A SPLENDID INSPIRATION
"Say, fellows, I've been thinking about something," said Bob
seriously, so seriously, in fact, that the three boys who had been
lolling on the grass turned over and regarded him with interest.
"Gosh, did you hear what he said?" asked Herb, with a grin. "He's
got an idea, fellows. Hold your hats, I bet it's a bear."
"Spill it, Bob," came from Jimmy, lazily.
"Gee, he sure is a wonder, that boy," said Joe, regarding his friend
admiringly. "I've never known him to run out of ideas yet. Not but
what some of 'em are rotten," he added, grinning. The next minute
he dodged a clump of moist earth thrown his way by the good-natured
Bob, the result being that the missile landed square upon Jimmy's
unoffending head.
The boys roared while poor Jimmy patiently brushed the dirt off,
inquiring in injured accents what the big idea was, anyway.
"Good work, fellows," crowed Herb joyfully. "That's bully slap-stick
work all right. You have a movie star beat a mile already."
"Say, cut out the comedy, will you, Herb?" asked Joe impatiently.
"I want to hear about this great idea of Bob's."
"I didn't say it was great, did I?" demanded Bob modestly. "It's
just an idea, that's all."
"Well, shoot," demanded Herb laconically.
Bob was silent for a moment, wondering just how he could best express
the thought that had suddenly come to him; just a little afraid that
the others might laugh at him. And where is the boy who does not dread
being laughed at more than anything else in the world?
The day had been unusually warm for the time of the year, and the
radio boys, turning their backs upon the town, had started out for
a long hike into the woods. The heat, together with a visit to the
doughnut jar just before meeting the boys, had wearied Jimmy, and
he had been the first to suggest a rest. And so, having come across
a talkative little brook, hidden deep in the heart of the woodland,
the boys had been content to follow Jimmy's suggestion.
Sprawled on the mossy ground in various ungraceful, though comfortable
positions, the boys lazily watched the hurrying little brook, throwing
a pebble into it now and then and talking of the thing that almost
always filled their minds these days--their radio outfits.
At last, urged on by the boys, Bob made public his idea.
"Why, I was just thinking--" he said slowly. "I was just thinking
how awfully slow things must be for the poor shut-ins--"
"What?" demanded Herb curiously.
Bob frowned. It bothered him to be interrupted, especially when it
was hard to express what he felt.
"Shut-ins," he repeated impatiently. "People who can't get out and
have fun like us fellows."
"Oh, you mean cripples like Joel Banks," said Herb with relief.
"Gee, did you just find that out?" murmured Jimmy, turning over on
his stomach and wondering if he really ought to have eaten that last
doughnut. "Some folks are awful stupid."
Herb showed a strong desire to avenge this insult, but Joe quelled
the threatened riot.
"Cut out the rough stuff, can't you, fellows?" he asked disgustedly.
"Give Bob a chance."
"Well," Bob continued during the temporary quiet that ensued, "I was
just thinking what a mighty fine thing it would be for these poor
folks who never have any fun if they could have a radio attachment
in their own houses so that no matter how crippled they were, they
could listen to a concert or the news, or any old thing they wanted
to, without going outside their houses."
"It sure would be fine," said Joe, a little puzzled as to what Bob
was driving at but loyally certain that, whatever the idea, his chum
was sure to be in the right.
"I don't get you at all," complained Jimmy, finally deciding that he
really should have left that last doughnut alone, there was beginning
to be a mighty uncomfortable sensation somewhere in the center of his
being. "Radio probably would be a fine thing for cripples but, gee,
we're not cripples--yet."
"Who said anything about us?" demanded Bob, disgruntled. "I never
said we were cripples, did I?"
"Well, spill the rest of it," groaned Jimmy as he shifted from one
side to the other in the hope of relieving the pain that gnawed at
his vitals. "What's the big idea?"
"I was wondering," said Bob, sitting up and growing excited as his
vague plan began to take shape, "if we couldn't get some of these
poor folks together and give 'em the time of their lives."
The boys stared at him and Herb shook his head sorrowfully.
"Gone plain loco," he explained to the other boys, with a significant
tap on his forehead. "They say life's pretty hard inside that asylum,
too."
"Loco, nothing!" cried Joe, beginning to understand Bob's idea and
growing excited in his turn. "You're the one that's loco, you poor
fish, only you haven't sense enough to know it. Where would we give
this entertainment, Bob? At your house?" he asked, turning to his
chum while Herb grinned at the suffering Jimmy.
"Now, they've both got it," he said dolefully.
"Well, I wish 'em joy of it," grumbled Jimmy.
"Why, I thought of that at first," Bob said in reply to Joe's
question. "Only with our instruments we have to use the ear pieces
so that only a few could listen at a time."
"That would be pretty slow for the rest of them," Joe finished
understandingly.
Bob nodded eagerly.
"Sure thing," he said, sitting up and flinging the hair back out
of his eyes. "I knew you'd catch the idea, Joe."
"Say, I know what we'll do," broke in Herb excitedly. "How about
taking all these poor lame ducks to Doctor Dale's house. He has a
horn attachment--"
"And they could all hear the concert at once! Hooray!" cried Jimmy,
momentarily forgetting his pain in excitement. "You've got a pretty
good head piece after all, Bob."
"Yes, and a minute ago you were laughing at me," said Bob, aggrieved.
"Well, say," cried Joe, who was ever a boy of action, "what's the
matter with our getting busy on this right away? Let's go and see
Doctor Dale--"
"What's your big rush?" Jimmy protested feebly, appalled by the
prospect of immediate action. "There's a lot of things we don't know
about this business yet."
"Sure, sit down and talk it over," urged Herb placatingly. "No use
gettin' all worked up over this thing, you know. Say," he added,
with a sudden light in his, eye, "that reminds me of a joke I heard."
But a roar of protest from the other boys drowned his voice.
"Gag him, some one, can't you?" Joe's voice was heard above the
uproar. "The last joke he tried to work off on us was so old it
had false teeth."
"Gee," cried Herb, finally released and disgruntled. "It's plain
to be seen real humor is wasted on this gang."
The boys let it go at that and eagerly plunged into a discussion
of the proposed concert.
"Who do we know that we can invite?" Joe asked practically. "The only
'shut in' I know is poor old Joel Banks. He's a fine old boy--went
all through the Civil War with colors flying. He's awfully old now,
and so crippled with rheumatism he can't leave the house."
"Fine!" crowed Herb irrepressibly. "Here's the first of our lame
lucks."
"Joel Banks isn't any lame duck! I'll have you know that right now,"
cried Joe hotly. "He's one of the finest old gentlemen you ever want
to see, and a hero at that. My dad says he would take his hat off
to him any day in the week."
"All right, all right," said Herb quickly. "Don't go off the handle.
I didn't know you were so strong for the old boy. Who's next on the
list?" he asked, turning to Bob.
"Why," said Bob uncertainly, "I know quite a few poor kids who were
crippled in that infantile paralysis epidemic--"
"Sure, so do I," broke in Jimmy, interested. "How about little Dick
Winters and his sister?"
"Fine!" cried Bob. "And I know a couple more I could pick up. Now
let's see! That makes--Gee, how many is it?"
"About five;" Joe figured for him. "That's enough, isn't it."
"Y-yes," said Bob doubtfully. "Only your friend, the old war veteran,
might not like to be squeezed in with a lot of kids, that way."
"I can fix that easily," said Jimmy, importantly. "What's the matter
with asking Aunty Bixby?"
"Who's she?" asked Bob, with interest.
"She's an old lady, a sort of spinster, I guess," Jimmy explained.
"She lives all by herself, and I guess she gets kind of lonesome
sometimes. She's kind of deaf, though," he added doubtfully.
"Deaf!" repeated Bob, with a frown. "How can she listen to radio
then, if she's deaf?"
"Oh, she has a trumpet," Jimmy hastened to explain. "She sticks it in
her ear like this," and he made a gesture with his hands at the same
time distorting his face into such a comical imitation of a deaf
person doing his best to listen that the other boys shouted with
laughter. "Oh, she can hear, all right," Jimmy finished confidently.
"Well, then, that makes six," said Bob briskly. "Now we've got to make
up our minds how we are going to get them to Doctor Dale's house."
"Maybe dad will let me take the big car," said Joe, his eyes shining
with the sheer daring of the thought. "He is so crazy about radio
himself these days that he will pretty nearly stand on his head to
help anybody who takes an interest in it."
"I guess all our dads are bricks about radio," declared Jimmy stoutly.
"Mine said the other night he was mighty glad to have a youngster that
had sense enough to pick out something really good to waste his time
on."
"Waste, is right," said Herb and then stared upward through the trees
as Jimmy's indignant stare was fixed upon him.
"Stop scrapping, fellows," said Bob, jumping to his feet and shaking
off some of the twigs and damp earth that stuck to him. "Let's get
busy and find Doctor Dale. If he won't let us have his house then
this thing is all off."
"Swell chance, his not letting us have his house," said Jimmy, getting
painfully to his feet and shaking himself for all the world like a fat
puppy dog. "He's the greatest sport going."
"He sure is," Bob agreed as they swung off at a great pace through
the woods. "If it hadn't been for him we probably wouldn't have known
anything about radio."
For a while they were quiet, their minds busy with plans for
perfecting their own radio outfits, their imaginations athrill
with anticipation of the wonders they were yet to perform.
Then Herb suddenly broke into their dreams with a very practical
question.
"Boys, I just happened to think--"
"'Happened' is right," murmured Jimmy, with a grin.
"Even if Joe does get his dad's car," Herb went on, unmoved, "it's
only a seven passenger, and there will be ten of us, counting the
lame ducks."
"Oh, that'll be all right," said Bob confidently. "We'll hire
a jitney of some sort down at the livery."
Thereupon they all plunged into a lively discussion of plans for
the concert, and so absorbed were they that they found themselves
walking down Main Street before they had any idea that they were
near the town.
As they neared the big stone church on the corner they espied a
familiar figure mounting the steps of the parsonage.
"Hooray!" shouted Bob, starting on a run down the street. "Just
in the nick of time, fellows. There's the doctor himself!"