“Don’t you fret over that,” her husband had advised. “Tom and his friends are having the time of their lives. As long as they are learning something of value, what does it matter if they do keep his room in a mess? Besides, it’s clean dirt you know—and it’s orderly disorder if you know what I mean. They’re exploring a new world and haven’t time to look after such trifles as having a place for everything and everything in its place. That will come later. Just now they are fired with the zeal and enthusiasm of great inventors and scientists. We mustn’t interfere with them—such feelings come to human beings but once in a lifetime. I consider this radio craze the best thing for boys that ever occurred. It gives them an interest, it’s educational, it keeps them off the street and occupies their brains and hands at the same time. Do you know, if I didn’t have my time so fully occupied, I believe I’d get bitten by the bug myself. Besides, they may really discover something worth while. I was talking to Henderson of our staff to-day—he had charge of
our radio work during the war—and he tells me some of the best inventions in radio have been made by amateurs—quite by accident too. I expect Tom knows that and that’s what makes the kids so keen on the subject—it’s a wonderful thought to feel you may stumble on some little thing that will revolutionize a great science at any moment.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Fred,” agreed Tom’s mother resignedly. “But I do wish it were possible to have boys amuse themselves without tracking shavings all over the halls and burning holes in their clothes and having grimy fingers.”
But Tom’s mother need not have worried. Gradually order came out of chaos. As the boys progressed, they found that the accumulation of odds and ends and the disorder interfered with their work; many experimental instruments and devices had been discarded and were now tossed into a junk box in the closet; a neat work table with the tools handily arranged had been rigged up and Tom and Frank had developed a well-equipped and orderly little workshop with the completed instruments on an improvised bench under the window.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Pauling had noticed the gradual improvement, as from time to time they had been summoned by Tom to witness demonstrations of the latest products of the boys’ brains and hands, and both parents congratulated the boys on their handiwork and the strides they had made. So, on the night when Tom had assured his father that his latest set was a “peacherino,” the two grownups entered a room which, as Mr. Pauling expressed it, reminded him of a wireless on a ship.
And then, after Tom with the glowing eyes and flushed face of an inventor and the pride of a showman, had exhibited his latest achievement and had explained its mysteries in terms which were utterly unintelligible to his parents, they sat spellbound as the strains of a military band fairly filled the room.
“Fine!” declared Mr. Pauling when the concert ended. “You have got a ‘peacherino’ as you call it.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” declared Tom deprecatingly. “I can get Pittsburgh and I can get spark messages from Cuba and Canada, and last night I
picked up a message from Balboa. I’ll hear England and France before I’m satisfied.”
“Bully!” exclaimed his father. “Tell you what I’ll do. I’m off to Cuba and the Bahamas, Monday, you know. I’ll radio from the ship on the way down and after I get there you can see if you can pick up my messages direct and can talk back.”