“Of course he could,” agreed Tom somewhat disturbed because his mother was not more enthusiastic over his achievement. “But you see the fun is in getting it ourselves this way. It wouldn’t be any sport to have the messages brought in an envelope like ordinary telegrams. Gee! I just wish we could hear him talk over the phones. Some of the ships have talked with the shore farther
away than he is, but I guess the Havana’s radio isn’t up-to-date.”
“I think it’s fine and splendid of you boys to be able to do this,” declared his mother. “What I meant was, that I had expected to hear your father’s voice and I really was disappointed when I found it was so different.”
“Well, I’m going to fix a set to talk back to him,” said Tom. “And just as soon as I get the sending set done we’ll get to work and make a better receiving set, won’t we, Frank?”
“You bet!” agreed Frank. “Perhaps by the time your father is on the way back we can really talk to him.”
“Now let’s have some music,” suggested Tom, and for the next hour they all listened to the broadcasting station’s program as the loud speaker filled the room with the sounds of music, singing, speeches and news.
For the next three nights the two boys picked up Mr. Pauling’s messages regularly and were as proud as peacocks when they managed to get the first message from Havana telling of his safe arrival in Cuba. And by their enthusiastic studies
and the practice they gained by deciphering the messages, the boys were successful in passing the required examination and proudly exhibited their license to maintain and operate a sending station.
It was a red letter day in their lives when they at last had the transmitting set in working order and flashed a message into the night, to have it promptly answered by an unknown boy in Garden City. Each night, too, they sent out messages directed to their father in the vain hope that, by some chance or by the same mysterious combination of conditions which had wafted other messages to vast distances beyond the range of the instruments, their words might be picked up in Havana or Nassau; but no reply came and at last they gave up in despair.
Then, their sending set being no longer a novelty, the boys set diligently to work on other matters and worked early and late.