“Wouldn’t you rather have it downstairs—in the drawing-room, for instance?” asked her mother.
“I know you, Momsy. You’ll be showing it off to all your friends. And pretty soon it will be the family radio instead of mine.”
Mr. Norwood laughed. “I read here that the ordinary aerials will do very well for a small instrument or a large. It is suggested, too, that patents are pending that may make outside aerials unnecessary, anyway. Don’t you mind, Momsy. If we find we want a nice, big set for our drawing-room, we’ll have it in spite of Jessie. And we’ll use her aerials, too.”
The next day Brill sent up the things Jessie had purchased, but the girls could not begin the actual stringing of the copper wires until the morning following. Ample study of the directions for the work printed in the books Jessie had selected made the chums confident that they knew just what to do.
The windows of Jessie’s room on the second floor of the Norwood house were not much more than seventy-five feet from the corner of an ornamental tower that housed the private electric plant belonging to the place. It was a tank tower, and water and light had been furnished to the entire premises from this tower before the city plants had extended their service out Bonwit Boulevard and through Roselawn.
Jessie’s room had been the nursery when Jessie was little. It was now a lovely, comfortable apartment, decorated in pearl gray and pink, with willow furniture and cushions covered with lovely cretonne, an open fireplace in which real logs could be burned in the winter, and pictures of the girl’s own selection.
Her books were here. And all her personal possessions, including tennis rackets, riding whip and spurs, canoe paddle, and even a bag of golf sticks, were arranged in “Jessie’s room.” Out of it opened her bedroom and bath. It was a big room, too, and if the radio was successful they could entertain twenty guests here if they wanted to.
“But, of course, father is getting a set with phones, not with an amplifier like that one out at Parkville,” Jessie explained to her chum. “If we want to use a horn afterward, we may. Now, Amy, do you understand what there is to do?”
“Sure. We’ve got to get out our farmerette costumes. You know, those we used in the school gardens two years ago.”
“Oh, fine! I never would have thought of that,” crowed Jessie.