"I am looking forward to my visit to Maine next month, but I'm sorry to say it must be earlier and shorter than usual. I have an important engagement here for the twenty-fourth, and I'm planning to reach Maine on Saturday, the twentieth, spend Sunday with you, and leave there the twenty-second. But I have thought of a way of making my visit last longer and of giving you a new kind of Christmas present. That way is to take you back with me to Jersey and let you see what Christmas and New Year's in the neighborhood of New York are like. If you approve my new idea for Christmas, I want you to let me know at once."

If any twelve-year-old child who lives fifty miles from a city and has never been farther from home than that city in her life is reading this, she will know how Dora felt at the prospect of such a Christmas journey, and she will understand, too, how Dora had her answer ready for the post office in less than an hour after she had read her letter.

The only event of Dora's wonderful vacation that this story has a right to tell is her visit to Mr. Edison. It happened that in the Herald Uncle John bought as the train was nearing New York, there was a long article describing the lighting system that Mr. Edison had put into successful operation at Menlo Park. "Interest is getting so great in the incandescent light," remarked Uncle John, "that I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Edison let the public see it in operation. If he does, you and I are going to Menlo Park."

The prophecy was a true one. On New Year's Mr. Edison opened his grounds to the public, the railroad ran special trains, and over three thousand people visited Menlo Park. Here is the enthusiastic letter that Dora wrote next day to Maine:

Newark, N. J.
Jan. 1, 1880

Dear Father and Mother,

I have been to Fairyland. The enclosed clippings will tell you all about it. I saw the king of the fairies too—I mean Mr. Edison—and he said, "Good evening, little girl," to me. He talked with Uncle John quite a while, and I heard all they said. Some one asked Mr. Edison when New York would be lighted by electricity and he answered, "I'm working night and day, but you see I have to produce not only a practicable lamp, but a whole system. I haven't found the best material for filaments yet, and there's not a place in the world where I can buy the dynamos (those are machines for making the electricity, Uncle John told me) and the smaller appliances."

Then Uncle John said, "Well, Edison, I'm waiting patiently till you make electric lights cheap enough for me to wire my hotel on the Maine coast. Can you make a prediction?"

"None that's safe," Edison answered. "You know the opposition of the gas companies, and you know the present high cost of the experiments. I've spent already over forty thousand dollars without returns, and my lamps are costing almost two dollars apiece. The public won't take them till they can be sold for forty cents or less. Moreover, I'm not satisfied with my paper carbon lamps. No, there is much work left; but I shall work day and night till New York has a central station and every appliance we need is manufactured at small cost."

"I suppose eating and sleeping don't bother you much just now," some one said.

"Not very much," answered Edison. "I eat when I'm hungry, and I sleep when I have to. Four hours a night are enough, for I can go to sleep instantly, and I always wake up rested."

Uncle John says that Mr. Edison is the greatest inventor the world has known. Just think of that! And I have seen him!

Yours affectionately,
Dora

Here are two newspaper clippings that Dora enclosed in her letter:

I

A NIGHT WITH EDISON

Menlo Park, N. J.
Dec. 30, 1879

All day long and until late this evening, Menlo Park has been thronged with visitors coming from all directions to see the wonderful "electric light." Nearly every train that stopped brought delegations of sightseers till the depot was overrun and the narrow plank walk leading to the laboratory became alive with people. In the laboratory the throngs practically took possession of everything in their eager curiosity to learn all about the great invention. Four new street lamps were added last night, making six in all, which now give out the horse shoe light in the open air. Their superiority to gas is so apparent, both in steadiness and beauty of illumination, that every one is struck with admiration.

II

The afternoon trains brought some visitors, but in the evening every train set down a couple of score, at least. The visitors never seemed to tire of lighting the lamps upon the two main tables by simply laying one between the two long wires. Most were content to ejaculate "Wonderful!" But no amount of explanation would persuade one old gentleman that it was not an iron wire that was inside the glass tube. "It could not be the carbon filament of a piece of paper, for," said he, "I have seen some red hot, white hot iron wire, only it was not quite so bright, but it looked just like that. That's no filament!"

"This is a bad time for sceptics," I said to Edison.

"There are some left," he answered. "They die harder than a cat or a snake."