Jack nodded. “Some day I’m going to ask Captain Cornell to let me handle her. If I ever see him again,” he added, as he and Mr. Hampton returned toward the house.
But Jack was to see Captain Cornell again, and that right soon.
In the meantime, he spent the next several days engaged on his radio experimentation. Mr. Hampton saw little of him, except at meals. But the older man was himself engaged, being deep in the writing of a technical engineering paper. So the time did not hang heavy on his hands.
Jack reported one night enthusiastically that his research had definitely established that the complicated Super-Heterodyne could be simplified to the point where anybody, “even a child,” he said with such a tone of scorn as to make his father smile, could work it. Then he plunged again into his experiments.
Four or five days after the unexpected visit of the army flyer, Tom Bodine returning from a ride into Red Butte, ten miles away, brought a bundle of mail. Mail at the ranch was always an event, so Jack was summoned from his radio shack to the house, and he and his father abandoned their various pursuits for the time being.
“Oh, I say, Dad, here’s a letter from Frank,” cried Jack, pouncing on a bulky missive, and slitting it open. “Now to hear the news from home.” And with the stiff sheets crinkling, he threw himself down in a deep leather chair while his eyes started to devour the page.
The next moment he bounded to his feet with a whoop.
“Hurray, Dad,” he shouted, “Guess what! The fellows have both passed their exams. Now they have nothing to do for six weeks, when they’ll have to show up for Commencement. They’re coming out to spend the intervening time with us.” His eyes skimmed the pages. “Been planning on this for a long time but kept it a secret. Bob wasn’t sure he could pass, but he crammed. Got a creditable rating. And Mr. Temple’s coming, too. What do you know about that, Dad?”
And tossing the letter upon the table, Jack grabbed his father by the shoulders and began whirling him around the room. Not until he had kicked over several chairs and bumped into the table with a crash that brought a howl of pain did he come to a halt. Then Mr. Hampton looked at his flushed face and shining eyes and shook his head.
“Yes, Temple told me the same thing here,” he said, extending the letter he himself had been reading. He shook his head. “Poor Temple and I. We’ll have our hands full.”