Radio Boys Cronies; Or, Bill Brown's Radio — A Reader’s Guide

son was like young Napoleon in grudging himself the necessary hours of sleep. While the ingenious lad was fond of machinery--to make a machine of himself was utterly distasteful to him. It was against his principles and instincts to do anything a mere machine could do instead. So he made a little wheel with a few notches in the rim, with which he connected the clock and the transmitter, so that at the required instant every hour in the night the wheel revolved and sent the proper signal to headquarters. Meanwhile that wily young operator slept the sleep of the genius, if not of the just. Of one experience at this little place Edison relates:

"'This night job just suited me, as I could have the whole day to myself. I had the faculty of sleeping in a chair any time for a few minutes at a time. I taught the night yardman my call, so I could get half an hour's sleep now and then between trains, and in case the station was called the watchman was to wake me. One night I got an order to hold a freight train, and I replied that I would do so. I ran out to find the signal man, but before I could locate him and get the signal set--_the train ran past!_ I rushed back to the telegraph office and reported that I could not hold it.

"'But on receiving my first message that I would hold the freight, the dispatcher let another train leave the next station going the opposite way. There was a station near the Junction where the day operator slept. I started to run in that direction, but it was pitch dark. I fell down a culvert and was knocked senseless.'

"The two engineers, with a feeling that all was not as it should be, kept a sharp lookout and saw each other just in time to avert a fatal accident. But young Edison was cited to trial, for gross neglect of duty, by the general manager. During an informal hearing two Englishmen called on the manager. While he was talking with them the young night operator disappeared. Boarding a freight train bound for Port Sarnia, he made his escape from the five-years' term in prison threatened by the irate manager. Edison afterward confessed that his heart did not leave his throat until he had crossed the ferry to Port Huron and 'one wide river' lay between him and the Canadian authorities.

"Following his escape from Canada young Edison knocked about the home country, North and South. As it was during the Civil War he had some peculiar adventures. After making a long circuit, broken in many places by 'short circuits,' the journeyman telegrapher landed in Port Huron, and wrote his friend Adams, then in Boston to find him a job.

"His friend relates that he asked the Boston manager of the Western Union Telegraph office if he wanted a first-class operator from the West.

"'What kind of copy does he make?'" was the manager's first query. "Adams continues:

"'I passed Edison's letter through the window for his inspection. He was surprised, for it was almost as plain as print, and asked:

"'Can he take it off the wire like that?'

"'I said he certainly could, and that there was nobody who could stick him. He told me to send for my man and I did. When Edison came he landed the job without delay.'"

"The inventor himself has told the story of his reporting for duty in Boston:

"'The manager asked me when I was ready to go to work.

"'_Now_!' said I, and was instructed to return at 5:30 P.M., which I did, to the minute. I came into the operators' room and was ushered into the night manager's presence.

"'The weather was cold and I was poorly dressed; so my appearance, as I was told afterward, occasioned considerable merriment, and the night operators conspired to "put up a job on the jay from the wild and woolly West." I was given a pen and told to take the New York No. 1 wire. After an hour's wait I was asked to take my place at a certain table and receive a special report for the Boston _Herald_, the conspirators having arranged to have one of the fastest operators in New York send the despatch and "salt" the new man.

"'Without suspecting what was up I sat down, and the New York man started in very slowly. Soon he increased his speed and I easily adapted my pace to his. This put the man on his mettle and he "laid in his best licks," but soon reached his limit.

"'At this point I happened to look up and saw the operators all looking over my shoulder with faces that seemed to expect something funny. Then I knew they were playing a trick on me, but I didn't let on.

"'Before long the New York man began slurring his words, running them together and sticking the signals; but I had been used to all that sort of thing in taking reports, so I wasn't put out in the least. At last, when I thought the joke had gone far enough, and as the special was nearly finished, I calmly opened the key and remarked over the wire to my New York rival:

"'Say, young man, change off and send with the other foot!'

"'This broke the fellow up so that he turned the job over to another operator to finish, to the real discomfiture of the fellows around me.'

"Friend Adams goes on to tell of other happennings at the Hub:

"'One day Edison was more than delighted to pick up a complete set of Faraday's works, bringing them home at 4 A.M. and reading steadily until breakfast time, when he said, with great enthusiasm:

"'Adams, I have got so much to do and life is so short, _I am going to hustle_!'"

"'Then he started off to breakfast on a dead run.'

"He soon opened a workshop in Boston and began making experiments. It was here that he made a working model of his vote recorder, the first invention he ever patented.

"Edison has told us of this trip to Washington and how he showed that his invention could register the House vote, pro and con, almost instantaneously. The chairman of the committee saw how quickly and perfectly it worked and said to him:

"'Young man, if there is any invention on earth that we _don't_ want down here, it is this. Filibustering on votes is one of the greatest weapons in the hands of a minority to prevent bad legislation, and this instrument would stop that.'

"The youth felt the force of this so much that he decided from that time forth not to try to invent anything unless it would meet a genuine demand,--not from a few, but many people.

"It was while in Boston that Edison grew weary of the monotonous life of a telegraph operator and began to work up an independent business along inventive lines, so that he really began his career as an inventor at the Hub.

"After the vote recorder, he invented a stock ticker, and started a ticker service in Boston which had thirty or forty subscribers, and operated from a room over the Gold Exchange.

"The third talk on Mr. Edison and his inventions will be given from this broadcasting station WUK next Monday at the same hour."

As the young people rose to depart, Professor Gray beckoned Bill and Gus to remain. He turned to a large table desk, took from it a roll of papers, untied and laid before the boys a number of neatly executed plans and sections--all drawn to scale. In an upper corner was pen-printed the words:

Water Power Electric Plant to be erected for and on the estate of Mr. James Hooper, Fairview. Engineer and Contractor, J. R. Gray.

"Boys, you see here," began the Professor, "the layout of a job to be done on the Hooper property. You know I do this sort of thing in a small way between school terms and I am told to go ahead with this at once. The amount I am to receive, on my own estimate, is ample, but naturally not very great; it covers all material, labor and a fair profit.

"But now," he went on, "comes the hitch. I am compelled, by another matter which is far more important,--having been appointed one of the consulting engineers on the Great Laurel Valley Power Plant,--to desert this job almost entirely, and yet, I am bound, on the strength of my word, to see that it is completed. If I hand it over to another engineer, or a construction firm, it will cost me more than I get out of it. And naturally, while I don't expect to gain a thing, I would prefer also not to lose anything. Now, what would you fellows advise in this matter?"

Bill looked at Gus and Gus looked at Bill; there was a world of meaning, of hope and hesitation, in both glances. The Professor saw this, and he spoke again:

"Out with it, boys! I asked you to stay, in order to hear what you might say about it. There seems to be only one logical solution. I cannot afford to spend a lot of my own money and yet I will gladly give all of my own profits, for I must complete Mr. Hooper's job and look after my bigger task at once."

"I don't suppose," said Gus, with the natural diffidence he often experienced in expressing his mind, "that we could help you."

"Why, of course we can, and we will, too," said Bill, the idea breaking on him suddenly. "We can carry on the work perfectly under your occasional direction. Is that what you wanted us to say, Professor?"

"I did. I hoped you would see it that way and I wanted you to acknowledge the incentive to yourselves. I am sure you can carry on the work, as you say. We have had enough of practical experimentation together, and then, what made me think of you, was that fish dam you put in for old Mr. McIlvain last summer."

The boys glanced at each other again, but this time with mutual feelings of pride. Bill had interested a well-to-do farmer in making a pool below a fine spring and with his consent and some materials he had furnished. The boys had stonewalled a regular gulch, afterwards stocking the crystal clear pool they had made with landlocked salmon obtained from the state hatchery. The fish were now averaging a foot in length and many a fine meal the boys and the farmer had out of that pond.

"Now, fellows, I'll divide between you the entire profits," Professor Gray began, but Bill and Gus both stopped him.

"No, sir! You pay us no more than we could have got in the mill, and the rest is yours. Look at the fun we'll have, that's worth a lot." Bill always tried to be logical and he never failed to have a reason for his conclusions. "And then," he added, "this will be for you and we couldn't do enough--"

"I'll see that you are paid and thank you, also," laughed the Professor. "And tomorrow morning, if it suits you, we shall start with the work, which means making a survey of the ground and listing materials. There will be a segment dam, with flood gates; about an eighth of a mile of piping; a Pelton wheel, boxed in; a generator speeded down; a two-horse-power storage battery; wiring and connections made with present lighting system in house; lodge; stables and garage;--and the thing is done if it works smoothly. The closest attention to every detail, taking the utmost pains, will be necessary and I know you will--"

"Just like Edison!" Bill fairly shouted, making Professor Gray and Gus laugh heartily. The Professor said:

"Eight! And we shall hope to follow his illustrious example. Tomorrow it is, then."

When the two chums, elated over their sudden advancement to be professional engineers, came out on the street, they were not a little surprised to see all the girls and boys of the class waiting, and evidently for them, as they could but judge on hearing the words:

"Here they come! We'll get him started. Bill knows."

GUS HOLDS FORTH AGAIN

"Say, old scout," cautioned Gus, in a low voice, "better not tell about our job. Let it dawn on them later."

"Righto, Gus. It's nobody's business but ours. But what do the bunch want?"

Bill soon found out, however, when Cora and Ted came to meet him.

"We've had an argument, Terry and I, about Edison," said the girl, "and I know you can settle it. I said that--"

"Hold on! Don't tell me who said anything; then it'll be fair," Bill demanded.

"'O wise, wise judge!'" gibed Ted. "Ought to have a suit of ermine. Proper stunt, too. Let me put it, Cora; I'll be the court crier. Come on and let's squat on the bank like the rest. Judge, you ought to be the most elevated. Now, then, here's the dope: Did Edison really ever do anything much to help with the war?"

"He did more than any other man," Bill declared promptly. "Positively! Everybody ought to know that. He invented a device so that they could smell a German submarine half a mile away, and they could tell when a torpedo was fired. Another invention turned a ship about with her prow facing the torpedo, so that it would be most likely to go plowing and not hit her, as it would with broadside on. I guess that saved many a ship and it helped to destroy lots of submarines with depth bombs. It got the Germans leery when their old submersibles failed to get in any licks and went out never to come back; it was as big a reason as any why they were so ready to quit. Well, who was right?"

"I was!" announced Cora, gleefully. "Terry just can't see any good in Edison at all. He says he hires people who really make his inventions and he gets the credit for them. He says--"

"I don't suppose it makes much difference what he says; he simply doesn't know what he's talk--"

"You think you know, but do you? You've read a lot of gush that--" Terry began, but Gus interrupted him, almost a new thing for the quiet chap.

"Listen, Terry: get right on this. Don't let a lot of foolish people influence you; people who can't ever see any real good in success and who blame everything on luck and crookedness. And Bill does know."

"Anybody who tries to make Edison out a small potato," declared Bill, addressing the others, rather than the supercilious youth who had maligned his hero, "is simply ignorant of the facts. My father knew a man well who worked for Edison in his laboratory for years. He said that the stories about Edison making use of the inventions of others is all nonsense; it is Edison who has the ideas and who starts his assistants to experimenting, some at one thing, some at another, so as to find out whether the ideas are good.

"He said that the yarns they tell about Edison's working straight ahead for hours and hours without food and sleep, then throwing himself on a couch for a short nap and getting up to go at it again are all exactly true, over and over again. He said that one of the boys in the shop tried to play a trick on the old man, as they call him, while he was napping on the couch. They rigged up a talking-machine on a stand and dressed it in some of Edison's old clothes, put a lullaby record on it, lugged it in, set it up in front of the couch and set it going, to express the idea that he was singing himself to sleep. But while they were at this Mr. Edison, getting on to the joke, for he generally naps with one eye open, got up and put a lot of stuffing under the couch spread, stuck his old hat on it so as to make it look as though his face was covered; then peered through the crack of a door. When the music commenced he opened the door and said:

"'Boys, it won't work; music can't affect dead matter.' Then they pulled off the couch cover and all had a good laugh.

"Now. you can see," Bill went on, with ever increasing enthusiasm, "just how that shows where Mr. Edison stands. Nobody can get ahead of him, and there isn't anyone with brains who knows him who doesn't admit he has more brains and is wider awake than anybody else. There's nothing that he does that doesn't show it. You have all seen his questionnaires for the men who are employed in his laboratories and you can bet they're no joke. And his inventions--they're not just the trifling things like egg-beaters, rat-traps, coat-hangers, bread-mixers, fly-swatters and lipsticks."

"But some of these things are mighty cute and they coin the dough," said Ted.

"Oh, they're ingenious and money-makers some of them, I'll admit, but we could get along very well without them and most of us do. But think of the real things Edison has done. The first phonograph; improving the telegraph so that six messages can be sent over the same wire at the same time; improving the telephone so that everybody can use it; collecting fine iron ore from sand and dirt by magnets; increasing the power and the lightness of the storage battery. And there are the trolleys and electric railways that have been made possible. And the incandescent electric lamp--how about that? Edison has turned his wonderful genius only to those things that benefit millions of--"

"And he deserved to make millions out of it," said Ted.

"I guess he has, too," offered one of the girls.

"You bet, and that's what he works for: not just to benefit people," asserted Terry.

"I suppose your dad and most other guys got their dough all by accident while they were trying to help other folks; eh?" Bill fired at Terry.

But the rich boy walked away, his usual method to keep from getting the worst of an argument.

"Oh, I wish Grace Hooper were here," Cora said. "She's no snob like Terry and wouldn't she enjoy this?"

"And her dad, too. Isn't he a nice old fellow, even though he's awfully rich?" laughed Dot.

"He'd have his say about this argument, grammar or no grammar. He thinks a lot of this chap he calls Eddy's son," Mary Dean declared.

"Great snakes! Does he really think the wizard is the child of some guy named Eddy?" Ted queried.

"Sounds so," Cora said. "But you can't laugh at him, he's so kind and good and it would hurt Grace. He would be interested in radio, too."

"Wonder he hasn't got a peach of a receiver set up in his house," Lucy Shore ventured.

"Is he keen for all new-fangled things?" asked Ted.

"You bet he is, though somebody would have to tell him and show him first. Well, people, I'm going home; who's along?"

With one accord the others got to their feet and started up or down the street. Gus and Bill went together, as always; they had much to talk about.

On the day following the radio lecture, true to his promise, Professor Gray led Bill and Gus to the broad acres of the Hooper estate and there, with the plans before them, they went over the ground chosen for the water-power site, comprehending every detail of the engineering task. Professor Gray was more pleased than surprised by the ready manner in which both lads took hold of the problem and even suggested certain really desirable changes.

Bill indicated a better position fifty yards upstream for the dam and he sketched his idea of making a water-tight flood gate which was so ingenious that the Professor became enthusiastic and adopted it at once.