"That talk with Mr. Harvey has certainly made me ambitious," remarked
Bob that evening, as the boys were tinkering with their radio set.
"Who was that poet who said:
'I charge thee, fling away ambition,
'Twas through ambition that the angels fell,'
quoted Joe.
"Pretty good dope, too, if you ask me," said Jimmy.
"I might have expected that that would hit you pretty hard," replied
Bob, with what was meant to be withering sarcasm, though Jimmy did not
"bat an eyelash." "But it doesn't apply to me at all. In the first
place, I'm not an angel----"
"How you surprise us," murmured Herb.
"So that what happened to angels needn't necessarily happen to me,"
continued Bob.
"I prithee, gentle stranger, in what direction doth thy ambition lead?"
asked Herb, at the same time looking around at the others and tapping
his forehead significantly.
"In the direction of that loop aerial that we were talking about before
we left Clintonia," answered Bob. "You know Mr. Brandon said it was
good, and you remember what he told us about the way the British used it
to trap the German fleet. That's been running in my head ever since.
What do you say to rigging one up and seeing just what it will do? If we
find it better than our present aerial, we'll use it altogether."
"Well, I'm ready to try anything once," chimed in Joe.
"I suppose here's where Jimmy gets busy in making a frame for it?"
suggested Jimmy, in an aggrieved tone.
"Likely enough," replied Bob heartlessly. "You need a little work to get
some of that fat off of you, anyway. But after you get the frame and the
pivot made----"
"Oh, yes, the pivot, too!" said Jimmy. "All right, go ahead. Be sure you
don't overlook anything."
"The rest of us will pitch in and wind the wire," finished Bob.
Jimmy heaved a long sigh, and to revive his drooping spirits, produced a
pound box of assorted chocolates that an aunt in Clintonia had sent him.
But Jimmy chose an unfortunate moment to exhibit these delicacies, for
at that moment Herb's sisters, Amy and Agnes, entered the room and
immediately espied the box of tempting confections.
"Oh, isn't that nice!" exclaimed Agnes. "Did you bring these just for
Amy and me, Jimmy?"
"Well--er--not exactly," stammered Jimmy. "I was figuring that we'd all
have a hack at them, I guess."
"But I thought boys didn't care for chocolate creams," said Agnes.
"They're just for girls, aren't they?"
Jimmy fidgeted uncomfortably, but before he could think of anything to
say, Herb came to his rescue.
"You'd better act nicely or you won't get any," he said with true
brotherly frankness. "If you're real good we may let you have one or
two, though, just as a special favor."
"I thought those candies belonged to Jimmy," said Amy quickly. "I don't
see what you've got to say about them, anyway, Herbert darling."
"I guess we'd better compromise," suggested Bob, laughing. "Suppose we
set them on the center table, and then we can all help ourselves. That's
fair enough, isn't it?"
"Yes it is not!" exclaimed Herb. "The girls'll eat them all while we
boys are fooling with the radio. But I suppose we might as well let them
have the things that way as any other. They'll get them some way, you
can bet on that."
"You're just mad because you can't have them all yourself," said Agnes
serenely, as she nibbled at a chocolate. "You boys go ahead with your
radio. We'll take care of the candies."
"What did I tell you?" said Herb disdainfully. "That's about all girls
think of anyway--eating candy."
"Oh, go on," said Amy. "We don't like them a bit better than you boys
do, only you won't admit it."
"They couldn't like them much better than Jimmy does, that's a fact,"
said Joe.
"Aw, forget it," said Jimmy. "We're all in the same boat when it comes
to that. Let's get busy with the radio."
The candy incident was soon forgotten in the interest of the concert
they heard that evening. There was an unusually fine program, one of the
features of which was a lecture on radiophony. The boys listened
attentively to this, and got some valuable information in regard to the
latest developments of the science. After this was over there were a
number of band and orchestral selections. The girls listened to these,
too, and when they were over, Agnes made a suggestion.
"Since your set works so well, why couldn't we give a dance?" she asked.
"You can always find a station that is sending out dance music, can't
you?"
"Say, that's a pretty good idea!" exclaimed Bob. "There are plenty of
other young people in the bungalows around here, and I don't think we'd
have any trouble in getting a good crowd."
"Fine and dandy!" exclaimed Joe. "By that time we may have our loop
aerial finished, and it will be a good chance to try it out."
"Suits me all right, provided I can work the set and don't have to
dance," stipulated Jimmy. "If I try to dance these hot nights, I'll just
melt away like a snowball in front of the fire."
"Maybe when some of the pretty girls around here come in you'll change
your mind," said Agnes.
"Well, we ought to have lots of fun, anyway," said Bob. "We'll leave it
to the girls to give the invitations, and we'll guarantee to furnish all
the music you want. We'll make Ocean Point sit up and take notice."
"You've got to ask some of the younger girls, too, and not just your own
set," put in Herb quickly, for his sisters were both older than he was
by a few years.
"Oh, of course," promised Agnes. "This will be a free for all."
The rest of the evening they spent in making plans for the forthcoming
party, and the next morning the boys set to work like beavers on the
loop aerial. They hardly paused for meals, and before the day was over
they had it completely made and set up. The girls, as well as the boys,
were greatly interested in the first test, and they all waited
breathlessly for the sounds that should issue from the throat of the
horn. It was not long before the boys picked up a concert that was going
on in Boston, and the effect was startling. After they had tuned out all
interferences the music came in sweet and full and in such volume that
they even had to tone it down a little. Mrs. Fennington, seated on the
porch, could hear everything distinctly, and applauded each number.
The evening of the party arrived in due course, and the guests all
arrived early, many of them curious and somewhat sceptical about hearing
dance music by radio. Agnes and Amy had told them about the
loud-speaking apparatus, and they were all prepared for something novel.
But it is safe to say that few of them were prepared for as pleasant an
evening as this one turned out to be. Receiving conditions had never
been better, and the boys had no trouble in picking up fox trots,
waltzes, or any other style of dance music. Between the dances they got
some more serious music that happened to be "in the air" from some other
station than that sending out the dance music, and their entire
apparatus worked like a charm all through the evening.
The radio boys did not spend all their time over the radio set, either.
They found plenty of opportunity to dance and laugh with the many pretty
girls who had been invited, and everybody concerned enjoyed the evening
hugely. Mrs. Fennington had provided plenty of ice-cream, cake, and
lemonade, articles which did not lack appreciation among the youthful
company.
When the party finally broke up all who had been present expressed
themselves as having had a wonderful evening.
"I think we just had a perfectly spiffy time," said Agnes, somewhat
slangily but with undoubted feeling. "I think I'll be as crazy about
radio as you boys are, pretty soon."
"It's about time," commented Herb. "You never cared so much about it
before, but now that you can dance to it, you think it's fine."
"Well, she's right," said Amy, coming to the defense of her sister.
"What is there that's better than dancing?"
"Oh, the world's full of better things," declared Herb. "But there's no
use my trying to tell you what they are, I suppose."
"You can't tell 'em anything," chuckled Jimmy. "They won't believe you
if you do."
"If we believed all the fairy stories Herb has told us, we'd have to be
pretty silly," said Agnes.
"Well, you're both pretty, anyway," said Joe gallantly.
"Thank you," said Agnes. "That's more than Herb would say in a hundred
years."
"I heard him saying that to one of the girls he was dancing with this
evening," said Bob slyly. "How about it, Herb?"
"Aw, you didn't anything of the kind," declared Herb, but he betrayed
himself by blushing furiously.
"Poor old Herb," said Joe. "He must be pretty hard hit. What do you
think, Bob?"
"Looks that way to me," answered Bob. "He sounded as though he meant it,
anyway."
"Well, so I did," said Herb. "If she hadn't been pretty, I shouldn't
have been dancing with her."
"Gracious! how my young brother hates himself," exclaimed Agnes.
"How can I hate myself, when all the girls fall for me so?" asked Herb
brazenly.
"Oh, you're a hopeless kid," said Agnes, laughing. "Come, Amy, I'm going
to bed," and the two girls said good-night and left the room.
"I guess it's about time we all turned in," said Bob. "We've had a
mighty fine evening, though, and I'm proud of the way our outfit showed
up."
The others felt the same way. They were just about to disperse when Mrs.
Fennington entered the room.
"This evening has been so successful," she said, "that I was wondering
if we couldn't give a concert in aid of the new sanitarium that is being
built here. They are greatly in need of money to carry the project on,
and I'm sure you would be doing a wonderful thing if you could help it
along."
The boys were for the project at once, and said so.
"But do you think people will pay to hear a radio concert?" asked
Herbert.
"Of course they will!" exclaimed his mother. "They pay to hear every
other kind of a concert, don't they? And when they know it is to aid the
new sanitarium they will be all the more anxious to come."
"I'm sure we'll do our share," said Bob. "We'll be glad to give the
concert, and if people shouldn't come to it, that wouldn't be our
fault."
"That will be excellent then," said Mrs. Fennington. "I'll speak to some
of the other ladies about it, and we'll set a date and make all the
arrangements."
"That plan of mother's reminds me of something I was reading about the
other day," said Herb, after Mrs. Fennington had left the room. "It was
in connection with that drive they were making for the disabled war
veterans. Do you remember the 'flying parson' that won the
transcontinental air race a couple of years ago? Well, he has a radio
attached to his airplane and he arranged to have an opera singer give a
concert over it. She sat in the plane and sang, and her voice was heard
over a radius of five hundred miles. Then the parson gave a short,
red-hot talk in behalf of the soldiers, and thousands of people heard
about the drive that wouldn't have known of it otherwise. They say that
money poured into headquarters by mail during the next few days."
"Good stuff!" exclaimed Bob. "Our work will be on a smaller scale, but
the spirit will be there just the same, and I bet our old radio will
rake in a heap of coin for the sanitarium."