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. 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.