STRINGING THE AERIALS
Parkville was reached within a short time. It was still early evening.
The girls from Roselawn and their host and hostess found a number of
neighbors already gathered in the drawing-room, to listen to the
entertainments broadcasted from several radio stations.
They were too late for the bedtime story; but from the cabinet-grand,
like an expensive talking machine, the slurring notes of a jazz
orchestra greeted their ears as plainly as though it were coming from
a neighboring room instead of a broadcasting station many miles away.
Amy confessed that it made her feet itch. She loved to dance.
There was singing to follow, a really good quartette. Then a humorist
told some of his own funny stories and an elocutionist recited a bit
from Shakespeare effectively. The band played a popular air and the
amused audience began singing the song. It was fine!
"I'm just as excited as I can be," whispered Jessie to Nell and Amy.
"Isn't it better than our talking machine? Why! it is almost like
hearing the real people right in the room. And an amplifier of this
kind is not scratchy one bit."
"There is no static to-night," said Mr. Brandon, who overheard the
enthusiastic girl. "But it is not always so clear."
Jessie and Amy were too excited over this new amusement to heed
anything that suggested "a fly in the ointment." When they drove home
they were so full of radio that they chattered like magpies.
"I would put up the aerials and get a set myself," Nell declared,
"only we don't really need any more talking machines of any kind at
our house. Dear me! I sometimes wonder how the Reverend can write his
sermons, there is so much noise and talk all the time. I have tacked
felt all around his study door to try to make it sound-proof. But when
Bob comes in he bangs the outer door until you are reminded of the
Black Tom explosion. And Fred never comes downstairs save on his
stomach--and on the banisters--and lands on the doormat like a load of
brick out of a dumpcart. Then Sally squeals so!" She sighed.
"Nell Stanley," Amy said, "certainly has her own troubles."
"I do not see how the doctor stands it," commented Mrs. Brandon
sympathetically.
"The Reverend is the greatest man in the world," declared Nell, with
conviction. "He is wonderful. He takes the most annoying things so
composedly. Why, you remember when he went to Bridgeton a month ago to
speak at the local Sunday School Union? Something awfully funny
happened. It would have floored any man but the Reverend."
"What happened?" asked Amy. "I bet it was a joke. Your father, Nell,
always tells the most delightful stories."
"This isn't a story. It is so," chuckled Nell. "But I suppose that was
why they asked him to amuse and entertain the little folks at one
session of the Union. Father talked for fifteen minutes, all about
Jacob's ladder, and those old stories. And not a kid of 'em went to
sleep.
"He said he was proud to see them so wide awake, and when he was
closing he thought he would find out if they really had been
attentive. So he said:
"'And now, is there any little boy or any little girl who would like
to ask me a question?'
"And one boy called out: 'Say, Mister, if the angels had wings why did
they walk up and down Jacob's ladder?'"
"Mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Brandon. "What could he say?"
"That is it. You can't catch the Reverend," laughed Nell, proudly.
"And nothing ever confuses him or puts him out. He just said:
"'Oh, ah, yes, I see. And now, is there any little boy or any little
girl who would like to answer that question?' And he bowed and slipped
out."
The laughter over this incident brought them into Roselawn, where
Jessie and Amy got out, after thanking the kindly Brandons for the
evening's pleasure. Nell lived a little further along, and went on
with Mr. and Mrs. Brandon.
"If I can find the time," called Nell Stanley, as the car started
again, "I am coming over to see how you rig your aerials, Jessie."
"If I am allowed to," commented Jessie, with a sudden fear that
perhaps her father would find some objection to the new amusement.
But this small fear was immediately dissipated when she ran in after
bidding Amy good-night. She found her father and mother both in the
library. The package of radio books had been opened, and Mr. and Mrs.
Norwood was each reading interestedly one of the pamphlets Jessie had
chosen at the bookshop.
The three spent an hour discussing the new "plaything," as Mr. Norwood
insisted upon calling it. But he agreed to everything his daughter
wanted to do, and even promised to buy Jessie a better receiving set
than Brill, the hardware man, was carrying.
"As far as I can see, however, from what I read here," said Mr.
Norwood, "a better set will make no difference in your plans for
stringing the aerials. You and Amy can go right ahead."
"Oh, but, Robert," said Mrs. Norwood, "do you think the two girls can
do that work?"
"Why not? Of course Jessie and Amy can. If they need any help they can
ask one of the men--the chauffeur or the gardener, or somebody."
"We are going to do it all ourselves!" cried Jessie, eagerly. "This is
going to be our very owniest own radio. You'll see. We'll put the set
upstairs in my room."
"Wouldn't you rather have it downstairs--in the drawing-room, for
instance?" asked her mother.
"I know you, Momsy. You'll be showing it off to all your friends. And
pretty soon it will be the family radio instead of mine."
Mr. Norwood laughed. "I read here that the ordinary aerials will do
very well for a small instrument or a large. It is suggested, too,
that patents are pending that may make outside aerials unnecessary,
anyway. Don't you mind, Momsy. If we find we want a nice, big set for
our drawing-room, we'll have it in spite of Jessie. And we'll use her
aerials, too."
The next day Brill sent up the things Jessie had purchased, but the
girls could not begin the actual stringing of the copper wires until
the morning following. Ample study of the directions for the work
printed in the books Jessie had selected made the chums confident that
they knew just what to do.
The windows of Jessie's room on the second floor of the Norwood house
were not much more than seventy-five feet from the corner of an
ornamental tower that housed the private electric plant belonging to
the place. It was a tank tower, and water and light had been furnished
to the entire premises from this tower before the city plants had
extended their service out Bonwit Boulevard and through Roselawn.
Jessie's room had been the nursery when Jessie was little. It was now
a lovely, comfortable apartment, decorated in pearl gray and pink,
with willow furniture and cushions covered with lovely cretonne, an
open fireplace in which real logs could be burned in the winter, and
pictures of the girl's own selection.
Her books were here. And all her personal possessions, including
tennis rackets, riding whip and spurs, canoe paddle, and even a bag of
golf sticks, were arranged in "Jessie's room." Out of it opened her
bedroom and bath. It was a big room, too, and if the radio was
successful they could entertain twenty guests here if they wanted to.
"But, of course, father is getting a set with phones, not with an
amplifier like that one out at Parkville," Jessie explained to her
chum. "If we want to use a horn afterward, we may. Now, Amy, do you
understand what there is to do?"
"Sure. We've got to get out our farmerette costumes. You know, those
we used in the school gardens two years ago."
"Oh, fine! I never would have thought of that," crowed Jessie.
"Leave it to your Aunt Amy. She's the wise old bird," declared Amy. "I
always did like those overalls. If I climb a ladder I don't want any
skirt to bother me. If the ladder begins to slip I want a chance to
slide down like a man. Do the 'Fireman, save my cheeld' act."
"You are as lucid as usual," confessed her chum. Then she went on to
explain: "I have found rope enough in the barn for our purpose--new
rope. We will attach the end of the aerial wires with the rope to the
roof of the old tower. It will enable us to make the far end of the
aerials higher than my window--you see?"
"Necessary point; I observe. Go ahead, Miss Seymour."
"Please don't call me 'Miss Seymour,'" objected Jessie, frowning. "For
the poor thing has a wart on her nose."
"No use at all there. Not even as a collar-button," declared Amy. "All
right; you are not Miss Seymour. And, come to think of it, I wonder
if it was Miss Seymour I was thinking of last night when I thought
that woman driving the kidnappers' car looked like somebody I knew? Do
you think----?"
"Oh! That horrid woman! I don't dislike Miss Seymour, you know, Amy,
even if she does teach English. I think she is almost handsome beside
that motor-car driver. Yes, I do."
"Wart and all?" murmured Amy.
But they were both too deeply interested in the radio to linger long
on other matters. They laid out the work for the next morning, but did
nothing practical toward erecting the wires and attendant parts that
day. Amy came over immediately after breakfast, dressed in her
farmerette costume, which was, in truth, a very practical suit in
which to work.
The girls even refused the help of the gardener. He said they would be
unable to raise the heavy ladder to the tower window; and that was a
fact.
"All right," said the practical Jessie, "then we won't use the
ladder."
"My! I am not tall enough to reach the things up to you from the
ground, Jess," drawled Amy.
"Silly!" laughed her friend. "I am going up there to the top window in
the tower. I can stand on the window sill and drive in the hook, and
hang the aerial from there. See! We've got it all fixed on the ground
here. I'll haul it up with another rope. You stay down here and tie it
on. You'll see."
"Well, don't fall," advised Amy. "The ground is hard."
It had been no easy matter for the two girls to construct their
aerial. The wire persisted in getting twisted and they had all they
could do to keep it from kinking. Then, too, they wanted to fasten the
porcelain insulators just right and had to consult one of the books
several times. Then there came more trouble over the lead-in wire,
which should have been soldered to the aerial but was only twisted
tight instead.
The girls worked all the forenoon. When one end of the aerial was
attached properly to the tower, Amy ran in and upstairs to her chum's
room and dropped a length of rope from one of the windows. Jessie came
down from her perch and attached the house-end of the aerial to the
rope. When Amy had the latter hauled up and fastened to a hook driven
into the outside frame of Jessie's window, the antenna was complete.
At that (and it sounds easy, but isn't) they got it twisted and had to
lower the house-end of the aerial again. While they were thus engaged,
a taxi-cab stopped out in front. Amy, leaning from her chum's window,
almost fell out in her sudden excitement.
"Oh, Jess! They've come!" she shouted.
"What do you mean?" demanded Jessie. "We were not expecting anybody,
were we?"
"You weren't, but I was. I forgot to tell you," cried Amy. "They just
went around Long Island and came up the East River and through Hell
Gate and got a mooring at the Yacht Club, off City Island."
"Who are you talking about?" gasped her chum, wonderingly.
"Darry----"
"Darry!" ejaculated Jessie with mixed emotions. She glanced down at
her overalls. She was old enough to want to look her best when
Darrington Drew was on the scene. "Darry!" she murmured again.
"Yes. And Burd Alling. They telephoned early this morning. But I
forgot. Here they come, Jess!"
Jessie Norwood turned rather slowly to look. She felt a strong desire
to run into the house and make a quick change of costume.
THE FRECKLE-FACED GIRL