When they told their families what they proposed to do, their parents were greatly pleased.
“It does my heart good,” said Mr. Layton to his wife, after Bob had gone up to bed, “to see that those boys are interested in making some one besides themselves happy.”
“They’re going to make fine men, some day,” answered Mrs. Layton softly.
The boys arrived at the McNulty cottage so early the next morning that they met Maggie McNulty on her way to collect the day’s wash.
When they told her what they were going to do she was at first too astonished to speak and then threatened to fall upon their necks in her gratitude.
“Shure, if ye can bring some sunshine into my poor old father’s dark life,” she told them in her rich brogue, tears in her eyes, “then ye’ll shure win the undyin’ gratitude uv Maggie McNulty.”
It was a whole day’s job, and the boys worked steadily, only stopping long enough to rush home for a bit of lunch.
They had tried to explain what they were doing to Adam McNulty, but the old man seemed almost childishly mystified. It was with a feeling of dismay that the boys realized that, in all probability, this was the first time the blind man had ever heard the word radio. It seemed incredible to them that there could be anybody in the world who did not know about radio.
However, if Adam McNulty was mystified, he was also delightedly, pitifully excited. He followed the boys out to the cluttered back yard where they were rigging up the aerial, listening eagerly to their chatter and putting in a funny word now and then that made them roar with laughter.
Bob brought him an empty soap box for a seat and there the old man sat hour after hour, despite the fact that there was a chill in the air, blissfully happy in their companionship. He had been made to understand that something pleasant was being done for him, but it is doubtful if he could have asked for any greater happiness than just to sit there with somebody to talk to and crack his jokes with.