Walter and the Wireless

by Sara Ware Bassett

"I am lucky, Dad," conceded Dick quickly, "only——"

"Lucky! I should say you were! You don't know what work means. Well, it was you who wanted this radio outfit. You were all for it and——"

"I am for it still, Dad," interrupted Dick eagerly.

"Then go to it and master it," retorted his father. "If you do not relish the lessons swallow them down for the sake of the fun you are going to have later; for if you are intelligent enough to handle your wireless with some brain and understanding you are going to enjoy it a hundred per cent. more in the end."

"I know I shall," Dick agreed. "It is only that I am crazy to get at the thing itself."

The boy's father shook his head.

"You are like all your generation," said he severely. "Eager to leap the preliminaries and land at the top of the ladder with the first bound. It is an impatient age and the vice extends to the old as well as the young. Nobody wants to fit himself for anything nowadays. In my youth men expected to serve apprenticeships and did not hope to achieve a position until they had learned how to fill it. But now everybody leaps at the big job and the big salary that goes with it and blunders along, taking out his ignorance and lack of experience on the general public. As for you youngsters, you covet at fifteen everything that those who are fifty have. You want automobiles, boats, victrolas and radio telephones before you know how to run them, much less pay for them. Look at Bob, here. He is worth two of you for he can earn what he has. Often I tell myself I am a fool to indulge you and Nancy as I do. I ought by rights to make you do without what you want until you can foot the bill for it." Mr. Crowninshield took a few hasty paces across the piazza. "Still," added he, his voice softening, "I fancy that scheme would be a sight harder on me than on you, for I like nothing better than to get you what you want."

For a moment he paused, looking fondly at his son. Then as if afraid of himself he bristled and continued: "But to return to this wireless—remember that if you do not learn something about it and how to use it I shall take it away. I mean it, mind!"

"Yes, Dad," was the timid answer.

With this awful alternative looming like a specter in his path was it to be wondered at that Dick resolutely turned his gaze from the allurements of the harbor and settled himself in the big chair with all his attention focussed on Bob King's radio lesson. Moreover, human nature is selfish enough to like company in its misery and were not his mother, Nancy and Walter consigned to the same fate as himself?