S. F. Aaron

“ 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." ”

“ It was in and over the work of the boys’ shop that Bill and Gus first met the Italian student. Among the upper classmen they had noticed a small, olive-skinned, black-eyed chap, with a rather solemn face, who appeared to be very reticent. It was said that he was a close and a bright student who, though not lacking for money, took little interest in sports, belonging only to the “bruisers,” as the boxing class was called. One afternoon, with Gandy, who was getting a radio set made, the stranger appeared and stood in the doorway, gazing at the busy workers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nothing could have been more characteristic of the imagination and optimism of youth than the making of all these extensive preparations on the merest guesswork, and after the boys had arrived on the scene, not half a mile from Lower Gifford’s Point, doubts began to assail Bill with much force.
“By jingo, Gus! Here we are, at considerable expense and a deal of trouble, taking it for granted that we’re going to do wonderful things, and we even don’t know that the theory we are working on is worth a blamed thing.” ”

“ 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." ”

“ Gus wished Bill to talk for him—and Tony too—not that he needed moral support, but it was pleasanter to have good friends along than to be entirely surrounded by opponents. However, he felt quite equal to the physical task, and as ready to stand his ground morally.
“See here, you sophs,” he said. “I’ll box and gladly, but not in the way Siebold wants to.”
“Aw, what do you care how the other fellow feels? It’s a bout just the same; isn’t it?”
“But Mr. Gay doesn’t want us to show any hard feelings,” Gus urged, “and he’s decent to us. ”

“ The whole lot of you couldn’t haze anybody that puts up a fight, if you played anyway fair and gave a little notice. We’ll give you a dare, Siebold, you and all your deputies, though I suppose you’ll send them and hang back yourself. We’ll be ready to take all the hazing you fellows can give to-morrow afternoon at about three o’clock; only there isn’t one of you who will have the nerve to show up. Oh, ‘no weapons?’ That was only a cigar case I pulled on you to-day. It wouldn’t shoot, but, by cracky, it worked!” And Bill laughed, with Gus and a few others who admired the boy’s nerve. ”

“ 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. ”

“ From what Doctor Field said, Bill and Gus knew better. Hazing would be broken up on pain of expulsion, as it should be in all schools where the attendance is for business purposes, the getting of a technical education as a means of livelihood. The boys felt that perhaps in a college art course, where education becomes much play on the part of well-to-do lads, class fracases, bowl fights, initiations and the like may not be amiss, but they did not intend to let open brutality rob them of their chance to study. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No sound ahead, except the mother grouse making the sweetest music imaginable in calling her young ones together during a half minute. The coast must be clear,—but just as the boy was about to go boldly forward, a flash of light shone about him and his staring eyes discerned, not thirty feet away, the three watchers standing together. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is really too bad, with all the useless short syllables in our language going to waste, that the fellows who got up the terms for radio work couldn’t have used words like ‘grid,’ for instance. They could have called a variocoupler a ‘gol,’ a potentiometer a ‘dit,’ an induction coil a ‘lim,’ (l-i-m) and a variable condenser would look just as pretty if it were written out as a ‘sos’—but no! They forgot the good example set by the grid, the volt and the ohm and they went and used jawbreakers. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Davidson still eyed the cripple. “How would you do it?” he asked.
Bill shook his head and said, “It is that old trick of Edison’s and it’s dead easy. I guess a good many of our fellows know about it. You simply punch a hole in the bulb, fill it with water, pour it back and measure the water.”
“Yes; that’s right. It is really the only sure way,” said the man, his manner showing disappointment.
“Oh, no; it isn’t, begging your pardon. Oh, no, not the only way,” said Bill. ”

“ 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?" ”

“ A hundred yards ahead the woods ceased, and Gus knew that beyond were the ever-shifting sand dunes crowned with their short-lived scrub oaks or pines and tufts of beach grass which bordered a wild and lonely shore for many miles. Twelve miles to the south was a somewhat popular seaside resort. ”

“ CHAPTER V OPINIONS 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. ”

“ Then Bill offered his idea to the president:
“Doctor, we have a notion that this radio business right now ought to have a sort of celebration ’most everywhere; and our school might set the example. Radio is getting to be an awfully big thing, nearly as big as the movies. And now here’s Marconi. Couldn’t we start a general hurrah for radio, bring the apparatus down to the assembly room, have a big concert, send out some 55 messages and get Tony here, who knows Marconi, to give us a talk on the inventor of the wireless when he was a boy, and that sort of thing? ”

“ When the sound of the cornet ceased, there followed this announcement:
"My subject is the early life of Thomas Alva Edison."
Everyone settled down most contentedly and Gus saw Bill hug himself in anticipatory pleasure; the lame boy had always been a staunch admirer of the great inventor. There was no need of calling anyone's attention to the necessity for keeping quiet. Out of the big horn, as out of a phonograph, came the deliberate and carefully enunciated words:
"It has been said that 'the boy is father to the man.' That may be worthy of general belief ”

“ They went back, Gus to throw himself on old Dan’s couch and sleep like a dead man and Bill to take up the receiver phones, nodding over the table, to be sure, but remaining generally awake. For two hours he kept catching odd bits of no importance through long intervals. Then suddenly he sat up and, reaching over, poked Gus with his crutch. After two or three hard pokes Gus opened his eyes.
“Say, somebody’s calling for help! I can’t get it right, I reckon they’ve taken Tony away and out to sea again. Can’t tell who it’s from; it’s all jumbled, anyway. ”