"I"m donating it, to your service. Go and do something yourself before you make fun of others," Bill said.
"That"s right, too, Billy. Terry can"t drive a carpet tack, nor draw a straight line with a ruler." Ted was always in a bantering mood and eager for a laugh at anybody. "I"ll bet Cora"s radio will radiate royally and right. You going to make one--you and Gus?"
"I guess we can"t afford it," Bill replied quickly. "We"re both going to work in the mill next Monday. Long hours and steady, and not too much pay, 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 to him and he very naturally longed for some opportunity to dodge continued hardship. He wished that he might, like the boy Edison, make opportunity, but that sounded more plausible in lectures than in real life. He was moodily silent now, while the others engaged in a spirited discussion started by Dot"s saying kindly:
"Well, lots of boys and girls have to work and they often are the better for it. Edison did--and was."
"Oh, I guess he could have been just as great, or greater if he hadn"t worked," remarked Terry sententiously. "It isn"t only poor boys that amount to----"
"Mostly," said Bill.
"Oh, of course, _you"d_ say that. We"ll charge your att.i.tude up to envy."
"When I size up some of the rich men"s sons I know, I"m rather glad I"m poor," said Bill, "and I would rather make a thousand dollars all by my own efforts than inherit ten thousand."
"I guess you"d take what you could get," Terry offered, and Bill was quick to reply:
"We know there"ll be a lot coming to you and it will be interesting to know 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 of wealth, but not in the least sn.o.bbish. The others all laughed at this and 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 if he hadn"t had the hard knocks that a poor fellow always gets. Terry makes 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, knowing that the lame boy possessed a hero worshiper"s admiration for the wizard of electricity and an overmastering desire to emulate the great inventor. The girl sat down on the gra.s.sy bank, pulled Cora down beside her and in her gentle, kindly way, continued to draw Bill out. "When only quite a little fellow he had become a great reader, the lecturer said."
"I should say he was a reader!" Bill declared. "Why, when he was eleven years 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 that library than just read an old encyclopedia; he got every book off the shelves, 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; mostly about science and chemistry and engineering and mechanics, but a lot also 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 out things; there seemed to be no one who could tell him the half that he wanted to know, and I guess a lot of people got pretty tired of having him 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 got outside 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"t he? He couldn"t read all the books and find out about everything right off. But you bet he found out a lot, and he believes that after a fellow gets some rudiments of education he can learn more by studying in his own way and experimenting than by just learning by rote and rule. Maybe he"s not altogether right about that, for education is mighty fine and I"d like to go to a technical school; Gus and I both are aiming for that, but we"re going to read and study a lot our own way, too, and experiment; aren"t we, Gus? n.o.body can throw Edison"s ideas down when they stop to think how much he knows and what he"s done."
"He certainly has accomplished a great deal," the usually reticent Gus offered.
"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 never conceited," 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 and grab a government. He had brains, of course, but he didn"t put them to much real use, except for his own glory. You can"t put Napoleon in the same cla.s.s 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 billions of people pleasure and comfort and helped trade and commerce. n.o.body could do more than that. War and fighting and being a king,--that"s nothing but selfishness! Some day people will build the largest monuments to folks who have done big things for humanity,--not to generals and kings. Just knowing how to sc.r.a.p isn"t much good. I"ve got more respect for Professor Gray than I have for the champion prize fighter. 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 to sc.r.a.p if sc.r.a.pping has to be done, but it shouldn"t ever have to be done,--between nations, anyway." This was a long speech for Gus, but evidently 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 day profits, 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 that successful genius is one per cent. inspiration and ninety-nine per cent.
perspiration."
"But I guess that"s only partly right and partly modesty," declared Bill. "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 go around 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 be said. The girls decided to go on, Ted walked up the street with them, and Gus and his lame companion turned in the opposite direction toward the less opulent section of the town. There were ch.o.r.es to do at home and 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 for the needs of herself and boy, did all he could to lessen the daily pinch.
CHAPTER VI
THE BOYHOOD OF A GENIUS
The cla.s.s had a.s.sembled again in Professor Gray"s study and all were eager to hear the second talk on Edison. There was a delay of many minutes past the hour stated, but the antic.i.p.ation was such that the time was hardly noticed. During the interim, Professor Gray came to where Bill and Gus sat.
"I hear that you boys intend to go to work in the mills next week," he said. "Well, now, I have some news and a proposition, so do not be disappointed if the beginning sounds discouraging. In the first place I saw Mr. Deering, superintendent of the mills, again and he told me that while he would make good his promise to take you on, there would hardly be more than a few weeks" work. Orders are scarce and they expect to lay off men in August, though there is likely to be a resumption of business in the early fall when you are getting back into school work. So wouldn"t it be better to forego the mill work,--there goes the announcement! I"ll talk with you before you leave."
"But we need the money; don"t we, Gus?"
"We do," said Gus.