Radio Boys Cronies/Chapter V

The boys and girls filed out, after most of them had expressed appreciation of Professor Gray's interest in their enjoyment, and on the street a lively discussion started. Terry Watkins was laughing derisively at some remark of Cora Siebold, who, arm in arm with her chum "Dot" Myers, had paused long enough to fire a broadside at him.

"Why don't some of you smarties who talk so much about the wonderful things you can do make yourselves receiving sets! Too lazy? Baseball and swimming and loafing around are all you think about. But leave it to the girls; Dot and I are going to tackle one."

"What? You two? Won't it be a mess? Bet you can't hear yourselves think on it. Girls building a radio! Ho, ho, ho!"

"Bet there'll be a looking-glass in it somewhere," laughed Ted Bissell.

"Well, we aren't planning to ask advice from either of you," Cora said.

"No, and it would be worth very little if you got any," Bill Brown offered, as he and Gus, who had been detained a moment by Professor Gray, joined the loitering group.

"Thanks, Mr. Brown," said Dot, half shyly.

"Who asked you for your two cents' worth?" Terry demanded.

"I'm donating it, to your service. Go and do something yourself before you make fun of others," Bill said.

"That's right, too, Billy. Terry can't drive a carpet tack, nor draw a straight line with a ruler." Ted was always in a bantering mood and eager for a laugh at anybody. "I'll bet Cora's radio will radiate royally and right. You going to make one--you and Gus?"

"I guess we can't afford it," Bill replied quickly. "We're both going to work in the mill next Monday. Long hours and steady, and not too much pay, either. But we need the money; eh, Gus?"

"We do," agreed Gus, smiling.

Bill's countenance was altogether rueful. Life had not been very kind to him and he very naturally longed for some opportunity to dodge continued hardship. He wished that he might, like the boy Edison, make opportunity, but that sounded more plausible in lectures than in real life. He was moodily silent now, while the others engaged in a spirited discussion started by Dot's saying kindly:

"Well, lots of boys and girls have to work and they often are the better for it. Edison did--and was."

"Oh, I guess he could have been just as great, or greater if he hadn't worked," remarked Terry sententiously. "It isn't only poor boys that amount to"

"Mostly," said Bill.

"Oh, of course, _you'd_ say that. We'll charge your attitude up to envy."

"When I size up some of the rich men's sons I know, I'm rather glad I'm poor," said Bill, "and I would rather make a thousand dollars all by my own efforts than inherit ten thousand."

"I guess you'd take what you could get," Terry offered, and Bill was quick to reply:

"We know there'll be a lot coming to you and it will be interesting to know what you'll do with it and how long you'll have it."

"He will never add anything to it," said Ted, who also was the son of wealth, but not in the least snobbish. The others all laughed at this and Terry turned away angrily.

Bill, further inspired by what he deemed an unfair reference to Edison, began to wax eloquent to the others concerning his hero.

"I don't believe Edison would have amounted to half as much as he has if he hadn't had the hard knocks that a poor fellow always gets. Terry makes me tired with his high and mighty"

"Oh, don't you mind him!" said Cora.

"You've read a lot about Edison, haven't you, Bill?" asked Dot, knowing that the lame boy possessed a hero worshiper's admiration for the wizard of electricity and an overmastering desire to emulate the great inventor. The girl sat down on the grassy bank, pulled Cora down beside her and in her gentle, kindly way, continued to draw Bill out. "When only quite a little fellow he had become a great reader, the lecturer said."

"I should say he was a reader!" Bill declared. "Why, when he was eleven years old he had read Hume's History of England all through and--"

"Understood about a quarter of it, I reckon," laughed Ted.

"Understood more than you think," Bill retorted. "He did more in that library than just read an old encyclopedia; he got every book off the shelves, one after the other, and dipped into them all, but of course, some didn't interest him. He read a lot on 'most every subject; mostly about science and chemistry and engineering and mechanics, but a lot also on law and even moral philosophy and what you call it? oh--ethics--and all that sort of thing. He had to read to find out things; there seemed to be no one who could tell him the half that he wanted to know, and I guess a lot of people got pretty tired of having him ask so many questions they couldn't answer. And when they would say, 'I don't know,' he'd get mad and yell: '_Why_ don't you know?'"

"Hume's history,--why, we have that at home, in ten volumes. If he got outside of all of that he was going some!" declared Ted.

"Well, he did, and all of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, too."

"Holy cats! What stopped him?" Ted queried.

"He didn't stop--never stopped. But he had to earn his living--didn't he? He couldn't read all the books and find out about everything right off. But you bet he found out a lot, and he believes that after a fellow gets some rudiments of education he can learn more by studying in his own way and experimenting than by just learning by rote and rule. Maybe he's not altogether right about that, for education is mighty fine and I'd like to go to a technical school; Gus and I both are aiming for that, but we're going to read and study a lot our own way, too, and experiment; aren't we, Gus? Nobody can throw Edison's ideas down when they stop to think how much he knows and what he's done."

"He certainly has accomplished a great deal," the usually reticent Gus offered.

"And yet he seems to be very modest about it," was Cora's contribution.

"Of course, he is; every man who does really big things is never conceited," declared Bill.

"Oh, I don't know. How about Napoleon?" queried Dot.

"Napoleon? All he ever did was to get up a big army and kill people and grab a government. He had brains, of course, but he didn't put them to much real use, except for his own glory. You can't put Napoleon in the same class with Edison."

"Oh, Billy, you can't say that, can you?"

"I have said it and I'll back it up. Look how Edison has given billions of people pleasure and comfort and helped trade and commerce. Nobody could do more than that. War and fighting and being a king,--that's nothing but selfishness! Some day people will build the largest monuments to folks who have done big things for humanity,--not to generals and kings. Just knowing how to scrap isn't much good. I've got more respect for Professor Gray than I have for the champion prize fighter. You can't-"

"Maybe if you knew how to use your fists, you wouldn't talk that way; eh, Gus?" queried Ted.

"Well, I don't know but I think Bill is right. It's nice to know how to scrap if scrapping has to be done, but it shouldn't ever have to be done,--between nations, anyway." This was a long speech for Gus, but evidently he meant it.

Bill continued:

"Talking about Edison when he was a boy: he wasn't afraid of work, either. He got up at about five, got back to supper at nine, or later, and maybe that wasn't some day! But he made from $12 to $20 a day profits, for it was Civil War times and everything was high."

"I think I'd work pretty hard for that much," said Gus.

"I reckon," remarked Ted, "that he had a pretty good reason to say that successful genius is one per cent. inspiration and ninety-nine per cent. perspiration."

"But I guess that's only partly right and partly modesty," declared Bill. "There must have been a whole lot more than fifty per cent, inspiration at work to do what he has done. But he is too busy to go around blowing his own horn, even from a talking-machine record."

"He doesn't need to do any blowing when you're around," Ted offered.

Bill laughed outright at that and there seemed nothing further to be said. The girls decided to go on, Ted walked up the street with them, and Gus and his lame companion turned in the opposite direction toward the less opulent section of the town. There were chores to do at home and Gus often lent a hand to help his father who was the town carpenter. Bill, the only son of a widow whose small means were hardly adequate for the needs of herself and boy, did all he could to lessen the daily pinch.