“You can do it for about ten dollars—if you are ingenious,” said Jessie encouragingly.
“Gee whiz! That’s a lot of money,” said Fred.
The girl knew better than to suggest lending them or giving them the money. But she told them all the helpful things she could about setting up the radio paraphernalia and rigging the wires.
“I guess Nell would help us,” Bob remarked. “She’s pretty good, you know, for a girl.”
“I like that!” exclaimed Jessie.
Bob Stanley grinned at her impishly.
In the evening when the electric lights were ablaze the Norwood lawns were a pretty sight indeed. People came in cars from miles away. It was surprising how many came, it seemed, for the purpose of listening to the radio. That feature had been well advertised, and it came at a time when the popular curiosity was afire through reading so much about radio in the newspapers.
Among the hundreds of cars parked near by were those of several of the more prosperous farmers of the county. One ancient, baldheaded, bewhiskered agriculturist sat through three of the radio shows, and commented freely upon this new wonder of the world.
“The telegraph was just in its infancy when I was born,” he told Jessie. “And then came the telephone, and these here automobiles, and flying machines, and wireless telegraph, and now this. Why, ma’am, this radio beats the world! It does, plumb, for sure!”
The surprise and the comments of the audience did not so much interest Jessie Norwood as the fact that the money taken in by the tent show would add vastly to the profit of the bazaar.