send all information, or broadcast same to
Police Headquarters, Willstown. Immediate detention of any reasonable
suspect is recommended."
Gus wheeled about.
"Bill, it's Thad! Description hits him exactly and there's five hundred
reward. He's done a house-breaking stunt and tried to kill two people
and I don't believe they've got him yet. Mr. Hooper wouldn't want us to
keep quiet on this; would he?"
"It might be a good idea to talk to Mrs. Hooper and Grace about it
before you inform on Thad," Bill said.
"I'll do that," Gus agreed and was off. In half an hour he was back
again.
"I saw them, late as it was. Grace and Skeets were playing crokinole and
Mrs. Hooper came down. And, what do you think? Mr. Hooper wrote that
Thad had forged his name on a check for several hundred dollars and got
away with it and, even if he did still want to shield Thad, the law
wouldn't let him. Grace says Thad ought to be caught and punished and
that her father will want it done."
"But Gus, even if you got Willstown on the long distance 'phone, how
would that help to----"
"We'll get them later; after we have located Thad."
"Oh, Gus, do you think Ben Shultz was dreaming?"
"When he said he saw Thad out there in the barren ground woods by the
old cabin? Not a bit of it! It's the last place they'd ever think of
looking for him--right on his uncle's place. Thad is pretty keen in some
ways. But I doubt if he'll stay there long. He'll be pulling out for the
mountains. There's a late moon to-night, you see."
"I wish I could go with you; this old leg--"
"Never mind now; don't worry. I'll take Bennie Shultz and make him
messenger. If Thad's there you can get down to the drug store and call
Willstown. That'll make our case sure. By cracky, old scout, five
hundred! We can--"
"Chickens, old man; chickens. Hatch 'em first. But you will, I'll bet,
and it will be yours; not--"
"What are you talking about? Ours! It's as much your job as mine.
Divy-divy, half'n'half, fifty-fifty. Well, I'm off."
CHAPTER XXIII
JUSTICE
"Now then, Bennie," whispered Gus, "beat it on the q.t. Then streak it
for Bill's house. He'll be watching for you. Tell him our man is here
and probably getting ready to light out. You needn't come back; I'm only
going to spot this bird and find out where he goes, if I can. You'll get
well paid for this, kid."
The two boys were lying on the sandy ground among young cedars, and
watching the little cabin not fifty yards distant. Out of this crude
shack had come the sole occupant, to stand and gaze about him for a
minute, lifting his face to the moon. Gus could plainly distinguish the
gray cap, the slender build of the youth; he recognized the walk, a
certain manner of standing, and once he plainly caught that upward shift
of the shoulder. Then Gus gave his orders to Bennie, knowing that they
would be carried out with precision, for the little fellow, almost a
waif and lacking proper influences, would have nearly laid down his life
for Gus after the athlete had very deservedly whipped two town bullies
that were making life miserable for him. Moreover, the youngster wanted
to be like Gus and Bill, in the matter of mentality, and a promise of
reward meant money with which he could buy books.
Left alone, Gus crept nearer the cabin. He could be reasonably sure of
himself, but not of Bennie, who might crack a stick or sneeze. Some low
cedars grew on the slope above the cabin; Gus took advantage of these
and got within about forty feet of the shack. Then he lay watching for
fully an hour, there being no sign of the inmate. But after what had
seemed to Gus almost half the night, out came the suspect, stood a
moment as before and started off; it could be seen that he carried a
small pack and a heavy stick in his hands.
Then Gus was taken by surprise; even his ready intuition failed him. He
had made up his mind that he was in for a long hike to the not too
distant mountains and that over this ground the work of keeping the
other fellow in sight and of keeping out of sight himself was going to
mean constant vigilance and keen stalking. But the midnight prowler
swung around the cabin and with long, certain strides headed straight
for the Hooper mansion.
This was easier going for Gus than the open road toward the mountains
would have been; there was plenty of growth--long grass, trees and
bushes--to keep between him and the other who never tried to seek
shelter, nor hardly once looked behind him until the end of the broad
driveway was reached.
Gus knew the watchman must be about, though possibly half asleep. He
also believed that the suspected youth, by the way he advanced, must
know the ways of the watchman. Roger, the big Saint Bernard, let out a
booming roar and came bounding down the driveway; the fellow spoke to
him and that was all there was to that. Gus stayed well behind, fearing
the friendly beast might come to him also and thus give his presence
away, but Roger was evidently coaxed to remain with the first comer.
The big house stood silent, bathed in the moonlight; there was no sign
of anyone about, other than the miscreant who stood now in the shadow,
surveying the place. Presently he put down his pack, went to a window
and, quick and silent as an expert burglar, jimmied the sash. There was
only one sudden, sharp snap of the breaking sash bolt and in a moment
the fellow had vanished within the darkness and Gus distinguished only
the occasional flash of a pocket torch inside.
There was but one thing to do, and that as quickly as possible. The dog
had gone around to lie again on the front veranda. Gus made a bolt for
the rear of the grounds, reached the garage, found an open door, began
softly to push it open and suddenly found himself staring into the
muzzle of a revolver that protruded from the blackness beyond.
"Don't shoot! I'm Gus Grier, Mr. Watchman." The boy was conscious of a
certain unsteadiness in his own voice.
"Oh! An' phwat air yes doin' here?"
"Talk low," said Gus, "but listen first: There's a burglar in the house.
I spotted him some time ago, followed him and saw him get through the
dining-room window. Move fast and he's yours!"
Pat moved fast. He recognized that he had not been up to his duty so far
and he meant to make amends. With Gus following, the boy's nerves on
edge with the possibility that the housebreaker would shoot, the
Irishman, who was no coward, reached the house, entered the basement,
flooded the house with light, alarmed the inmates and in a few minutes
had every avenue of escape guarded, the chauffeur, butler and gardener
coming on the scene, all half dressed and armed.
What followed needs little telling. Hardly had the men decided to search
the house before the sound of a rapidly approaching motor horn was heard
and from the quickly checked car two men leaped out, the constable and a
deputy from the town--and then Bill Brown! The illuminated house had
stopped their course. The search revealed Thad cowering in a closet, all
the fight gone out of him. Grace and Skeets were not even awakened; Mrs.
Hooper did not leave her room.
As the constable turned a light on the handcuffed prisoner he remarked:
"That's the chap all right. Description fits. He'll bring that five
hundred all right."
"A reward; is it?" said the watchman. "An' don't ye fergit who gits it.
Not me, ner you, Constable, but the bye here." He laid his hand on Gus's
shoulder. The constable laughed:
"Oh, you're slow, Pat. We all know that. The kid and his pal, that young
edition of Edison by the name of Billy Brown, got the thing cinched over
their radio. We didn't know that the description that Willstown sent out
fitted Mr. Hooper's own nephew."
And so with relief, mixed with regret for Mr. Hooper's sake, Gus and
Bill saw a sulky and rebellious Thad vanish into the night and out of
their immediate affairs.
CHAPTER XXIV
GENIUS IS OFTEN ERRATIC
The fourth radio talk on the life, character and accomplishments of the
world's foremost inventor proved to be the most interesting of the
series. Fairview had heard of these entertainments and so many people
had asked Bill and Gus if they might attend, the boys became aware that
the modest little living-room of the Brown home would not hold half of
them. They, therefore, decided to let the radio be heard in the town
hall, if a few citizens would pay the rent for the evening.
This was readily arranged, but when the suggestion was made that an
admission be charged, the boys refused. This was their treat all round,
even to transferring their aerial to the hall between its cupola and a
mast at the other end of the roof, put up by the ever willing Mr. Grier
who could not do too much to further the boys' interests.
Early in the evening the hall was filled to overflowing, and ushers were
appointed to seat the crowd. Naturally there was much chattering and
scraping of feet until suddenly a strain of music, an orchestral
selection, began to come out of the horn and there was instant quiet.
After its conclusion came the voice:
"This is our last lecture on Edison. Following this will be given a
series on Marconi, the inventor of the wireless.
"As I have told you, Mr. Thomas Alva Edison's leap to fortune was sudden
and spectacular, as have been most of his accomplishments since. Those
who do really great things along the lines of physical improvement, or
concerning the inception of large enterprises are apt to startle the
public and to surprise thoughtful people almost as though some
impossible thing had been achieved.
"From a mere salaried operator to forty thousand dollars in a lump sum
for expert work was quite a jump.
"The forty thousand dollars, however, did not turn Mr. Edison's head as
has been the effect of sudden wealth on many a good-sized but smaller
minded man.
"He used it as a fund to start a plant and hire expert men to experiment
and work out the inventions which came to him so fast in his ceaseless
work and study. He could get along with as little sleep as Napoleon is
said to have required when a mighty battle was on. Edison could lie down
on a settee or table and sleep just as the Little Corporal did even
while cannon were booming all around him.
"There was something Napoleonic, also, about Edison's intensity of
application and his masterfulness in his gigantic undertakings. If
genius is the ability to take great pains, Thomas A. Edison is the
greatest genius in the world to-day--if not in all history.
"Sometimes, as Napoleon did with his chief generals before a decisive
engagement, Edison would shut himself up with his confidential
coworkers. Sometimes he and they would neither eat nor sleep till they
had fought out a problem of greater importance to the world than even
Napoleon's crossing the Alps or the decisive battle of Austerlitz. But,
though he began to work on a large scale, young Edison's financial
facilities were of the crudest and simplest.
"Almost all of his men were on piece-work, and he allowed them to make
good salaries. He never cut them down, although their pay was very high
as they became more and more expert.
"Instead of _books_ he kept _hooks_--two of them. All the bills he owed
he jabbed on one hook, and stuck mems of what was due him on the other.
If he had no tickers ready to deliver when an account came due, he gave
his note for the amount required.
"Then as one bill after another fell due, a bank messenger came with a
notice of protest pinned to the note, demanding a dollar and a quarter
extra for protest fees besides principal and interest. Whereupon he
would go to New York and borrow more funds, or pay the note on the spot
if he happened to have money enough on hand. He kept up this expensive
way of doing business for two years, but his credit was perfectly good.
Every dealer he patronized was glad to furnish him with what he wanted,
and some expressed admiration for his new method of paying bills.
"But, to save his own time, Edison had to hire a bookkeeper whose
inefficiency made him regret for a while the change in his way of doing
business. He tells of one of his experiences with this accountant:
"'After the first three months I told him to go through his books and
see how much we had made.
"Three thousand dollars!" he told me after studying a while. So, to
celebrate this, I gave a dinner to several of the staff.
"'Two days after that he came to tell me he had made a big mistake, for
we had _lost_ five hundred dollars. Several days later he came round
again and tried to prove to me that we had made seven thousand dollars
in the three months!'
"This was so disconcerting that the inventor decided to change
bookkeepers, but he never 'counted his chickens before they were
hatched.' In other words, he did not believe that he had made anything
till he had paid all his bills and had his money safe in the bank.
"Mr. Edison once made the remark that when Jay Gould got possession of
the Western Union Telegraph Company, no further progress in telegraphy
was possible, because Gould took no pride in building up. All he cared
for was money, only money.
"The opposite was true of Edison. While he had decided to invent only
that which was of commercial value, it was not on account of the money
but because that which millions of people will buy is of the greatest
value to the world.
"After he stopped telegraphing, Edison turned his mind to many
inventions. It is not generally known that the first successful, widely
sold typewriter was perfected by him.
"This typewriter proved a difficult thing to make commercial. The
alignment of the letters was very bad. One letter would be one-sixteenth
of an inch above the others, and all the letters wanted to wander out of
line. He worked on it till the machine gave fair results. The typewriter
he got into commercial shape is now known as the Remington.
"It is not hard to understand that Mr. Edison invented the American
District Messenger call-box system, which has been superseded by the
telephone, but very few people know when they are eating caramels and
other sticky confectionery that wax or paraffin paper was invented by
Edison. Also the tasimeter, an instrument so delicate that it measures
the heat of the most distant star, Arcturus. One of the few vacations
Mr. Edison allowed himself was when he traveled to the Rocky Mountains
to witness a total eclipse of the sun and experiment on certain stars
with his tasimeter, and this very clearly shows that Mr. Edison is as
much interested in the advancement of science as in matters purely
commercial."
CHAPTER XXV
THE GENIUS OF THE AGE
"I want to tell you something more about the personal side of this great
man," continued the voice from the horn.
"One of the striking things about Thomas Alva Edison is his gameness. In
this respect he has been greater than Napoleon, who was not always a
'good loser,' for he had come to regard himself as bound to win, whether
or no; so when everything went against him, he expressed himself by
kicking against Fate. But when Edison saw the hard work of nine years
which had cost him two million dollars vanish one night in a sudden
storm, he only laughed and said, 'I never took much stock in spilt
milk.'
"When his laboratories were burned or he suffered great reverses, Edison
considered them merely the fortunes of war. In this respect he was most
like General Washington, who, though losing more battles than he gained,
learned to 'snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,' and win immortal
success.
"Some of Edison's discoveries were dramatic and amusing. During his
telephone experiments he learned the power of a diaphragm to take up
sound vibrations, and he had made a little toy that, when you talked
into the funnel, would start a paper man sawing wood. Then he came to
the conclusion that if he could record the movements of the diaphragm
well enough he could cause such records to reproduce the movements
imparted to them by the human voice.
"But in place of using a disk, he got up a small machine with a cylinder
provided with grooves around the surface. Over this some tinfoil was to
be placed and he gave it to an assistant to construct. Edison had but
little faith that it would work, but he said he wanted to get up a
machine that would 'talk back.' The assistant thought it was ridiculous
to expect such a thing, but he went ahead and followed the directions
given him. Edison has told of this:
"'When it was finished and the foil was put on, I shouted a verse of
"Mary had a little lamb" into the crude little machine. Then I adjusted
the reproducer, which when he began to operate it, proceeded to grind
out--
"'Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow,
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go'
"with the very quality and tones of my voice! We were never so taken back
in our lives. All hands were called in to witness the phenomenon and,
recovering from their astonishment, the boys joined hands and danced
around me, singing and shouting in their excitement. Then each yelled
something at the machine--bits of slang or slurs--and it made them roar
to hear that funny little contraption 'sass back!'
"Edison has always had a saving sense of humor. Though such a driver for
work--sometimes twenty hours a day seemed too short and they often
worked all of twenty-four,--there was not unfrequently a jolly,
prank-playing relaxation among the employees in the laboratory. If some
fellow fell asleep and began snoring the others would get a record of it
and play it later for the culprit or they would fix up a 'squawkophone'
to outdo his racket. Most amusing was Edison's means of taking a short
nap by curling up in an ordinary roll-top desk, and then turning over
without falling out.
"Everybody knows Edison really invented the telephone--that is, he made
it work perfectly and brought it to the greatest commercial value, so
that a billion men, women and children are using it in nearly all the
languages and dialects in the civilized world. But he was very careful
to give Dr. Alexander Graham Bell credit for his original work on this
great invention.
"When a friend on the other side of the Atlantic wired that the English
had offered 'thirty thousand' for the rights to one of Edison's
improvements to the telephone for that country, it was promptly
accepted. When the draft came the inventor found, much to his surprise,
that it was for thirty thousand _pounds_--nearly one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars.
"The phonograph or talking machine has been considered one of Edison's
greatest inventions, but it does not compare in importance and value
with the electric incandescent burner light. This required many
thousands of experiments and tests to get a filament that would burn
long enough in a vacuum to make the light sufficiently cheap to compete
with petroleum or gas. During all the years that he was experimenting on
different metals and materials for the electric light which was yet to
be, in a literal sense, the light of the world, he had men hunting in
all countries for exactly the right material out of which the carbon
filament now in use is made. Thousands of kinds of wood, bamboo and
other vegetable substances were tried. The staff made over fifty
thousand experiments in all for this one purpose. This illustrates the
art and necessity of taking pains, one of Mr. Edison's greatest
characteristics. The story of producing electric light would fill a big
volume.
"When the proper filament was discovered and applied there was great
rejoicing in the laboratory and a regular orgy of playing pranks and
fun.
"The philosophers say we measure time by the succession of ideas. If
this is true the time must have been longer and seemed shorter in
Edison's laboratories than anywhere else. The great inventor seldom
carried a watch and seemed not to like to have clocks about.
"Soon after he was married, the story went the rounds of the press that
within an hour or two after the ceremony, Edison became so engrossed
with an invention that he forgot that it was his wedding day. Edison has
declared this story to be untrue.
"'That's just one of the kind of yarns,' said the inventor laughing,
'that the reporters have to make up when they run short of news. It was
the invention of an imaginative chap who knows I'm a little
absent-minded. I never forgot that I was married.
"'But there was an incident that may have given a little color to such a
story. On our wedding day a lot of stock tickers were returned to the
factory and were said to need overhauling.
"'About an hour after the ceremony I was reminded of those tickers and
when we got to our new home, I told my wife about them, adding that I
would like to walk down to the factory a little while and see if the
boys had found out what was the matter.
"'She consented and I went down and found an assistant working on the
job. We both monkeyed with the machines an hour or two before we got
them to rights. Then I went home.
"'My wife and I laughed at the story at first, but when we came across
it about every other week, it began to get rather stale. It was one of
those canards that stick, and I shall be spoken of always as the man who
forgot his wife within an hour after he was married.'
"A similar yarn was told of Abraham Lincoln, which was equally false,
but even more generally believed.
"Out of a multitude of labor savers and world-beaters--and world savers,
too!--to be credited to Mr. Edison, it is impossible to mention more
than these:
"The quadruplex telegraph system for sending four messages--two in each
direction--at the same time; the telephone carbon transmitter; the
phonograph; the incandescent electric light and complete system;
magnetic separator; Edison Effect now used in Radio bulbs; giant rock
crushers; alkaline storage battery; motion picture camera. These are but
few of Edison's inventions, but they are giving employment to over a
million people and making the highest use of billions of dollars.
"With Mr. Edison's modesty it is difficult to get him to talk of the
relative importance of his inventions, but he has expressed the opinion
that the one of most far-reaching importance is the electric light
system which includes the generation, regulation, distribution and
measurement of electric current for light, heat and power. The invention
he loves most is the phonograph as he is a lover of music. He has
patented about twelve hundred inventions.
"Recent developments are proving that the moving picture, because of its
educational and emotional appeal is the greatest of them all. It is
estimated that more than one hundred millions of people go to one of
these shows once every seven days, which is equivalent to every man,
woman and child in the United States of America going to a movie once a
week. The motion picture reaches, teaches and preaches to more people in
America than all the schools, churches, books, magazines and newspapers
put together, and when it teaches, it does it in a vivid way that live
people like.
"Political campaigns are beginning to be carried on with the silver
screen for a platform. Writers in great magazines are proving, on the
authority of the Japanese themselves, that the American moving picture
is re-making Japan. Another, who has studied the signs of the times,
asserts that the only way to bring order out of chaos in Russia is by
means of the motion picture.
"Comparisons are of times odious, but not in this case, for there is no
man living, nor has there ever lived a man, except the Great Teacher,
who has more greatly and generally benefited humanity or cast a stronger
light upon the processes of civilization than Thomas Alva Edison."
At the close of another musical number there was a general expectation
of dismissal, a shuffling of feet and a murmur of voices. This was
checked suddenly by Bill. The boy had been near the receiver all the
while, on the chance of being needed in case of mishap, or for a sharper
"tuning in"; now he got what the others did not and rising he let out a
yell:
"Everybody quiet! Something else!" and in the instant hush was heard the
completion of an announcement:
"--Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts and other organizations of kindred
nature, upon their urgent invitation. We are making this announcement
now for the fourth and last time in the hope that it may be universally
received. Mr. Edison will now probably be here within an hour from this
minute. All the youth of the land who may avail themselves of radio
service will please respond and listen in. In a warmly appreciative
sense this must be a gala occasion."
"That's all, folks; I'm certain." Bill shouted the school yell and the
class year: "Umpah, umpah, ho, ho; it's up to you, Fairview, 1922!"
Then: "Bring 'em all back here, Gus."
But not one of them needed urging nor reminding. Separating themselves
from the rapidly diminishing and retreating audience came Ted, Terry,
Cora, Dot, Grace, with Skeets as a guest, Bert Haskell, Mary Dean, Lem
Upsall, Walt Maynard, Lucy Shore and Sara Fortescue, the entire bunch
eagerly attentive. They crowded around Bill and Gus and were well aware
of the purpose.
"Sure, we'll all be here, I'll bet a cow!" shouted Ted.
"Dot and I could listen in on our own radio," said Cora. "We've got it
finished and it works fine and dandy, Billy. We want you and Gus and
everybody to come over and try it. But we'll join in with the class on
this; eh, Dot?"
"Sure will," agreed Dot. "Ours is only a crystal set, but it has some
improvements you boys haven't seen. Wait till we get it all done, and
we'll give you a spread and a surprise."
"Say, Bill, this thing's great," Terry said. "Father is going to get me
an outfit in the city and I'll pay you and Gus to set it up for--"
"Set it up yourself, you lazy thing!" said Cora.
"If you please, miss, I've got other matters--"
"All right, Terry,--see you later about it. Now, listen, hopefuls.
You'll all be here, but this occasion is going to be incomplete, unless
we have a lot more on deck. We all want to get out, and scout round and
fetch in every kid that wants to amount to anything at all and is big
enough to understand and appreciate what's going on. And even then it
won't be quite up to snuff unless--"
"I know! You want Mr. Hooper here, too!" shouted Skeets. But in trying
to rise to make herself heard, she upset her chair and then sat down on
the floor, jarring the building. When the shout of mirth subsided, Bill
said:
"That's right. Mr. Hooper and Professor Gray. We'll have to tell them
about it."
"Father wrote that he's coming home to-night," announced Grace proudly.
"Great shakes! Did he? Gus, get on the 'phone and find out!" Bill
commanded. "Now, then, let's all get busy and----"
"Righto, Billy, but what will our folks think has become of us when it's
so late?" Dot questioned.
"I move we go into executive session!" shouted Walt Maynard.
"Sure, and the president of the class can call a meeting," said Terry
Watkins.
"It's up to you then, Billy," Cora agreed.
"I call it. Come to order and dispense with the minutes, Miss
Secretary," Billy grinned at Dot. "Motion in order to send a committee
to inform all the girls' parents."
"I make that motion," said Bert.
"Second it. The boys' parents can get wise by radio," asserted Ted.
"Bert and Ted appointed. Get out and get busy!" Bill was no joke as an
executive. "Here's Gus. Did you get Mrs. Hooper?"
"I sure did. Mr. Hooper got home an hour ago."
"Glory!" Grace, you're driving your little runabout? I appoint Grace and
Mary a committee to go and get Mr. and Mrs. Hooper here right off. No
objections? Don't fail, Grace, or we'll send the entire bunch."
"We'll fetch him," laughed Grace as she and Mary hurried out.
"Now then, everybody else, including the chair, is appointed a committee
to bring in every boy and girl in the town who will come. Work fast! I
wonder if we could promise some eats." Bill glanced at Terry.
"Yes; tell them there'll be refreshments!" shouted the rich boy. "It'll
be my treat. Bill, make me a committee of one to hive the grub. Cakes,
candy, bananas and ice cream; eh?"
"Done!" declared Bill. "Go to it, with the class's blessing!"
"Yes and Heaven's best on Terry Watkins," said Cora.
In a moment the hall was empty. Twenty minutes later the Hooper party
arrived and about three minutes thereafter who should appear but
Professor Gray, hurried, eager, registering disappointment when he saw
the empty room, then smiling as the Hoopers and Mary Dean came to greet
him.
"I had hoped to find my class here," he began and was interrupted by the
thump of Bill's crutch on the steps without. Forgetting his support the
boy leaped, rather than limped, forward, followed more sedately by
several lads and lasses he had rounded up.
"If this isn't the best thing that _ever happened_!" shouted Bill,
grasping the hands of the two men held out to him. "Both of you! And
you, too, Mrs. Hooper. Great! Just got back, Professor! And now we're
going to get the very thing we talked about, Mr. Hooper: we're going to
hear Mr. Edison's voice or that of his right-hand man, nearly three
hundred miles away. The rest of the bunch will be here in a minute. I
expect Gus and Ted and Cora to fetch in a few dozen besides. Hello,
here's Terry with the eats."
CHAPTER XXVI
GOOD COUNSEL
"This quite overcomes me," said Professor Gray to Mr. Hooper. "I hurried
back to invite some of my pupils to hear a message from Mr. Edison's
laboratory; but trust Bill to do the thing in a monumental fashion!"
"That there lad's a reg'lar rip-snorter, Perfesser. You can't beat him.
Well, now, let's set down here in the middle; eh, Mother? an' wait fer
what's a-comin'. I want a chance to tell the Perfesser 'bout that there
water-power plant an' what them boys done. Them's the lads, I'm
a-sayin'."
But conversation was out of the question, for in came another troop of
youngsters, landed by Cora, Dot and Lucy, followed a moment later by
more, invited by the boys, who had joined forces in the street. The hall
was half filled by an expectant and noisy throng. Of course, half of
them anticipated the refreshments more eagerly than anything else. These
were already, under the ministration of a young woman from the
confectionery hastily engaged by Terry, now becoming evident.
Bill was beside the radio outfit, silently listening with the ear
'phones clamped to the side of his head. Suddenly he arose and shouted:
"Quiet! Silence, everybody, and listen hard!"
Out of the horn again came the well-known voice of the transmitting
station official announcer:
"It gives us great pleasure to be able to broadcast very worth while
messages of helpfulness and cheer to the youth of America. This occasion
and opportunity was largely inspired by the Boy Scouts and the Girl
Scouts and it will interest you to know that the presidents, secretaries
and many of the executive officers of these splendid organizations are
now here with us in person to inspire the occasion. They have asked me
to express to you the hope that every Girl and Boy Scout--and I add
every other self-respecting girl and boy--has access to a radio receiver
and is now listening in to catch these words. I will now reproduce for
you a message from one of the world's foremost citizens and greatest
men, one who has brought more joy and comfort to civilized millions than
any other man of his time, and therefore the greatest inventor in
history; Mr. Thomas Alva Edison will now speak to the boys and girls of
America through his constant associate and devoted friend, Mr. William
H. Meadowcroft."
There was a slight pause. The silence in the hall was most impressive.
Bill cast his eyes for a brief moment over the waiting throng. There was
in the eager faces, some almost wofully serious, some half-smiling, all
wide-eyed and with craning necks, a tremendous indication of an almost
breathless interest. Then, from the horn came slow and measured accents
in a loud voice, perhaps a trifle tremulous from a proper feeling of the
gravity of the occasion, but it was perfectly distinct:
"Young people, I--"
"_That's_ Bill--hello, Bill Medders--when did _you_------?"
And the startled company, staring about, saw Mr. Hooper stumbling
forward in the aisle toward the trumpet.
"You win, me lads, you--"
Bill Brown could not help laughing at the impetuous honesty of his kind
old friend. Pointing to the horn, and placing his hand like a shell
behind his own ear, the amused boy signed to the excited old man to
listen.
"The old geezer looks like 'His Master's Voice,' don't he?" came like a
sneer from the background.
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