Jessie Norwood had talked over the matter of the new super-regenerative
circuit with her father and had got him interested in the idea of using
one to improve their own radio receiving. It was not difficult to
interest Mr. Norwood in it, for he had become a radio enthusiast like
his daughter since the Roselawn girls had broken into the wireless game.
With the large party now in the Norwood's bungalow in Station Island, it
was not convenient to use only the head-phones when the radio concerts
were to be received out of the ether. The two-step amplifier Mr. Norwood
had formerly bought did not always work well, especially, for some
unknown reason, since they had come to the seashore.
In addition, the sounds through the horn seemed to be scratchy and
harsh, a good deal like the sounds from a poor talking machine. From
what Jessie had read, she understood that these harsh noises would be
obviated if the super-regenerative circuit was put in. Her father had
telegraphed for the material to build the super-regenerative and
amplifier circuit, and the material came by express the morning after
the picnic on which Henrietta had disgraced herself.
"We will try the thing here on the island," Mr. Norwood said to Jessie.
"If it works here it will surely work back at Roselawn, for the
temperature, or humidity, or something, is different there from what it
is here. At least, so it seems to me, and the state of the air surely
influences radio."
"Static," said Jessie, briefly, reading the instructions in the book.
Amy, of course, was quite as interested in the new invention as her
chum; and Nell, too. But they were not so clear in their minds as was
Jessie about what should be done in building the new set. Jessie was
glad to have her father show so much interest, for he was eminently
practical, and when the girls were uncertain how to proceed it was nice
to have somebody like the lawyer to turn to.
He even let Mr. Drew and the two mothers go off to the golf course that
day without him, while he gave his aid to the girls. The boys were
cleaning up the yacht in preparation for the voyage they expected to
make in a short time.
Nell's Aunt Freda had arrived that morning, so the minister's daughter
did not have to worry at all about Bob and Fred and Sally.
"And to help out," Amy said, with a giggle, "Henrietta is invited over
to the Stanley bungalow to play with little Sally."
"I guess Aunt Freda will get along all right with them," observed Nell,
with some amusement. "But Fred pretty nearly floored her at the start.
She says it takes her several hours to get 'acclimated' when she comes
to our house."
"What did Fred say--or do?" asked Jessie, interested.
"There was something Aunt Freda advised him to do and he said he
would--'to-morrow.'
"'Don't you know,' she asked him, 'that "to-morrow never comes"?'
"'Gee! and to-morrow's my birthday,' grumbled Fred. 'Now I suppose I
won't have any.'"
"What kids they are!" gasped Amy, when she had recovered from her
laughter. "I don't know whether a younger brother is worse than an older
brother or not. I've had my troubles with Darrington," and she sighed
with mock seriousness.
"Ha!" exclaimed Jessie. "I guess he's had his troubles with you. Do you
remember when you smeared your hands all up with chocolate cake and
tried to wipe them clean on Darry's new trousers?"
Nell shouted with laughter at this revelation, but it did not trouble
Amy Drew in the least.
"Yes," she admitted. "My taste in the art of dressing, you see, was well
developed even at that early age. Those trousers, I remember, were of an
atrocious pattern."
"Nonsense!" cried Jessie. "They were Darry's first long pants, and you
were mad to think he was so much older than you that he could put on
men's clothes."
"Dear me!" sighed Amy. "You make me out an awful creature, Jess Norwood.
But, never mind. Darry has paid me up and to spare for that unladylike
trick. He _has_ been a trial--and is so yet. He doesn't know how to pick
a decent necktie. His shirts--some of them--are so loud that you can see
him coming clear across The Green. Why! they tell me that his shirts are
as well known in New Haven, and almost as prominently mentioned by the
natives, as the Hartley Memorial Hall; and almost _nobody_ gets away
from the City of Elms without being obliged to see that."
"What a reckless talker you are, Amy!" Jessie said, smiling. "And I will
not hear you run Darry down. I think too much of him myself."
"Don't let him guess it," said the absent Darry's sister, with a grin.
"It will spoil him--make him proud and hard to hold."
"That's a good one!" laughed Nell. "You think Darry can be as easily
spoiled by praise as the Chinese servant Reverend tells about that he
had in California. This was before I was born. Father and mother got a
Coolie right at the dock. You could do that in those days. And John
scarcely knew a word of English, not even the pidgin variety.
"But Reverend says that when John acquired a few English words he was so
proud that there was no holding him. He asked the name of every new
object he saw and mispronounced it usually in the most absurd manner.
Once John found a sparrow's nest in the grapevine and shuffled into
Reverend's study to tell him about it.
"'Is there anything in the nest yet, John?' Reverend asked him.
"'Yes,' the Chinaman declared, puffed up with his knowledge of the new
language, 'Spallow alle samme got pups.'"
While they chattered and laughed the three girls were as busy as bees
with the new radio arrangement. Amy said that Jessie kept them so hard
at work that it did not seem at all as though they were "vacationing."
It was good, healthy work for all.
"It does seem awfully quiet here without Hen," went on Amy, hammering on
a board with a heavy hammer and making the big room where the radio set
was, ring. "She keeps the place almost as tomb-like as a boiler
shop--what?"
"You can make a little noise yourself," Jessie told her. "What's all the
hammering for?"
"So things won't sound too tame. How are we getting on with the new
circuit?"
"Why, Amy Drew! you just helped me place this vario-coupler. Didn't you
know what you were doing?"
"Not a bit," confessed Amy. "You are away out of my depth, Jess. And
don't try to tell me what it all means, that's a dear. I never can
remember scientific terms."
"Put up the hammer," said Nell, laughing. "You are a confirmed knocker,
anyway, Amy. But I admit I do not understand this tangle of wires."
They did not seek to disconnect the old regenerative set that day, for
there was much of interest expected out of the ether before the day was
over. One particular thing Jessie looked for, but she had said nothing
about it to anybody save her very dearest chum, Amy, and the clergyman's
daughter, Nell.
Two days before she had done some telephoning over the long-distance
wire. Of course there was a cable to the mainland from Station Island,
and Jessie had called up and interviewed Mark Stratford at
Stratfordtown.
Mark was a college friend of Darry and Burd, but he was likewise a very
good friend of the Roselawn girls--and he had reason for being. As
related in a previous volume, "The Radio Girls on the Program," Jessie
and Amy had found a watch Mark had lost, and as it was a valuable watch
and had been given him by his grandmother, Mark was very grateful.
Through his influence--to a degree--Jessie and Amy had got on the program
at the Stratfordtown broadcasting station. And now Jessie had talked
with the young man and arranged for a surprise by radio that was to come
off that very evening at "bedtime story hour."
Henrietta and little Sally and Bob and Fred Stanley, as well as some of
the other children of the bungalow colony, crowded into the house at
that time to "listen in" on the Roselawn girls' instrument.
The amplifier worked all right that evening, and Jessie was very glad.
The little folks arranged themselves on the chairs and settees with some
little confusion while Jessie tuned the set to the Stratfordtown length
of wave. There was some static, but after a little that disappeared and
they waited for the announcement from the faraway station.
By and by, as Henrietta whispered, the radio began to "buzz." "Now we'll
get it!" cried the little Dogtown girl. "I hope it is about the little
boy with the rabbit ears that he could wiggle."
"S-sh!" commanded Jessie, making a gesture for silence.
And then out of the air came a deep voice:
"We have with us this evening, children, the Radio Man, who, just like
Santa Claus, knows all our little shortcomings, as well as our virtues.
Have you all been good boys and girls to-day? Don't all say 'Yes' at
once. Better stop and think about it before you speak.
"Before the bedtime story," went on the voice out of the horn, "the
Radio Man must tell some of you that you must take care, or you will get
on the black list. Here is a little girl, for instance, who may be rich
when she grows up. But she must have a care. People who grow up rich and
own islands must be very nice."
"Oh! Oh! That's me!" gasped Henrietta. "How'd he know me?"
"So I have to warn Henrietta, the little girl I speak of, that there is
a lot she must do if she wishes in time to enjoy the wealth which she
expects."
At that the other children began to exclaim. It was Henrietta. They
almost drowned out the first of the bedtime story with their excited
voices.
"Well," exclaimed Henrietta, "I guess everybody knows about my owning
this island, so that Ringold one needn't talk! But Miss Jessie's mother
told me what I had got to do to deserve my island."
"What have you got to do?" asked Amy, curiously. "The Radio Man says you
must be good."
"Miss Jessie's mother says I've got to make folks love me or I won't
enjoy my island at all--so now. But," she added confidentially, "I don't
believe I ever shall want that Ringold one and Sally Moon to love me. Do
you s'pose that's nec-sary?"
After the children had gone the older girls discussed a point that Amy
brought up regarding the incident. Of course, Amy was in fun, for she
said:
"Listen! Didn't I read something about 'radio control' in one of our
books, Jess? Well, there is an example of radio control--control of
children. Henrietta is going to remember that she is on the Radio Man's
list. She'll be good, all right!"
Mr. Norwood laughed. "How do we know what great developments may come
within the next few years in the line of radio control? Already the
control of an aeroplane has been tried, and proved successful. A
submarine may be governed from the shore. The drive of a torpedo has
already been successfully handled by wireless.
"In time, perhaps a farmer may sit before a keyboard in his office and
manage tractors plowing and cultivating his fields. Ships of all
descriptions will be managed by compass control. And automobiles----"
"I hope Bill Brewster learns to handle his red car by wireless,"
chuckled Amy. "It will then be less dangerous to himself and to his
friends, if not to pedestrians," and this quaint idea amused all the
Roselawn girls.