Radio Boys Cronies by Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron

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"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.

CHAPTER VI

THE BOYHOOD OF A GENIUS

The class had assembled again in Professor Gray's study and all were
eager to hear the second talk on Edison. There was a delay of many
minutes past the hour stated, but the anticipation was such that the
time was hardly noticed. During the interim, Professor Gray came to
where Bill and Gus sat.

"I hear that you boys intend to go to work in the mills next week," he
said. "Well, now, I have some news and a proposition, so do not be
disappointed if the beginning sounds discouraging. In the first place I
saw Mr. Deering, superintendent of the mills, again and he told me that
while he would make good his promise to take you on, there would hardly
be more than a few weeks' work. Orders are scarce and they expect to lay
off men in August, though there is likely to be a resumption of business
in the early fall when you are getting back into school work. So
wouldn't it be better to forego the mill work,--there goes the
announcement! I'll talk with you before you leave."

"But we need the money; don't we, Gus?"

"We do," said Gus.

"I wonder if the Professor thinks we're millionaires." Bill was plainly
disappointed.

"Oh, well, he didn't finish what he was saying to us. Let's listen to
the weather report," demanded Gus, ever optimistic and joyful.

The words came clearer than ever out of that wonderful horn. There was
to be rain that afternoon--local thunderstorms, followed by clearing and
cooler. On the morrow it would be cloudy and unsettled.

Bill felt as though that prediction suited his mental state! Gus was
never the kind to worry; he sat smiling at the horn and he received with
added pleasure the music of a band which followed. And then came the
second talk on the boyhood of the master of invention.

"It has been said," spouted the horn, "that high mental characteristics
are accompanied by heroic traits. Whether true or not generally, it was
demonstrated in young Edison and it governed his learning telegraphy and
the manner thereof. The story is told by the telegraph operator at Mt.
Clemens, where the red-headed conductor threw the train boy and his
laboratory off the train.

"'Young Edison,' says the station agent, 'had endeared himself to the
station agents, operators and their families all along the line. As the
mixed train did the way-freight work and the switching at Mt. Clemens,
it usually consumed not less than thirty minutes, during which time Al
would play with my little two-and-a-half-year old son, Jimmy.

"'It was at 9:30 on a lovely summer morning. The train had arrived,
leaving its passenger coach and baggage car standing on the main track
at the north end of the station platform, the pin between the baggage
and the first box car having been pulled out. There were about a dozen
freight cars, which had pulled ahead and backed in upon the
freight-house siding. The train men had taken out a box car and pushed
it with force enough to reach the baggage car without a brakeman
controlling it.

"'At this moment Al turned and saw little Jimmy on the main track,
throwing pebbles over his head in the sunshine, all unconscious of
danger. Dashing his papers and cap on the platform he plunged to the
rescue.

"'The train baggage man was the only eyewitness. He told me that when he
saw Al jump toward Jimmy he thought sure both boys would be crushed.
Seizing Jimmy in his arms just as the box car was about to strike them,
young Edison threw himself off the track. There wasn't a tenth of a
second to lose. By this instinctive act he saved his own life, for if he
had thrown the little chap first and then himself, he would have been
crushed under the wheels.

"'As it was, the front wheel struck the heel of the newsboy's boot and
he and Jimmy fell, face downward on the sharp, fresh-gravel ballast so
hard that they were both bleeding and the baggage man thought sure the
wheel had gone over them. To his surprise their injuries proved to be
only skin deep.

"'I was in the ticket office when I heard the shriek and ran out in time
to see the train hands carrying the two boys to the platform. My first
thought was: 'How can I, a poor man, reward the dear lad for risking his
life to save my child's?' Then it came to me, 'I can teach him
telegraphy.' When I offered to do this, he smiled and said, 'I'd like to
learn,' and learn he did. I never saw any one pick it up so fast. It was
a sort of second nature with him. After the conductor treated him so
badly, throwing off his apparatus, boxing his ears and making him hard
of hearing, Al seemed to lose his interest in his business as train boy.

"'Some days Al would stop at my station at half past nine in the morning
and stay all day while the train went on to Detroit and returned to Mt.
Clemens in the evening. The train baggage man who saw Al rescue Jimmy
would get the papers in Detroit and bring them up to Mt. Clemens for
him. During these long hours the Edison boy made rapid progress in
learning. And every day he made the most of the half hour or more of
practice he had while the train stopped at Mt. Clemens each way.

"'At the end of a couple of weeks I missed him for several days. Next
time he dropped off he showed me a set of telegraph instruments he had
made in a gunshop in Detroit, where the stationer who had sold him goods
had told the owner of the machine shop the story of the printing press.'

"The first place young Edison worked after he was graduated from the Mt.
Clemens private school of telegraphy was in Port Huron, his home town.
Here he had too many boy friends to let him keep on the job as a
youthful telegrapher should. Besides, he had a laboratory in his home
and found it too fascinating to take enough sleep. Between too much side
work and mischief, young Edison sometimes found himself in trouble. Some
of his escapades he has described to his friend and assistant, William
H. Meadowcroft.

"'About every night we could hear the soldiers stationed at Fort
Gratiot. One would call out: "Corporal of Guard Number One!" This was
repeated from one sentry to another till it reached the barracks and
"No. 1" came out to see what was wanted. The Dutch boy (who used to help
me with the papers) and I thought we would try our hand in military
matters.

"'So one dark night I called, "Corporal of the Guard Number One!" The
second sentry, thinking it had come from the man stationed at the end,
repeated this, and the words went down the line as usual. This reached
Corporal Number One, and brought him back to our end only to find out
that he had been tricked by someone.

"'We did this three times, but on the third night they were watching.
They caught the Dutch boy and locked him up in the fort. Several
soldiers chased me home. I ran down cellar where there were two barrels
of potatoes and a third which was almost empty. I dumped the contents of
three barrels into two, sat down, pulled the empty barrel over my head,
bottom upwards. The soldiers woke my father, and they all came hunting
for me with lanterns and candles.

"'The corporal was perfectly sure I had come down cellar. He couldn't
see how I had got away, and asked father if there wasn't a secret place
for me to hide in the cellar. When father said "No," he exclaimed,
"Well, that's very strange!"

"'You can understand how glad I was when they left, for I was in a
cramped position, and as there had been rotten potatoes in that barrel,
I was beginning to feel sick.

"'The next morning father found me in bed and gave me a good switching
on my legs--the only whipping I ever received from him, though mother
kept behind the old clock a switch which had the bark well worn off! My
mother's ideas differed somewhat from mine, most of all when I mussed up
the house with my experiments.

"'The Dutch boy was released the next morning.'

"Another escapade described by Edison was pulled off on the Canada side
of the St. Clair, in Port Sarnia, opposite Port Huron.

"'In 1860 the Prince of Wales (afterward King Edward) visited Canada.
Nearly every lad in Port Huron, including myself, went over to Sarnia to
see the celebration. The town was profusely draped in flags--there were
arches over some streets--and carpets were laid on the crossings for the
prince to walk on.

"'A stand was built where the prince was to be received by the mayor.
Seeing all these arrangements raised my idea of the prince very high.
But when he finally came I mistook the Duke of Newcastle for Albert
Edward. The duke was a very fine-looking man. When I discovered my
mistake--the Prince of Wales being a mere stripling--I was so
disappointed that I couldn't help mentioning the fact. Then several of
us American boys expressed our belief that a prince wasn't much after
all! One boy got well whipped for this and there was a free-for-all
fight. The Canucks attacked the Yankee boys and, as they greatly
outnumbered us, we were all badly licked and I got a black eye. This
always prejudiced me against that kind of ceremonial and folly.'"

CHAPTER VII

THE MAKING OF AN INVENTOR

"It was during the time young Edison was employed at Port Huron," the
radio continued, "that the cable under River St. Clair between that city
and Port Sarnia was severed by an ice jam. The river at that point is
three quarters of a mile wide. Navigation was suspended and the ice had
broken up so that the stream could not be crossed on foot nor could the
broken cable lying in the bed of the river be mended.

"The ingenious young telegrapher suggested signaling Sarnia by giving,
with the whistle of a locomotive, the dot-and-dash letters of the Morse
telegraph code. Or course, this strange whistling caused considerable
wonderment on the Canada side until a shrewd operator recognized the
long-and-short telegraph letters, and communication was at once
established--important messages being transmitted by steam whistles--a
gigantic system of broadcasting. This was a simple way out of a sublime
difficulty involving the affairs of two great peoples.

"But the too-enterprising operator had started so much trouble for
himself that he decided to find employment where his mind would not be
distracted from his job or tempted away from working out his chemical
and electrical experiments. Because of these he preferred the position
of night operator. His telegraph work was really a side line.

"On these accounts he found a job as night operator at Stratford
Junction, Canada West, as Ontario was then called. He was only sixteen
but his salary of twenty-five dollars a month seemed very small after
making ten or twelve dollars a day as 'candy butcher.' But on account of
the chances it gave him for experimenting, he resigned himself to the
smallness of his pay. The treatment he had received at the hands of that
train conductor had convinced him that he could not follow his bent
while working all day on the railroad.

"Mr. Edison likes to tell of the prevailing ignorance of the science of
telegraphy. He once told a friend:

"'The telegraph men themselves seemed unable to explain how the thing
worked, though I was always trying to find out. The best explanation I
got was from an old Scotch line repairer employed by the Montreal
Telegraph Company, then operating the railway wires. Here is the way he
described it: "If you had a dachshund long enough to reach from
Edinburgh to London, and pulled his tail in Edinburgh he would bark in
London!"

"'I could understand that, but I never could get it through me what went
through the dog or over the wire.'

"It was at Stratford Junction that the Edison boy began his career of
invention. From the first his chief aim was the saving of labor. In
order to be sure that the operators all along the line were not asleep
at their posts, they were required to send to the train dispatcher's
office a certain dot-and-dash signal every hour in the night. Young
Edison 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:

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