A STARTLING ACCUSATION
Elated and triumphant, the radio boys shouldered their bags and set
out for home.
"This is the end of a perfect day," chanted Joe, as they trudged
along, tired in body but light in heart.
"For us perhaps, but not for Buck and his crowd," chuckled Herb.
"And those sneak thieves were the fellows who were talking about
burglars," laughed Jimmy.
The sun had gone down before the radio boys left the woods, and it was
full night by the time they reached their homes and disburdened
themselves of their load of nuts.
"I was going to ask you fellows to come around tonight and listen in
on the broadcasting concert," said Bob, as they reached his gate; "but
I guess our folks will be so much excited about the bear that they
can't talk or think of anything else."
"That's bearly possible," chuckled Herb, and grinned at the
indignation of his companions at the pun.
"But I think there'll be something doing at church tomorrow on the
subject of radio," continued Bob. "You fellows must be sure to be
there. I heard Doctor Dale talking about it to father."
"I'll be there if I can wake up in time," said Jimmy. "But just now I
feel as if I could sleep through the next twenty-four hours straight.
I'll be like one of the seven sleepers of Pegasus."
"Ephesus, I guess you mean," laughed Bob. "Pegasus was a horse."
"Is that so?" replied Jimmy. "Well, that's a horse on me. Don't hit
me," he begged, as Bob made a pass at him. "I'm stiff and sore all
over, without having that big ham of yours land on me."
Bob laughed and went up the steps, while the others made their ways to
their respective homes not many doors away.
As they had anticipated, the telling of the adventures that they had
gone through that day was listened to with breathless interest by all
the members of their families. At places in the story there was
laughter, but more frequently there were exclamations of alarm mingled
with great relief that they had come through safely.
"I tell you," said Bob, as he finished telling of the matter to his
parents. "I felt mighty cheap to think that I had run like mad from a
bear that, as the Italian said, was simply trying to 'maka frens' with
me."
"It was rather amusing after it was all over," assented his father,
with a smile. "But after all you were very wise to act as you did. It
isn't by any means certain that the bear would have been as friendly
with you as he was with his master, and resistance of any kind might
have awakened all his savage instincts. I am very doubtful about the
bear thinking it was only a game when he was climbing up after you.
But even if he did, you had no reason to suppose it. For all you knew
he might have escaped from a circus or menagerie and might have been
ready to tear you in pieces."
"That was my first thought; that is, as soon as I could think calmly
about anything," answered Bob. "But, after all, a miss is as good as a
mile, and he didn't get us. He came mighty near it though."
"The most serious outcome of the whole thing will probably be the
matter of the broken roof," said Mr. Layton meditatively. "It will
probably cost considerable to put it in perfect shape again. But,
after all, that doesn't count for anything as long as you boys weren't
hurt. I'll see Looker about it on Monday and fix the matter up with
him."
"And of course the fathers of the other fellows will chip in on the
expense," said Bob. "I'd like to hear what Buck is telling his father
about it tonight," he continued, with a grin. "By the time he gets
through, we'll have pulled the whole house down."
The next morning all the boys were at church in time for the morning
service, even Jimmy, who walked very stiffly and smelled strongly of
arnica.
"You fellows needn't sniff as though I had the plague," he protested,
as his friends lifted their nostrils inquiringly. "I was the fellow
who was underneath when you fell on me like a thousand of brick. You
got off easy, while I had all the worst of it. But then I'm used to
that," he concluded, sighing heavily.
"Cheer up, old boy," said Joe, clapping him on the back, at which poor
Jimmy winced. "The first hundred years is the worst. After that you
won't mind it. But now we'd better get in if we want to sit together,
for there's a bigger congregation here than usual."
Doctor Dale, the friend and counselor of the boys in radio, as in many
other things, was in the pulpit. He was a very eloquent preacher and
was always sure of a good congregation. But as Joe had said, the
church was even fuller than usual that morning, and there was a
general stir of expectancy, as though something unusual was in
prospect.
The attention of the boys was attracted at once by a small disk-like
contrivance right in front of the preacher's desk. It had never been
there before. They recognized it at once as a microphone, but to the
majority of the audience its purpose was a complete mystery, and many
curious glances were fixed upon it.
There were the customary preliminary services, and then Doctor Dale
came forward to the desk.
"Before beginning my sermon this morning," he said, "I want to explain
what will seem to some an unusual departure from custom, but which I
hope will justify itself to such an extent as to become a regular
feature of our service.
"There is no reason why the benefits of that service should be
confined to the persons gathered within these four walls. There are
thousands outside who by the means of radio, that most wonderful
invention of the present century, can hear every word of this service
just as readily as you who are seated in the pews. The prayers, the
hymns, the organ music, the sermon, the benediction--they can hear it
all. The only thing they will miss will be the privilege of putting
their money in the collection plate."
He paused for a moment, and a smile rippled over the congregation.
"I have said," he resumed, "that they can hear it. And if they can
hear it, they ought to hear it--that is if they want to. This is no
new or untried idea. It is being carried out today in Pittsburgh,
Washington, and other cities. The pulpit becomes a religious
broadcasting station, from which the service is carried over an area
of hundreds of miles. Everybody within that area who has a receiving
set can hear it if they wish. In some cases it is estimated that more
than two hundred thousand people are enjoying at the same moment the
same religious service. You can see at once what that means in
immeasurably extending the usefulness and influence of the church.
"Now it has occurred to me that we might do here what is being done
elsewhere on a larger scale. So, after a conference with the officials
of the church, an adequate sending set has been installed in the loft
of the building. What is said here is sent from this microphone to the
loft, where it is flung out into the ether. Arrangements have been
made with a number of churches in this county, too poor and small to
have a regular pastor, by which they have installed loud speaker
receiving sets in their buildings. At this moment there are a dozen
scattered congregations where the people have gathered to worship, and
where at this moment they are hearing everything that is said just as
plainly as you do.
"And in addition to that," he went on, "in hundreds, perhaps thousands
of homes, people who cannot go to church because of illness or some
other reason are listening to this service. The sick, the crippled,
the blind--think of what it means to have the church brought to them
when they cannot go to the church. You in the pews are the visible
congregation. But outside these walls there is today an invisible
congregation many times greater, to whom this service is bringing its
message of help and healing."
With this prelude, Doctor Dale announced his text and preached his
sermon, which, if anything, was more eloquent than usual. It seemed as
if he were inspired by preaching to the greatest audience that he had
ever had in his whole career, and the audience in the pews also felt a
thrill as they thought of the invisible listeners miles and miles
away. It seemed as though the natural were being brought into close
connection with the supernatural, and the impression produced was most
powerful.
If the doctor had had any misgivings as to the attitude of his people
toward this new departure, these were quickly dissipated by the
cordial congratulations and approval that were expressed after the
service was over and he moved about among them. It was the universal
opinion that a great advance had been made and that the innovation had
come to stay.
The radio boys had been intensely interested in this new application
of their favorite study, and after the sermon they went up into the
loft and examined the apparatus that had been used in sending. It was
a vacuum tube set with two tubes and power enough to send messages out
over the whole county. It had been set up by Dr. Dale himself, and
that was proof enough for the boys that it had worked perfectly in
sending out the morning service.
"What will radio do next?" asked Bob, as the boys were walking
homeward.
"What won't it do next is the way you ought to put it," suggested Joe.
"It seems as if there were no limit. There are no such things as space
and distance any more. Radio has wiped them out completely."
"That's true," chimed in Herb. "The earth used to be a monstrous big
thing twenty-five thousand miles round. Now it's getting to be no
bigger than an orange."
"What a fuss they made when it was proved that one could travel around
the world in eighty days," said Jimmy. "But radio can go round the
earth more than seven times in a single second. Just about the time it
takes to strike a match."
"Gee, but I'm glad we weren't born a hundred years ago," remarked Bob.
"What a lot of things we would have missed. Automobiles, locomotives,
telegraph, telephone, phonograph, electric light----"
"Yes," interrupted Joe, "and radio would have been the worst miss of
all."
"They're doing in the colleges now, too, something very like what the
doctor did in the pulpit this morning," said Bob. "In Union College
and Tufts and a lot of others the professors are giving their lectures
by radio. Talk about University Extension courses! Radio will beat
them all hollow. Think of a professor lecturing to an audience of
fifty thousand, instead of the hundred or so that are gathered in his
classroom. And think of the thousands of young fellows who are crazy
to go to college and haven't the money to do it with. They can keep on
working and get their college education at home. I tell you what,
fellows, Mr. Brandon was right the other day when he said that the
surface of radio had only been scratched so far."
The next day at school the boys found that the story of their
experience with the bear had had wide circulation, chiefly through the
activity of Buck Looker, who took care at the same time, however, to
express his belief that nothing of the kind had happened. There was a
good deal of good-natured joking, and the boys in self-defense had to
explain the whole thing in all its details.
At recess their story received unexpected confirmation, for there,
just outside the school yard, was Tony putting Bruno, the bear,
through his tricks while a breathlessly interested crowd gathered
about the pair. Tony grinned at the boys when he saw them and Jimmy
asserted that Bruno grinned too, but the rest of the radio boys
thought that that was due to Jimmy's excess of imagination.
A noticeable feature of the school work that day was the scarcity of
pupils. All the classes were more or less sparsely attended, and the
teachers were called to a conference with Mr. Preston, the principal.
"What do you suppose the powwow of the teachers was all about?" asked
Bob, as the boys were going home after the session of the school was
ended.
"About so many fellows being away," replied Joe, who, as his father
was the leading physician of the town, was better informed than were
his friends as to the situation. "Dad says there's an awful lot of
sickness in the town. He's kept busy day and night, and scarcely has
time to breathe."
"I wonder what the reason is," remarked Herb.
"Dad thinks the water supply may have something to do with it,"
answered Joe. "He says there's a regular epidemic of typhoid fever,
and that usually comes from impure water. He's called the attention of
the town council and the engineers of the reservoir to the matter, and
they're going to have an investigation. Dad says it may even be
necessary to close the schools for a time."
"What's that?" exclaimed Jimmy, with sudden animation.
"Don't tell Jimmy anything like that," mocked Herb. "It would simply
break his heart. If there's anything he's stuck on it's school."
"You fellows wouldn't be tickled to death either if you thought you
were going to get a vacation, would you?" retorted Jimmy. "I know you
birds."
"Say, wouldn't it give us lots of time for radio!" said Bob
enthusiastically. "I want to get all the new wrinkles in that latest
set of ours, and we don't have time to do it in the few evenings we
can spare from our home work."
"You bet," agreed Herb. "I don't want there to be any more sickness,
but I sure do hope they find it necessary to close the schools. That
would be just what the doctor ordered--in more senses than one."
"I wouldn't shed any bitter tears myself," admitted Joe. "There's
going to be a meeting of the Board of Health to consider the subject
soon, and I'll give you fellows the tip the minute I hear anything
definite about what they decide to do."
"In the meantime, suppose you fellows drop around this evening for a
little while," suggested Bob. "I want to try out some long distance
receiving and listen in on Chicago."
All agreed to be there at about eight o'clock.
The Laytons had barely finished dinner that night when the door bell
rang. Bob answered the bell.
He was surprised to find that the callers were Mr. Looker and his son
Buck. Both had dark and angry looks on their faces.
"I want to know," said Mr. Looker abruptly, "what you and your
companions mean by burning down my cottage!"