CHAPTER XIV
ON THE VERGE
Bob felt sore and stiff as a result of the moonlight battle, but he showed little visible sign of it, although there was enough to excite questioning at the breakfast table. Bob narrated what had taken place, and the family was very indignant over Buck's invasion of their property.
"If you hadn't given young Looker such a sound trouncing I would make a complaint to his father," said Mr. Layton. "But under the circumstances I guess there is no need to say anything further about it. His misdeeds seem to have brought their own punishment somewhat sooner than is usual," he added, with a twinkle in his eye.
"Yes, I don't think he'll come bothering around here in a hurry, Dad," said Bob. "I always thought he had a streak of yellow in him, and now I'm sure of it."
"Most bullies have," observed Mr. Layton, as he rose to go down to the store. "I'm glad you caught him at it before he had a chance to do any damage, because I'm getting interested in that radio business myself. If you boys really get it going with the apparatus that you've made yourselves you'll deserve a lot of credit."
"Well, we'll soon know whether it works or not," said Bob. "We hope to have it in shape to test out to-night."
"So soon?" said Mr. Layton, surprised. "That will be fine! I hope you won't be disappointed," and he went out on his way down to the store.
He had been gone hardly half an hour when Bob heard a cheerful chorus of whistles outside, and knew that his friends had arrived bright and early, as they had promised.
"Here we are, right on the job," said Jimmy, as Bob opened the door for them. "But say, what's happened to you? You look as though you'd been in a fight."
"There's nothing surprising about that, because I have been in a fight," replied Bob, grinning.
"With whom?" they all asked at once.
"An old friend of ours—dear old Buck Looker," responded Bob.
"Well, what—what—when did you see him to fight with him?" stuttered Jimmy.
"It all happened last night after you fellows had gone home," said Bob, and then gave them an account of how he had surprised the bully and the fight that had followed.
"Well!" exclaimed Joe, drawing a long breath when Bob had finished, "I'm glad you gave him a good licking, Bob. I envy you because you had the chance first. I'd like to get a look at Buck now."
"I imagine he'll keep out of sight for a few days," returned Bob.
"I don't think I improved his beauty any."
"I wonder if he had time to damage the aerial any," said Herb. "Have you taken a look at it yet, Bob?"
"No, I haven't been up," said Bob. "We might do that now, I suppose."
Accordingly the four boys climbed up on the barn, using the same ladder that Buck Looker had used the night before. They found that Buck, with his customary lack of brains, had failed to provide himself with a pair of wire cutters, with which he could have easily clipped the aerial, but instead had tried to unwind the wire from the insulator eyelet with his fingers. He had succeeded in getting it partially unfastened before Bob had interrupted him, but it took the boys only a few moments with a pair of pliers to rewind it, leaving everything as strong as before.
"That just shows how little brain power that fellow has," said Joe.
"What good would it have done him if he had got the aerial down?
It wouldn't have taken us long to put it up again."
"Just for the satisfaction of boasting about it, I suppose," said Herb. "But I guess he won't say much, about this affair. He'll calm down for some time to come, anyway."
"We'd never have heard the last of it from that bunch if they had been able to put something over on us," said Bob. "But never mind that crowd now. Let's get to work on our panel and see if we can't get things hitched up in time for the Saturday evening concert. I'm crazy to get the thing actually finished now."
"No more than I am," said Joe. "Let's go!" His three chums all felt very much at home in Bob's workroom, and knew where to find the various tools almost as well as Bob did himself. Jimmy was given the job of sawing a panel board out of an oak plank, while the others busied themselves with stripping the insulation from lengths of wire and scraping the bared ends to be sure of a good, clean connection. Bob also cleaned and tinned his soldering iron, in preparation for the numerous soldered joints that it would be necessary to make.
"It seems to me you rest an awful lot in between strokes, Doughnuts," said Herbert to that perspiring individual. "Why don't you keep right on sawing until you get through? It seems to me that would be a lot better than the way you're doing it."
"If you don't like the way I'm doing this, just come and do it yourself," was the indignant reply. "I'd like to see you saw through twenty inches of seven-eighths oak without stopping. You always seem to get all the soft jobs, anyhow. Whenever there's anything real hard to do, like this job, for instance, it gets wished on me."
"That's because we know you like hard work," said Bob, laughing.
"Well, I get it whether I like it or not," complained Jimmy. "But it's almost done now, so I'll finish it quickly and prevent any of you fellows having to do some real work."
"Jimmy's certainly good at that, you have to admit it," said Joe.
"I could just stand here all day and admire the way he does it."
But for once the fat boy refused to rise to the bait, and kept doggedly on until at last he had a neat twenty inch square cut out of the big plank.
"There you are, Bob," said Jimmy, panting. "Now see if you can't find some heavy job for these two Indians here."
"I'd like to, first rate," laughed Bob, "but I guess you've about finished up the last of the hard jobs. Of course, we've still got to drill a lot of holes in that piece of wood, but that's easy enough."
"If you give me your word it's easy, I'll tackle it," said Herb.
"Where do we want the holes, Bob?"
"I don't know yet," said Bob. "We've got to arrange the different parts on the panel first, and find out just where we want them before we drill a single hole. I don't want to have to change things around after we put holes in the board and spoil the appearance of it."
He laid the board on the bench, and arranged the tuning coil, the crystal detector, the condenser, and the terminals for the head phone plugs in what he thought should be their proper positions, and then called for advice on this layout.
"If anybody can think of a better way to set these things up, let him speak now or forever hold his peace," said he.
"That looks all right to me," returned Joe, eyeing the outfit critically. "But we'll have to raise the panel up an inch or two so as to give room underneath for wires and connections, shan't we?"
"Right you are!" exclaimed Bob. "There's another job for you, Jimmy. We'll have to have two cleats to go underneath and raise the whole business up."
"I thought it was about time for something else to come along for me," grumbled Jimmy. "Just when I was thinking of lying down and resting, too."
"Oh, that's nothing," laughed Herb. "There never is a time when you're not thinking of lying down and resting, so don't let that worry you."
"Of course there are other times," said Joe, while Jimmy was still struggling to find a crushing answer to Herb's attack. "I'm surprised at you, Herb! How about all the times he's thinking of getting up and eating!"
"Gosh, that was a bad mistake," said Herb, with mock seriousness.
"I did you an injustice, Doughnuts, and I apologize."
"You two will never get to be old," said Jimmy, picking up his trusty saw. "You're altogether too smart to live, I'm afraid."
"Oh, I don't think there's any need to worry about that," said Bob, casually, coming to Jimmy's aid. "I think myself they'll probably live to be a hundred."
"Wow!" exclaimed Joe. "That was a wicked wallop, Bob."
"It's no more than you deserve," said Jimmy. "A good wallop with the business end of a gas pipe would be about the best thing that could happen to some people."
"I'm glad he doesn't mean us, Joe," said Herb, with a wink at his friend.
"Never mind whom I mean," said Jimmy.
"Here are your cleats, so you can get busy and screw them on to the back of that panel. I'll lie down on the couch and watch you to see that you don't make any mistakes."
"No danger of that," said Herb. "I couldn't make a mistake if I tried.
Wait till I get hold of a screw driver and watch my speed."
"You'll probably make a mistake without trying," said Jimmy, "but I suppose there's no use trying to give you good advice, so go ahead."
However, Herb justified his modest estimate of himself this time, for he soon had the cleats strongly fastened to the back of the panel, raising it two inches, which gave plenty of clearance for wires and screw heads underneath.
"That will make a better job of it, anyway," said Bob. "I was figuring on running the wires on the top side, but if we put them underneath it will look neater, although it will take longer to do it."
"We might as well do it up brown now that we've got this far," said
Joe, and the others were of the same opinion.
The boys arranged the various pieces of apparatus to their satisfaction, and then drilled holes through and bolted them securely to the back. This also took a little more time than merely to screw them to the face of the panel, but made a more secure and lasting piece of work.
They were still drilling holes and clamping down nuts when Mrs. Layton called down to tell them that lunch was ready.
"Gosh! is it lunch time already?" exclaimed Joe. "It seems as though we had hardly got started yet."
"I guess it is, just the same," said Bob. "Let's wash our hands, and eat."
"This seems like rubbing it in, though," protested Herb. "We've almost been living here at your house lately, Bob, and now we're putting your mother to the trouble of getting lunch for us. I think we ought to go home and come around later."
"Oh, nonsense," said Bob. "Mother's got everything all ready now, and she'd feel bad if you didn't stay. Come on up," and he set the example by making for the stairs.
"Oh, well, if you insist," said Herb. "But I bet when Mrs. Layton sees what we do to the eats, she'll never ask us again."
"Oh, she's used to seeing them disappear pretty fast," said Bob, "and
I don't think anything will surprise her now."
Mrs. Layton made the outside boys welcome with a few cheery words, and all sat down to a lunch in which fresh sliced ham, hot biscuits, and honey played a conspicuous part. Mrs. Layton was famous as a good cook, and it is certain that the present patrons of her art did not lack in appreciation. Before they got through, the table was swept almost clear of eatables, and even the insatiable Jimmy appeared satisfied, so much so that he appeared to have difficulty in rising with the others.
"I guess we don't have to tell you how much we enjoyed everything,
Mrs. Layton," said Herb. "Actions speak louder than words, you know."
"I'm glad you liked it," she said. "I guess you'll all be able to get along till supper time now," she added, with a smile.
"Let's go out on the grass awhile," proposed Jimmy. "I've got to lie down and rest a bit before I can do anything else. You slaves can work if you want to, but not for little Jimmy."
It must be confessed that the others felt about the same way, so they all went out and lay on the soft grass under a big apple tree that grew near the kitchen door.
"Ah, this is the life!" sighed Jimmy, as he stretched out luxuriously on his back and gazed up at the cloud-flecked sky.
"It isn't so bad," admitted Bob, biting on tender blades of young grass. "But I'd enjoy it more if we had our outfit together and working."
"It won't take long to finish it now, do you think?" asked Joe.
"Not unless we strike a snag somewhere," said Bob. "After we get everything assembled, we've still got to run our leading-in wire down to my bedroom. But I don't think that will take us very long."
"By ginger, I just can't loaf around until we do get it working!" exclaimed Joe, springing to his feet. "Come on, fellows, let's get busy. We can take it easy after we have everything fixed up."
"I'm with you," said Bob. "I feel the same way myself."
Herb jumped up too, but the only sound from Jimmy was a raucous snore ending in a gurgle.
"Poor old Jimmy!" said Bob. "We've had him working hard the last few days, and I suppose he's tired out. Let him sleep awhile."
So Jimmy was left to blissful slumber, and the others returned to their fascinating task.