CHAPTER XX
"TO LABOR AND TO WAIT"
It was truly astonishing what well organized labor could do underintelligent direction; the boys had a fine example of this before themand a fine lesson in the accomplishment. The new garage grew into a newand somewhat larger building, on the site of the old, almost over night.There were three eight-hour shifts of men and two foremen, with thesupervising architect and Mr. Grier apparently always on the job. Assoon as the second floor was laid, the roof on and the sheathing inplace, Bill and Gus moved in. The men gave them every aid and Mr. Griergave special attention to building their benches, trusses, adrawing-board stand, shelving and tool chests. Then, how those new radioreceivers did come on!
Grace and Skeets were given little odd jobs during the very few hours oftheir insistent helping. They varnished, polished, oiled, cleaned copperwire, unpacked material, even swept up the _debris_ left by thecarpenters; at least, they did until Skeets managed to fall headlongdown about one-half of the unfinished stairway and to sprain her ankle.Then Grace's loyalty compelled her attention to her friend.
Mr. Hooper breezed in from time to time, but never to take a hand; to doso would have seemed quite out of place, though the old gentlemanlaughingly made an excuse for this:
"Lads, I ain't no tinker man; never was. Drivin' a pesky nail's ahuckleberry above my persimmon. Cattle is all I know, an' I kin stilllearn about them, I reckon. But I know what I kin see an' hear an',b'jinks, I'm still doubtin' I'm ever goin' to hear that there Eddy's sondo this talkin'. But get busy, lads; get busy!"
"Oh, fudge, Dad! Can't you see they're dreadfully busy? You can't hurrythem one bit faster." Grace was ever just.
"No," said Skeets, who had borrowed Bill's crutch to get into the shopfor a little while. "No, Mr. Hooper; if they were to stay up all night,go without eats and work twenty-five hours a day they couldn't do any--"And just then the end of the too-much inclined crutch skated outward andthe habitually unfortunate girl dropped kerplunk on the floor. Gus andGrace picked her up. She was not hurt by her fall. Her very plumpnesshad saved her.
"For goodness' sake, Skeets, are you ever going to get the habit ofkeeping yourself upright?" asked Grace, who laughed harder than theothers, except Skeets herself; the stout girl generally got the utmostenjoyment out of her own troubles.
Quiet restored, Mr. Hooper returned to his subject.
"I reckon you lads, when you git this thing made that's goin' to hoodoothe air, will be startin' in an' tryin' somethin' else; eh?" heventured, grinning.
"Later, perhaps, but not just yet," Bill replied. "Not until we canmanage to learn a lot more, Gus and I. Mr. Grier says that thecompetition of brains nowadays is a lot sharper than it was in Edison'syoung days, and even he had to study and work a lot before he really didany big inventing. Professor Gray says that a technical education isbest for anyone who is going to do things, though it is a long way frommaking a fellow perfect and must be followed up by hard practice."
"And we can wait, I guess," put in Gus.
"Until we can manage in some way to scrape together enough cash to buybooks and get apparatus for experiments and go on with our schooling."
"We want more physics and especially electricity," said Gus.
"And other knowledge as well, along with that," Bill amended.
"I reckon you fellers is right," said Mr. Hooper, "but I don't knowanything about it. I quit school when I was eleven, but that ain'tsayin' I don't miss it. If I had an eddication now, like you lads isgoin' to git, er like the Perfesser has, I'd give more'n half what Iown. Boys that think they're smart to quit school an' go to work isnatchal fools. A feller may git along an' make money, but he'd make aheap more an' be a heap happier, 'long of everything else, if he'd got aschoolin'. An' any boy that's got real sand in his gizzard can buckledown to books an' get a schoolin', even if he don't like it. What I'm alearnin' nowadays makes me know that a feller can make any old studyint'restin' if he jes' sets down an' looks at it the right way."
"That's what Gus and I think. There are studies we don't like very much,but we can make ourselves like them for we've got to know a lot aboutthem."
"Grammar, for instance," said Gus.
"Sure. It is tiresome stuff, learning a lot of rules that work onlyhalf. But if a fellow is going to be anybody and wants to stand in withpeople, he's got to know how to talk correctly and write, too." Bill'slogic was sound.
"Daddy should have had a drilling in grammar," commented Grace,laughing.
"Oh, you!" blurted Skeets. "Mr. Hooper can talk so that peopleunderstand him--and when you _do_ talk," she turned to the oldgentleman, "I notice folks are glad to listen, and so is Grace."
"But, my dear," protested the subject of criticism, "they'd listenbetter an' grin less if I didn't sling words about like one o' thesehere Eye-talians shovelin' dirt."
"You just keep a-shovelin', Mr. Hooper, your own way," said Bill, "andif we catch anybody even daring to grin at you, why, I'll have Gus landon them with his famous grapple!"
Mr. Hooper threw back his coat, thrust his thumbs into the armholes ofhis big, white vest and swelled out his chest.
"Now, listen to that! An' this from a lad who ain't got a thing toexpect from me an' ain't had as much as he's a-givin' me, either--an'knows it. But that's nothin' else but Simon pure frien'ship, I take it.An' Gus, here, him an' Bill, they think about alike; eh, Gus?" Gusnodded and the old gentleman continued, addressing his remarks to hisdaughter and Skeets:
"Now, if I know anything at all about anything at all I know what I'mgoin' to do. I ain't got no eddication, but that ain't goin' to keep mefrom seein' some others git it. You Gracie, fer one, an' you, too,Skeeter, if your old daddy'll let you come an' go to school with Gracie.But that ain't all; if you lads kin git ol' Eddy's son out o' the air onthis contraption you're makin' an' hear him talk fer sure, I'm goin' tosee to it that you kin git all the tec--tec--what you callit?--eddication there is goin' an' I'm goin' to put Perfesser Gray wiseon that, too, soon's he comes back. No--don't you say a word now. Iknow what I'm a-doin'." With that the old gentleman turned and marchedout of the shop. But at the bottom of the garage steps he called back:
"Say, boys, I gotta go away fer a couple o' weeks, or mebbe three. Pushit right along an' mebbe you'll be hearin' from old man Eddy's son whenI git back!"