INTEREST IN RADIO SPREADS
Over the George Washington sundaes at the New Melford Dainties Shop
the girls discussed the mysterious happening on Dogtown Lane until it
was, as Amy said, positively frayed.
“We do not know what it was all about, my dear, so why worry our
minds? We shall probably never see that girl again, or those two
women. Only, that lean one—well! I know I have seen her somewhere, or
somebody who looks like her.”
“I don’t see but you are just as bad as I am,” Jessie Norwood said.
“But we did not come to town because of that puzzling thing.”
“No-o. We came to get these perfectly gorgeous sundaes,” declared Amy
Drew. “Your mother, Jess, is almost as nice as you are.”
“We came in to get radio books and buy wire and stops and all that
for the aerials, anyway. Of course, I shall have to send for most
of the parts of the house set. There is no regular radio equipment
dealer in New Melford.”
“Oh, yes! Wireless!” murmured Amy. “I had almost forgotten that.”
They trotted across the street to the bookstore. Motors were coming
up from the station now, and from New York. They waved their hands
to several motoring acquaintances, and just outside Ye Craftsman’s
Bookshop they ran into Nell Stanley, who they knew had no business
at all there on Main Street at this hour of the afternoon. Nell was
the minister’s daughter, and there were a number of little motherless
Stanleys at the parsonage (Amy said “a whole raft of them”) who
usually needed the older sister’s attention, approaching supper time.
“Oh, I’ve a holiday,” laughed Nell, who was big and strong and really
handsome, Jessie thought, her coloring was so fresh, her chestnut
hair so abundant, her gray eyes so brilliantly intelligent, and
her teeth so dazzling. “Aunt Freda is at the house and she and the
Reverend told me to go out and not to show myself back home for
_hours_.”
“Bully-good!” declared Amy. “You’ll come home to dinner with me, and
we will spend the evening with Jess helping her build a radio thing
so we can do without buying the New Melford _Tribune_ to get the
local news.”
“Oh, Jess, dear, _are_ you going to have a radio?” cried Nell. “It’s
just wonderful. Reverend says he may have to broadcast his sermons
pretty soon or else be without an audience.”
The pet name by which she usually spoke of her father, the Reverend
Doctor Stanley, sounded all right when Nell said it. Nobody else
ever called the good clergyman by it. But Nell was something between
a daughter and a wife to the hard working Doctor Stanley. And she
certainly was a thoughtful and “mothering” sister to the little ones.
“But,” Nell added, “you are too late inviting me to the eats, Amy,
honey. It can’t be done. I’m promised. Mr. Brandon and his wife saw
me first, and I am to dine with them. Then they are going to take me
in their car out to the Parkville home of their daughter—Oh, say!
If your radio isn’t finished, Jess, why can’t you and Amy come with
us? The Brandon car is big enough. And they tell me Mrs. Brandon’s
daughter has got a perfectly wonderful set at her home. They have an
amplifier, and you don’t have to use phones at all. Has your radio
set got an amplifier, Jess?”
“But I haven’t got it yet,” cried Jess. “I only hope to have it.”
“Then you and Amy come and hear a real one,” said Nell.
“If the Brandons won’t mind. Will they?”
“You know they are the loveliest people,” said Nell briskly. “Mrs.
Brandon told me to invite some young friends. But I hadn’t thought of
doing so. But I must have you and Amy. We’ll be along for you girls
at about seven-forty-five, new time.”
“Then we must hurry,” declared Jess, as the minister’s daughter ran
away.
“I’m getting interested,” announced Amy. “Is this radio business like
a talking machine?”
“Only better,” said her chum. “Come on. I know several of the little
books I want to get. I wrote down the names.”
They dived down the four steps into the basement bookshop. It was a
fine place to browse, when one had an hour to spare. But the chums
from Roselawn were not in browsing mood on this occasion.
They knew exactly what they wanted—at least, Jessie Norwood did—and
somewhat to their surprise right near the front door of the shop was
a “radio table.”
“Oh, yes, young ladies,” said the clerk who came to wait upon them
only when he saw that they had made their selections, “we have quite
a call for books on that topic. It is becoming a fad, and quite
wonderful, too. I have thought some of buying a radio set myself.”
“We’re going to build one,” declared Amy with her usual prompt
assurance.
“Are you? You two girls? Well, I don’t know why you shouldn’t. Lots
of boys are doing so.”
“And anything a boy can do a girl ought to do a little better,” Amy
added.
The clerk laughed as he wrapped up the several books Jessie had
charged to her father’s account. “You let me know how you get on
building it, will you?” he said. “Maybe I can get some ideas from
your experience.”
“We’ll show ’em!” declared Amy, all in a glow of excitement. “And why
do you suppose, Jess, folks always have to suggest that girls can’t
do what boys can? Isn’t it ridiculous!”
“Very,” agreed Jessie. “Although, just as I pointed out a while ago,
it would have been handy if Darry or Burd had been with us when we
saw that poor girl kidnaped.”
“Of course! But, then, those boys are college men.” She giggled. “And
I wager Burd is a sea-sick college man just now.”
“Oh! Have they gone out in the _Marigold_?” cried Jessie.
“They left New Haven the minute they could get away and joined the
yacht at Groton, over across from New London, where it has been tied
up all winter. Father insisted that Darry shouldn’t touch the yacht,
when Uncle Will died and left it to him last fall, until the college
year was ended. We got a marconigram last night that they had passed
Block Island going out. And _now_—well, Burd never was at sea before,
you know,” and Amy laughed again.
“It has been rather windy. I suppose it must be rough out in the
ocean. Oh, Amy!” Jess suddenly exclaimed, “if I get my radio rigged
why can’t we communicate with the _Marigold_ when it is at sea?”
“I don’t know just why you can’t. But I guess the wireless rigging on
the yacht isn’t like this radio thing you are going to set up. They
use some sort of telegraph alphabet.”
“I know,” declared Jessie with conviction. “I’ll tell Darry to put in
a regular sending set—like the one I hope to have, if father will let
me. And we can have our two sets tuned so that we can hear each other
speak.”
“My goodness! You don’t mean it is as easy as all that?” cried Amy.
“Didn’t you read that magazine article?” demanded her chum. “And
didn’t the man say that, pretty soon, we could carry receiving and
sending sets in our pockets—maybe—and stop right on the street and
send or receive any news we wanted to?”
“No, I sha’n’t,” declared Amy. “Pockets spoil the set of even a
sports skirt. Where you going now?”
“In here. Mr. Brill sells electrical supplies as well as hardware.
Oh! Amy Drew! There is a radio set in his window! I declare, New
Melford is advancing in strides!”
“Sure! In seven league boots,” murmured Amy, following her friend
into the store.
Jessie had noted down the things she thought it would be safe to
order before speaking to her father about the radio matter. Mrs.
Norwood had cheerfully given her consent. Amy had once said that
if Jessie went to her mother and asked if she could have a pet
plesiosaurus, Mrs. Norwood would say:
“Of course, you may, dear. But don’t bring it into the house when its
feet are wet.”
For the antenna and lead-in and ground wires, Jessie purchased three
hundred feet of copper wire, number fourteen. The lightning switch
Mr. Brill had among his electric fixtures—merely a porcelain base,
thirty ampere, single pole double throw battery switch. She also
obtained the necessary porcelain insulators and tubes.
She knew there would be plenty of rope in the Norwood barn or the
garage for their need in erecting the aerials. But she bought a
small pulley as well as the ground connections which Mr. Brill had
in stock. He was anxious to sell her a complete set like that he was
exhibiting in the show window; but Jessie would not go any farther
than to order the things enumerated and ask to have them sent over
the next morning.
The girls hurried home when they had done this, for it was verging
on dinner time and they did not want to miss going with Nell Stanley
and the Brandons to Parkville for the radio entertainment. Mr.
Norwood was at home, and Jessie flew at him a good deal like an eager
Newfoundland puppy.
“It is the most wonderful thing!” she declared, as she had introduced
the subject to her chum.
She kept up the radio talk all through dinner. She was so interested
that for the time being she forgot all about the girl that had
been carried away in the automobile. Mr. Norwood had not been much
interested in the new science; but he promised to talk the matter
over with Momsy after their daughter had gone to the radio concert.
“Anyhow,” said Jessie, “I’ve bought the books telling how to rig it.
And we’re going to do it all ourselves—Amy and I. And Mr. Brill is
going to send up some wire and things. Of course, if you won’t let me
have it, I’ll just have to pay for the hardware out of my allowance.”
“Very well,” her father said with gravity. “Maybe Chapman can find
some use for the hardware if we don’t decide to build a radio
station.”
As they seldom forbade their daughter anything that was not
positively harmful, however, there was not much danger that Jessie’s
allowance would be depleted by paying a share of the monthly hardware
bill. Anyhow, Jessie as well as Amy, went off very gayly in the
Brandon car with the minister’s daughter. Mr. Brandon drove his own
car, and the girls sat in the tonneau with Mrs. Brandon, who did not
seem by any means a very old lady, even if she was a grandmother.
“But grandmothers nowadays aren’t crippled up with rheumatism and
otherwise decrepit,” declared Amy, the gay. “You know, I think it is
rather nice to be a grandmother these days. I am going to matriculate
for the position just as soon as I can.”
They rolled out of town, and just as they turned off the boulevard
to take another road to Parkville, a big car passed the Brandon
automobile coming into town. It was being driven very rapidly, but
very skillfully, and the car was empty save for the driver.
“What beautiful cars those French cars are,” Mrs. Brandon said.
“Did you see her, Jess?” cried Amy, excitedly. “Look at her go!”
“Do you speak of the car or the lady?” laughed Nell Stanley.
“She is no lady, I’d have you know,” Amy rejoined scornfully.
“Didn’t you know her when she passed, Jess?”
“I thought it was the car,” her chum admitted. “Are you sure that was
the woman who ran off with the girl?”
“One of them,” declared Amy, with confidence. “And how she can drive!”
Naturally Mrs. Brandon and Nell wished to know the particulars of the
chums’ adventure. But none of them knew who the strange woman who
drove the French car was.
“She is not at all nice, at any rate,” Jessie said emphatically. “I
really wish there was some way of finding out about that girl they
carried off, and what became of her.”