"That will be excellent then," said Mrs. Fennington. "I"ll speak to some of the other ladies about it, and we"ll set a date and make all the arrangements."
"That plan of mother"s reminds me of something I was reading about the other day," said Herb, after Mrs. Fennington had left the room. "It was in connection with that drive they were making for the disabled war veterans. Do you remember the "flying parson" that won the transcontinental air race a couple of years ago? Well, he has a radio attached to his airplane and he arranged to have an opera singer give a concert over it. She sat in the plane and sang, and her voice was heard over a radius of five hundred miles. Then the parson gave a short, red-hot talk in behalf of the soldiers, and thousands of people heard about the drive that wouldn"t have known of it otherwise. They say that money poured into headquarters by mail during the next few days."
"Good stuff!" exclaimed Bob. "Our work will be on a smaller scale, but the spirit will be there just the same, and I bet our old radio will rake in a heap of coin for the sanitarium."
CHAPTER XX-THE RADIO CONCERT
"When do we give the concert, Herb?" asked Bob at breakfast the next morning.
"Mother isn"t quite sure yet," replied Herb to Bob"s question. "Not until she consults with some of the others, anyway. But she thinks that a week from to-night will be all right. Guess one night"s the same as another as far as we are concerned."
As a matter of fact, the projected concert was scheduled several days sooner than Herb had predicted, being set for the ensuing Sat.u.r.day night, so as to get as many of the week-end visitors as possible.
Tickets to the affair sold well, and from the first it became evident that there would be a large attendance. People were only too glad to come, both for the sake of hearing good music and to know that they were contributing to a worthy charity. The boys, as the volume of sales increased, realized that it was up to them to see that the visitors should have the worth of their money and they went over the set with a "fine-tooth comb," to use Herb"s expression, in order to make sure that every part of it was in fine working order.
"We"ll have to test everything out pretty thoroughly," remarked Bob, that Sat.u.r.day morning. "We"d never hear the last of it if anything went wrong to-night."
"You bet!" said Joe. "We"ve got to have everything in apple-pie order."
The audience began to arrive early. A large s.p.a.ce had been roped off in front of the central bungalow and furnished with rows of campchairs. The boys had set up the loud-speaking horn on a small table on the porch, running leads from it to their apparatus in the living room. This enabled them to operate the set out of sight of the audience.
By eight o"clock almost everybody was in his place, waiting expectantly, and in some cases somewhat sceptically, for the music to begin.
But they had not long to wait. Inside the bungalow the boys, excited and tense, heard the familiar voice of the announcer at WJZ, the big Newark broadcasting station. While he was speaking the boys had the horn outside disconnected, but with their head phones they tuned until the announcer"s voice was distinct and clear and all other sounds had been tuned out. Then, as the announcer ceased speaking, and in the brief pause that ensued before the first selection on the program started, the boys connected in the loud-speaker on the porch.
The concert commenced. Violin solos, vocal selections, and orchestral numbers followed each other in quick succession, every note and shade of tone being reproduced faithfully by the radio boys" set.
The audience sat in absorbed silence, listening spellbound to this miracle of modern science. At intervals they could not resist applauding, although the artists producing the music were many miles away. When the concert was over at last there was a regular storm of handclapping and calls for the boys, who at length had to appear on the porch, looking, it must be confessed, as though they would rather have been almost anywhere else.
Cries of "Speech! Speech!" came from the audience, and at last Bob stepped forward.
"We"re mighty glad if all you folks enjoyed the concert," he said. "We boys are all very much interested in radio, and we want to have everybody know what it is like. Maybe before the sanitarium gets finished you"ll have to listen to another concert," he added, with a grin.
Cries of "we hope so" and "make it soon" came from the audience, which then dispersed with many expressions of commendation for the evening"s entertainment.
When the receipts for the evening were counted it was found that they had taken in over four hundred dollars, which was soon turned over to the trustees of the sanitarium.
The concert was the chief topic of conversation in the neighborhood for the next few days, and the radio boys were deluged with requests for information concerning radio and radio equipment. They were somewhat surprised at the furor caused by their concert, but that was probably the first time that most of those present had ever heard radio music or had reason to give more than pa.s.sing thought to the subject.
But the boys had other interests in addition to radiophony to absorb their attention. At last word had come that the tourists had started home, and the boys were excited at the thought of soon seeing their parents and Rose again. They had written that they would come from Norfolk to Boston on the steamer _Horolusa_, a combination freight and pa.s.senger ship.
"Say!" exclaimed Bob, when he read this, "wouldn"t it be great if they"d send us a wireless message from their ship when they pa.s.s Ocean Point on the way to Boston?"
"You bet it would," said Joe. "Do you suppose they"ll think of it?"
"They"ll probably be pa.s.sing here some time to-morrow," said Jimmy; "so it will be up to us to keep close to the radio outfit in case they do send a message. Probably they"ll never think of it, though."
"I hope they have good weather for the trip," said Bob. "It doesn"t look very favorable just now."
"It doesn"t, for a fact," agreed Joe. "It"s been cloudy and muggy for the last two days, and it"s worse than ever to-day. But it probably won"t amount to anything. There isn"t apt to be a bad storm at this time of year."
But the weather failed to justify Joe"s optimism. As the day wore on the cloudiness increased, and toward evening a breeze sprang up that kept freshening until it had attained the proportions of a gale. All that night it blew with increasing violence, and the next day, when the boys went down to look at the ocean, they were alarmed at the size and fury of the surf. Toward evening their anxiety increased, as no word had come from the _Horolusa_, although they had spent the afternoon at their radio set. They overheard messages of distress from other vessels, however, and knew that the storm was creating havoc along the coast.
Night came on early, with the gale still blowing with unabated fury, and after supper Bob proposed that they go to the big radio station and see if there was any news there of the _Horolusa_.
"That will be fine," said Jimmy. "If they haven"t received any news of the ship there, we can be pretty sure that she is all right, because they would have been sure to get any distress message if it had been sent out."
The boys made a hasty end of their meal, and then started through the storm and darkness for the wireless station. It was raining in torrents that were driven before the gale and penetrated the thickest clothing.
The only light the boys had came from an occasional jagged flash of lightning, and they kept to the path more by instinct than knowledge of its direction. But, with heads lowered to the storm, they plodded doggedly on, their minds filled with forebodings of disaster to their loved ones. The terrible roar of the breakers on the beach made them shudder with dread.
Suddenly a tremendous flash of lightning split the sky, and in the fraction of a second that the vivid glare endured they saw a man coming toward them whom Bob and Joe recognized at once. It was Dan Ca.s.sey, the scoundrel who had tried to cheat Nellie Berwick in the matter of the mortgage on her home.
More from instinct than anything else, the radio boys sought to block the man"s path, guessing that he was probably on some evil errand and remembering the warning that Miss Berwick had given them. Ca.s.sey struck out at random, and one lucky blow caught Joe unawares and knocked him down. The other boys sprang at Ca.s.sey, but in the darkness he managed to elude them and took to his heels.
It was hopeless to attempt to find the rascal in the pitch blackness, and after running a few steps the boys realized this and returned to help their comrade.
The latter had gotten to his feet and was fuming with anger, and it was all that his friends could do to dissuade him from rushing off through the darkness in quest of his a.s.sailant.
"But he was headed for the village probably," expostulated Joe. "We"ll probably find him there if we get there before he has time to light out."
"Maybe. But it"s more important just now to get to the wireless station and find out if there"s any news of the _Horolusa_," said Bob. "If we find out that she"s all right, we can get after Ca.s.sey later."
"That"s good dope," said Jimmy. "The sight of that rascal has made me feel more scared than ever for the folks. He"s a hoodoo, a raven, a sign of bad luck. I"m not superst.i.tious, but meeting him has given me the creeps."
The boys resumed their interrupted journey, and before long could see the lights of the radio station shining through the rain.
"Now, if we can only find out that the steamer is safe!" sighed Bob.
"If we only do!" came from Joe. "It would be terrible if anything went wrong in this awful storm."
The boys increased their pace, and were soon mounting the steps of the porch. To their surprise, the door was wide open, and almost by instinct they felt that something was wrong. Their suspicions were confirmed the next moment, for as they entered the house the first object they saw was their friend, Brandon Harvey, stretched unconscious on the floor with blood trickling from a wound on his head. The little safe of which he had spoken the last time the boys were there stood wide open, and the cash drawer lay empty on the floor.
CHAPTER XXI-A DASTARDLY ATTACK
With horror-struck faces the radio boys hastened to examine and aid their friend.
"He isn"t dead," said Bob, as he felt the wounded man"s heart beat.
"Somebody"s given him a terrible blow, though. Let"s lift him over to that couch, and I"ll get him a drink of water and see if we can"t bring him around."
This was quickly done, and the boys chafed his wrists and did everything they could think of to restore him to consciousness. At last their efforts were rewarded, for Brandon Harvey"s eyelids flickered, and a spot of color came into his cheeks. As his eyes opened recognition came into them, and he made a feeble effort to rise, but sank back on the couch with a groan.
"Who hit you?" asked Bob. "Do you remember what happened?"