CHAPTER VII
HARNESSING LIGHTNING POWER
"Aiming for to go up to Renaud's?" asked Big Sandy as he fell into stepalongside of Lem Hicks.
"Yep! Wanter see how them new fixings up there are going to turn out,"was Lem's answer.
"You ain't--you ain't sorter scared?"
"Scared?" Lem wheeled on Big Sandy, then grinned himself as he saw theteasing grin on the other's face.
"Honest Injun, though," went on Big Sandy, "lots of folks round here arescared plumb stiff over this electricity stuff. Old Poolak's had one ofhis preaching fits. He's been spreading the word that it warn't firefrom the chimney what burned Miz Bobb's roof, but lightning fire whatour telegraph conjured down out of the sky. According to his tell, itain't Scriptural to be taking electricity out of the air and hitching iton to man's contrivances. Johnny allows it's tampering with evil and'sgoner bring down fire and brimstone on the whole Cove 'less'n folks takeaxes to our newfangled fixings--"
"Johnny Poolak better mind his own business and not be mixing in withour wires." Lem's chin went out belligerently. "I'm banking turriblestrong on this new fixing of Lee's. It's so mysterious-like, it don'tseem anyways reasonable. Yet if it works, it'll be the wonderfullestthing what ever happened down here in the Cove."
"Well, I'm for it, strong." Big Sandy flung open the gate to the Renaudyard and went in. Lem followed.
The "new fandangle" that Lee was working on now was an attempt at radio.Telegraphy was wonderful enough. But that took wires, thousands ofdollars' worth to reach any distance at all. With radio, one merely satat a machine, turned a key and picked up sound that went hurtlingthrough the air with only electrical power to bear it on. It seemedunbelievable--yet man was already doing this unbelievable thing. And LeeRenaud, stuck off in the backwoods, had the temerity to make a try atthis same wonder.
Lee was subscribing to a magazine now, "The Radio World." Hard study andthe endless copying of hook-up designs from its pages was the way he waspreparing ground for his next experiment. By degrees he had gatheredtogether in his old workshop such materials as he could lay hands on.His collection was crude enough to have gotten a laugh out of a regular"radio ham," but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.
True enough, little rip-roaring Dr. Pendexter, out of the kindness ofhis heart, had wanted to buy Lee considerable experimental stuff. Butsomehow the boy's pride had rebelled at being under too much obligationto anyone.
"I thank you, but no, sir," he had stammered, "I can't let you give meeverything. It would be different if I could only earn money some way topay for it--"
"There is a way!" snorted the Doctor. "Only I didn't want you foolingaway time at it when you could be going forward with electricity. Hell'sbells! You've got too much pride!"
The way of money-making that Dr. Pendexter pointed out to Lee was thegathering of wild plants for medicinal purposes. Now and again the boysent in little packets of such things as bloodroot, wild ginseng, andbay leaves. Quite a lot of herbs brought in only a few dollars, but thatmoney wisely expended brought back some very wonderful things throughthe mail. One time it was two pairs of ordinary telephone receivers;another time it was a piece of crystal; again it was a little can ofshellac and some special wire. In addition, Lee had gathered together anassortment of his own--a piece of curtain pole, some old curtain rings,a piece of mica that had once acted as "back light" in an ancient buggytop, a length of stout oak board, sundry bits of wire and second-handscrews and nails.
Back in his home town of Shelton, Lee had once listened in at someoneelse's radio--a sleek affair with all its interior workings neatlyhoused in a shining wooden case. In those days Lee had never dreamed ofaspiring to own a radio, much less aspiring to make one by using an oakboard, an old curtain pole and pieces of wire as parts.
Throughout the making, the lanky youths of King's Cove "drapped in" onLee whenever they could, to see how the work was progressing.
Now, when Big Sandy and Lem hurried along the shady lane in the dusk,and on up to the workshop, they found Tony and little Mackey and JoeBurk already there ahead of them.
"The aerial's done up!" shouted Tony Zita. "Done did it yesterday. Hadto finish the job by lantern light."
"I helped!" little Mackey Bobb was fairly bristling with pride. "Us allwent up through that funny little door right in the roof of this herehouse. One end of the wire's hitched to a pole that's lashed onto achimney. T'other end of the wire is rigged to a scantling what's nailedto the barn."
"And you're countin' on that high-sittin' wire to pick up music out ofthe air for you?" asked Big Sandy incredulously.
"Jumping catfish, no!" exploded Lee, who was cutting wrapping paper intolong strips. "We've got to hitch up a sight of apparatus here in thehouse, too."
"Ain't there something I can do?" Lem Hicks moved over to the benchwhere Lee was working.
Soon everybody was hard at it, doing whatever he could on this strangecontraption young Renaud was evolving. The younger boys scraped andtrimmed at smoothing off the heavy oak plank that was to be the base ofthe outfit.
Lee had spread around him on table and bench a half dozen "RadioWorlds," propped open to show diagrams full of coils and lines, andlettered at certain points, A, B, C, D, and so on.
"This paper says the timing coil is most important, so we better gomighty careful on that." Lee produced a piece of old-fashioned woodencurtain pole, three inches in diameter. "A ten-inch length is all weneed."
When this core was measured and cut, Lee began to wind it smoothly inthe strips of tough brown wrapping paper that he had already prepared.As he wound it on, Lem, armed with the little can of shellac and a stifffeather for a brush, bent above the job and carefully shellacked eachpiece.
After the neatly wrapped core with its dose of the sticky gum had driedout a little, the hardest task of all was undertaken--winding on thewire tuning coil itself. The paper strips had been easy to handle, butmanaging the lively, wriggling wire was a very difficult task.
"Help, everybody! We've got to step lively to get this thing on rightaway, while the shellac is still some sticky, so it will hold the wirefirm." Lee waved his roll of wire, and there was a general rush foreveryone to have a finger in this excitement.
A couple of fellows held the wire taut, and another couple, gripping theends of the wooden rod with tense fingers, turned it steadily. As themaster hand, Lee laid the coils in place at each turn. With even thesimple machinery of a lathe and foot pedal, it would have been an easyjob to wind the core. But with only excited boyish fingers to grip andturn, the task was one of considerable difficulty. The wire would writheand knot. Now and again coils slipped and refused to lie smooth.
"Unwind it! Try it again!" Brows bent, mouth set firmly, Lee unwound andrewound, over and over again. This thing had to be right. No use makingit if the wire didn't lie smooth and close, without any space at allbetween the coils.
"Um! That looks sort of like it now!" Lee said with satisfaction as hefastened down the last tag end.
The other boys drew close and gazed upon it pridefully.
"Gosh, it does look right! Slicker'n silk, and 'pears to be real closekin to that there picture in the book," Big Sandy said, holding theillustration of the tuning coil in a "Radio World" up beside theireffort in wire and wood. "I thought you was being tollable persnikerty,doing it over so much, but reckon you was right."
"The sliding contacts come next. Wonder if we can mount them now?" Inlieu of store-bought metallic contacts, Lee produced a pair of old metalcurtain rings. "Got to punch holes in 'em so we can stick in the copperrivets."
And so the work went forward. Night after night the gang met in Lee'sworkshop. There was a certain amount of the apparatus that evenuntrained hands could attend to, such as cutting the four-inch squaresof paraffined paper and tinfoil, alternating these in a stack, thenplacing these between two blocks of wood and screwing them tightlytogether. This was the "condenser" that,
according to the printeddirections, was to help the electric vibrations pass through theearphone receivers.
Since the human ear alone could not detect the sound waves that touchedthe aerial, a sort of electrical ear was necessary. And this electricalear was nothing more than a piece of sensitive galena crystal and a wireof phosphor bronze. If this thing that Lee Renaud was building turnedout right, when that phosphor bronze wire came in contact with the bitof crystal, the mysterious sound wave would become audible.
Lee himself attended to the delicate task of mounting the galena crystaland adjusting the two rods that held the sliding contacts, also thesoldering of various "lead in" and "lead out" wires.
Then at last it was all done. For Lee Renaud, this was a crucial time.It didn't seem possible that this homemade contraption of wood and wireand old curtain fixtures could really reach out into the ether and pulldown music for its users.
According to one of old Pomp's favorite expressions, the young inventorfelt "more nervouser than a rabbit what's bin shot at and missed."
He would have liked to have tried out the thing alone. But there was nochance of that. Every youngster in the Cove was packed in that oldupstairs workshop. Even a couple of flop-eared 'possum hounds hadmanaged to sneak in at their young masters' heels. Here was a fullaudience and everything set for a great night.
On the heavy oak base on the table before Lee, the tuning coil, thecrystal detector, the condenser, and the terminals for the head phoneplugs were arranged and fitted in their proper places. The last cutting,stripping and soldering of connecting wires had been attended to.
"G-gosh, I'm almost afraid to give it a try," muttered Lee to himself."S'pose it don't work!"
He couldn't keep his hand from trembling as he set one of the slidingcontacts at the middle of the tuning coil, and moved the other justabout opposite.
Young Renaud had on one pair of ear phones. Jimmy Bobb and Lem Hicks,heads right together, shared the other pair.
Lee, all keyed up to hear something, adjusted the sharp little phosphorbronze wire on the detector until the point just touched the crystal. Nosound came. Lee could feel the tenseness of the crowd, could sense thegasp of bitter disappointment from Jimmy and Lem. In desperation, heslowly moved the slider along the tuning coil. Suddenly a burst oforchestra music rolled in to those at the ear phones. Faintly at first,then swelling triumphantly as Lee Renaud slid his contacts along thecoil!
Those first listeners sat spellbound till others, eager for their turn,snatched away the ear phones.
Like one in a trance, Jimmy Bobb sat with the music still ringing in hissoul.
"Gee," he whispered, "those fiddles, high and sweet, like they was rightin the next room!"
"And they were really in Gulf City, fifty miles from here!" laughedyoung Renaud. "Let's make a try for Madsden. That will be a good bitfarther--something like a hundred miles."
Until far into the night the group stayed "tuned in," excitedly swappingphones, eagerly listening to the first real music in their lives.
King's Cove was in touch with the world! It had suddenly come out of thenowhere into the somewhere. A copper rivet slid along a coil of wire,and in a fraction of a second this bunch of boys in faded, raggedoveralls was in contact with music in another county, music in anotherstate even!
Then there came a swishing thud against the outside of the house as ifmade by the recoil of wire.
"S-s-sh!" hissingly whispered little Mackey, who had been peering out ofthe window. "Something out on the barn roof--like a man with hisself allhumped up, creeping, creeping--"
"Somebody's been at our aerial--cut it off!" agonized Lee, realizing toa certainty what that swish of wire against the house had meant.
Another had taken in the situation, too, it seemed. The shutters of thenext room were flung open and Great-uncle Gem's voice rang out angrily,"What you up to on that roof? Don't be trespassing on my place, youJohnny Poolak!"
From the slant of the barn roof a fanatical voice croaked back,"Lightning power belongs up in the sky. The Lord's agin humans whatsteals his lightning. Fire and brimstone! But the wire's cut! And I'ma-saving King's Cove!"
"Better be saving your own hide!" shouted old Gem. And from thatsecond-story window roared a pistol shot.
A thud and a bump from the barn roof. Then footsteps crashing off,running through the underbrush.
Into the radio room limped Gem Renaud, wiping off a smoking,long-barreled old pistol. "Just shot up in the air," he announcedangrily. "But I hope I put enough fright into that old nuisance to runhim into the next county."