CHAPTER V
OPINIONS
The boys and girls filed out, after most of them had expressedappreciation of Professor Gray's interest in their enjoyment, and on thestreet a lively discussion started. Terry Watkins was laughingderisively at some remark of Cora Siebold, who, arm in arm with her chum"Dot" Myers, had paused long enough to fire a broadside at him.
"Why don't some of you smarties who talk so much about the wonderfulthings you can do make yourselves receiving sets! Too lazy? Baseball andswimming and loafing around are all you think about. But leave it to thegirls; Dot and I are going to tackle one."
"What? You two? Won't it be a mess? Bet you can't hear yourselves thinkon it. Girls building a radio! Ho, ho, ho!"
"Bet there'll be a looking-glass in it somewhere," laughed Ted Bissell.
"Well, we aren't planning to ask advice from either of you," Cora said.
"No, and it would be worth very little if you got any," Bill Brownoffered, as he and Gus, who had been detained a moment by ProfessorGray, joined the loitering group.
"Thanks, Mr. Brown," said Dot, half shyly.
"Who asked you for your two cents' worth?" Terry demanded.
"I'm donating it, to your service. Go and do something yourself beforeyou make fun of others," Bill said.
"That's right, too, Billy. Terry can't drive a carpet tack, nor draw astraight line with a ruler." Ted was always in a bantering mood andeager for a laugh at anybody. "I'll bet Cora's radio will radiateroyally and right. You going to make one--you and Gus?"
"I guess we can't afford it," Bill replied quickly. "We're both going towork in the mill next Monday. Long hours and steady, and not too muchpay, either. But we need the money; eh, Gus?"
"We do," agreed Gus, smiling.
Bill's countenance was altogether rueful. Life had not been very kind tohim and he very naturally longed for some opportunity to dodge continuedhardship. He wished that he might, like the boy Edison, makeopportunity, but that sounded more plausible in lectures than in reallife. He was moodily silent now, while the others engaged in a spiriteddiscussion started by Dot's saying kindly:
"Well, lots of boys and girls have to work and they often are the betterfor it. Edison did--and was."
"Oh, I guess he could have been just as great, or greater if he hadn'tworked," remarked Terry sententiously. "It isn't only poor boys thatamount to----"
"Mostly," said Bill.
"Oh, of course, _you'd_ say that. We'll charge your attitude up toenvy."
"When I size up some of the rich men's sons I know, I'm rather glad I'mpoor," said Bill, "and I would rather make a thousand dollars all by myown efforts than inherit ten thousand."
"I guess you'd take what you could get," Terry offered, and Bill wasquick to reply:
"We know there'll be a lot coming to you and it will be interesting toknow what you'll do with it and how long you'll have it."
"He will never add anything to it," said Ted, who also was the son ofwealth, but not in the least snobbish. The others all laughed at thisand Terry turned away angrily.
Bill, further inspired by what he deemed an unfair reference to Edison,began to wax eloquent to the others concerning his hero.
"I don't believe Edison would have amounted to half as much as he has ifhe hadn't had the hard knocks that a poor fellow always gets. Terrymakes me tired with his high and mighty----"
"Oh, don't you mind him!" said Cora.
"You've read a lot about Edison, haven't you, Bill?" asked Dot, knowingthat the lame boy possessed a hero worshiper's admiration for the wizardof electricity and an overmastering desire to emulate the greatinventor. The girl sat down on the grassy bank, pulled Cora down besideher and in her gentle, kindly way, continued to draw Bill out. "Whenonly quite a little fellow he had become a great reader, the lecturersaid."
"I should say he was a reader!" Bill declared. "Why, when he was elevenyears old he had read Hume's History of England all through and--"
"Understood about a quarter of it, I reckon," laughed Ted.
"Understood more than you think," Bill retorted. "He did more in thatlibrary than just read an old encyclopedia; he got every book off theshelves, one after the other, and dipped into them all, but of course,some didn't interest him. He read a lot on 'most every subject; mostlyabout science and chemistry and engineering and mechanics, but a lotalso on law and even moral philosophy and what you call it?oh--ethics--and all that sort of thing. He had to read to find outthings; there seemed to be no one who could tell him the half that hewanted to know, and I guess a lot of people got pretty tired of havinghim ask so many questions they couldn't answer. And when they would say,'I don't know,' he'd get mad and yell: '_Why_ don't you know?'"
"Hume's history,--why, we have that at home, in ten volumes. If he gotoutside of all of that he was going some!" declared Ted.
"Well, he did, and all of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,too."
"Holy cats! What stopped him?" Ted queried.
"He didn't stop--never stopped. But he had to earn his living--didn'the? He couldn't read all the books and find out about everything rightoff. But you bet he found out a lot, and he believes that after a fellowgets some rudiments of education he can learn more by studying in hisown way and experimenting than by just learning by rote and rule. Maybehe's not altogether right about that, for education is mighty fine andI'd like to go to a technical school; Gus and I both are aiming forthat, but we're going to read and study a lot our own way, too, andexperiment; aren't we, Gus? Nobody can throw Edison's ideas down whenthey stop to think how much he knows and what he's done."
"He certainly has accomplished a great deal," the usually reticent Gusoffered.
"And yet he seems to be very modest about it," was Cora's contribution.
"Of course, he is; every man who does really big things is neverconceited," declared Bill.
"Oh, I don't know. How about Napoleon?" queried Dot.
"Napoleon? All he ever did was to get up a big army and kill people andgrab a government. He had brains, of course, but he didn't put them tomuch real use, except for his own glory. You can't put Napoleon in thesame class with Edison."
"Oh, Billy, you can't say that, can you?"
"I have said it and I'll back it up. Look how Edison has given billionsof people pleasure and comfort and helped trade and commerce. Nobodycould do more than that. War and fighting and being a king,--that'snothing but selfishness! Some day people will build the largestmonuments to folks who have done big things for humanity,--not togenerals and kings. Just knowing how to scrap isn't much good. I've gotmore respect for Professor Gray than I have for the champion prizefighter. You can't-----"
"Maybe if you knew how to use your fists, you wouldn't talk that way;eh, Gus?" queried Ted.
"Well, I don't know but I think Bill is right. It's nice to know how toscrap if scrapping has to be done, but it shouldn't ever have to bedone,--between nations, anyway." This was a long speech for Gus, butevidently he meant it.
Bill continued:
"Talking about Edison when he was a boy: he wasn't afraid of work,either. He got up at about five, got back to supper at nine, or later,and maybe that wasn't some day! But he made from $12 to $20 a dayprofits, for it was Civil War times and everything was high."
"I think I'd work pretty hard for that much," said Gus.
"I reckon," remarked Ted, "that he had a pretty good reason to say thatsuccessful genius is one per cent. inspiration and ninety-nine per cent.perspiration."
"But I guess that's only partly right and partly modesty," declaredBill. "There must have been a whole lot more than fifty per cent,inspiration at work to do what he has done. But he is too busy to goaround blowing his own horn, even from a talking-machine record."
"He doesn't need to do any blowing when you're around," Ted offered.
Bill laughed outright at that and there seemed nothing further to besaid. The girls decided to go on, Ted walked up the street with them,and Gus and his lame companion turne
d in the opposite direction towardthe less opulent section of the town. There were chores to do at homeand Gus often lent a hand to help his father who was the town carpenter.Bill, the only son of a widow whose small means were hardly adequate forthe needs of herself and boy, did all he could to lessen the dailypinch.