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[Illustration: THE THREE ROSELAWN GIRLS SANG THEIR TRIO.
“The Radio Girls on the Program” Page 197
THE RADIO GIRLS
ON THE PROGRAM
OR
Singing and Reciting at the Sending Station
BY
MARGARET PENROSE
AUTHOR OF “THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN,” “THE
RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND,” “DOROTHY
DALE SERIES,” “MOTOR GIRLS SERIES,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
BOOKS FOR GIRLS
By MARGARET PENROSE
_12mo._ _cloth._ _Illustrated._
RADIO GIRLS SERIES
THE RADIO GIRLS OF ROSELAWN
THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM
THE RADIO GIRLS ON STATION ISLAND
DOROTHY DALE SERIES
DOROTHY DALE: A GIRL OF TO-DAY
DOROTHY DALE AT GLENWOOD SCHOOL
DOROTHY DALE’S GREAT SECRET
DOROTHY DALE AND HER CHUMS
DOROTHY DALE’S QUEER HOLIDAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S CAMPING DAYS
DOROTHY DALE’S SCHOOL RIVALS
DOROTHY DALE IN THE CITY
DOROTHY DALE’S PROMISE
DOROTHY DALE IN THE WEST
DOROTHY DALE’S STRANGE DISCOVERY
DOROTHY DALE’S ENGAGEMENT
MOTOR GIRLS SERIES
THE MOTOR GIRLS
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON A TOUR
THE MOTOR GIRLS AT LOOKOUT BEACH
THE MOTOR GIRLS THROUGH NEW ENGLAND
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CEDAR LAKE
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON THE COAST
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON CRYSTAL BAY
THE MOTOR GIRLS ON WATERS BLUE
THE MOTOR GIRLS AT CAMP SURPRISE
THE MOTOR GIRLS IN THE MOUNTAINS
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK
Copyright, 1922, by
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
_The Radio Girls on the Program_
Printed in U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. SOMETHING OUT OF THE AIR 1
II. THE HURT AVIATOR 8
III. NOT SO BAD 16
IV. THE LOST WATCH 23
V. THE HOSPITAL DRIVE 32
VI. BELLE SNIFFS AT IT 40
VII. AMY TIES A KNOT 47
VIII. MONTMORENCY SHANNON 53
IX. TROUBLE IN PROSPECT 61
X. THE GIRLS HELP OUT 71
XI. OFF ON THE “WATER THRUSH” 78
XII. THE DOGTOWN TRIBE 87
XIII. A SURPRISE 96
XIV. A RATHER WET TIME 103
XV. NOT SO MUCH FUN 111
XVI. THE REHEARSAL 117
XVII. AN INVITATION TO A PARTY 126
XVIII. BILLY’S BIRTHDAY 136
XIX. COMPLICATIONS 144
XX. THE RIVAL ENTERTAINMENT 152
XXI. AN ACCUSATION 161
XXII. THE WITCH’S CURSE 171
XXIII. “DO YOU SEE WHAT I SEE?” 178
XXIV. THE GREAT DAY ARRIVES 188
XXV. A RADIO SUCCESS 196
THE RADIO GIRLS ON THE PROGRAM
CHAPTER I
SOMETHING OUT OF THE AIR
“Oh, come on! We’ll listen in on the radio concert, honey, and forget
it,” Amy Drew said soothingly.
“But she’s so mean!” insisted Jessie Norwood. “So awfully mean!”
“Of course she is. Did you ever hear of anybody by the name of
Ringold that wasn’t mean? Not me!” And Amy tossed her head.
“But that does not do a bit of good,” complained Jessie, her face
still crimson and her eyes moist. “I cannot, Amy, overlook Belle’s
rudeness just because it runs in her family.”
Amy giggled and sprang one of her jokes:
“Just because meanness runs in the Ringold family, like wooden legs,”
she said. “I know how you feel about that dress, Jess.”
Jessie Norwood looked down at the frock she wore so daintily with
eyes that were still clouded.
“If the Ringold’s cook, as Belle says, has a Sunday dress just like
this I’ll never want to wear it again. Not because her cook isn’t
just as good as I am,” Jessie added quickly, as she chanced to see
the expression on her chum’s face, “but because Momsy bought the
goods and had it made up by her own dressmaker, and it is supposed to
be a little different from what you get in the ready-to-wear shops.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Amy urged. “Belle’s talk isn’t as bad as the
measles, or some other fell disease. Come on. If we catch the concert
at four we’ll hear Madame Elva; and you know she is the very best on
the Stratford Electric Company’s program.”
The two Roselawn girls were walking up the boulevard from town on
this July afternoon. The wide highway was speckled with broken bits
of sunshine, patterned through the leaves of the tall elms. Now and
then an automobile purred past the girls on one of the two oiled
drives, or a horseman clattered by. Roselawn was distinctly the
better suburban district of New Melford.
“We could have such nice times in our set,” sighed Jessie, after a
long minute, “if it wasn’t for Belle Ringold and Sally Moon and their
crowd. They are forever interfering.”
“Static?” suggested Amy, grinning.
“No ether interference was ever as bad as Belle and Sally. See how
they are annoying the boys about that moonlight box-party they have
been trying to arrange for two weeks.”
“The present moon will be quite worn out before they get around to
the party,” laughed Amy. “And, anyway, Darry and Burd have gone down
to Barnegat to put the _Marigold_ in commission again. If Belle holds
off her moonlight party until they get back she’ll wait till frost.”
“Oh! You don’t mean that the boys will stay away all summer, Amy?”
cried her chum.
“No,” rejoined Amy demurely. “I meant it will be a frost for Belle
and Sally. Darry positively refuses to be roped in by Belle and her
crowd.”
“I never did feel like this about any other girl,” Jessie Norwood
confessed. “But I don’t really believe there ever was such an
unpleasant girl as Belle Ringold.”
“Oh, yes, there must have been at least one,” said Amy, the
irrepressible, and giggling again. “Her mother, Mrs. Ringold, is
beloved for the same virtues that endears Belle to us girls. Or, do I
say ‘we girls’?”
“You may say what you please—grammatically,” replied Jessie, smiling
again. “It is vacation, and even Miss Seymour has gone away. However,
I suppose we should not criticise Belle’s mother.”
“Dear me, honey,” groaned Amy. “You are so good you make me ache.
If Belle had spoken as nastily to me as she did to you, I would
positively hate her and all her relatives.”
“Look!” murmured Jessie Norwood suddenly. It was evident that she had
not given much attention to her chum.
“Look! I thought from the way the radio sounded last evening that the
aerial was twisted.”
They were now in sight of the Norwood place, which was one of the
show places of Roselawn. At one side an opening in the trees gave a
view of Lake Monenset. Across the broad boulevard from the automobile
entrance to the Norwood grounds, set upon another terraced lawn, was
the Drew house, where Amy lived with her parents and her brother,
Darrington Drew, when he was at home. The girls were high school
pupils, but Darrington had just finished his first year at Yale.
Amy, staring in the direction her chum pointed, between the Norwood
house and a tower at one side, shook her head with mock sadness.
“I really do believe, Jess,” said she, “that there is something in
the air besides static. There must be imps that twist those wires.
You know it isn’t a week since we lowered the whole thing and took
the twists out.”
“I don’t suppose we really have more trouble with our radio than
other amateurs. Come on, Amy! Let’s get into our working togs and do
a good job while we are about it.”
“All right,” agreed Amy. “Lucky I left my radio suit over here.”
“Your what?” asked her chum, laughing, as the two ran up the veranda
steps.
“Radio suit,” repeated Amy seriously. “Those overalls were once our
farmerette costumes; but the war is over and the sword is beaten into
a plowshare, and our farmerette overalls have become radio rigging
suits. Whew! Don’t go so fast, Jess. I can’t climb stairs and talk at
the same time.”
In Jessie’s bedroom the two girls changed to the overall suits Amy
had mentioned. Young as Jessie Norwood was, she had a suite of rooms
to herself. In the long sitting room was her radio cabinet, a much
better set than the ordinary house instrument. It had a two-step
amplifier and a horn, but there were the usual headphones as well.
“That concert is due right now,” Jessie said, coming out into the big
room. “Let us see how it sounds before we lower the aerial. It may
have been partly static last night.”
She opened the receiving switch and fastened on the head harness.
Amy came over and sat down, likewise affixing one set of the
phones. Jessie tuned the machine with practised hand. At first the
chattering noises in the air meant nothing intelligible.
“But it’s awfully loud,” murmured the puzzled Amy. “Why, Jess! I
never heard your set so loud.”
“Goodness! That isn’t radio,” Jessie declared suddenly.
“Wha-a-at?” drawled the puzzled Amy.
“That’s an airplane!” cried Jessie. “It must be coming right this
way.”
“Oh! Over the house!” gasped her chum. “It’s zooming, Jess! Look!”
She tore the phone-tabs from her ears and darted to the window.
Jessie could see out from where she sat. The noise of the aeroplane
grew louder.
It was swooping so low that involuntarily the girls screamed.
“It—it will hit the house!” gasped Jessie.
“What can he be thinking of?” Amy demanded in equal amazement. “He is
swooping so low——”
In seeming recklessness the aviator volplaned downward. Suddenly
the roaring of the engine passed. If the pilot did not manage his
controls within a dozen seconds in a way to shoot the plane upward
again, there must surely be a catastrophe.
Jessie left her seat at the radio and thrust her head and shoulders
out of the open window beside her chum. The nose of the plane
continued to slant downward. The girls screamed again, for a wing of
the plane struck the roof of the tower to which the farther end of
the radio aerial was fastened.
“He’ll be killed!” shrieked Jessie.
The plane seemed about to turn turtle. It crashed against the radio
antenna and tore it from its fastenings. Then with a deafening crash
the machine landed on the lawn, utterly wrecking one of the big rose
gardens.
What had become of the reckless pilot the two girls at the window
could not see.