PART II

Dom Pedro IIDom Pedro II

Dom Pedro II

"I remember very pleasantly," continued Dom Pedro, "my visit to your class in Boston University when you were teaching deaf mutes to speak by means of visible speech. You were working out a new method, I remember. I suppose this is apparatus that you have devised in that connection."

"I thank Your Majesty," stammered the surprised young man, who for a moment had beenat a loss to recall who his royal visitor might be. "I shall be delighted to explain my apparatus. But it has nothing to do with teaching deaf mutes to speak. It is more wonderful than that. It speaks itself; that is, it reproduces sounds. It is the improvement on the telegraph that the world has awaited for years.

"You see, I found in my experiments that I could transmit spoken words by electric current through a telegraph wire so that those words could be reproduced by vibrations at the other end of the wire. I suppose my invention might be called a speaking telegraph."

By this time all the judges had joined the Emperor's party. Arthur fell back to his uncle's side, but he could still hear and see everything.

"Now, Your Majesty," continued Mr. Bell, "if you will press your ear against the lid of this iron box, I think in a moment you will have a surprise."

At these words, Mr. Bell's assistant, who had come up to the group during the conversation, went to another table several rods away and quite out of hearing. The Emperor bent down expectantly. The judges looked rather incredulous, but they were all interested.

"Is the man that went off going to talk over the wire so that the Emperor can hear?" whispered Arthur to his uncle.

"Mr. Bell says so," was the reply, "but we shall see."

Suddenly the Emperor gave a start, and a look of utter amazement came over his face.

"It talks! It talks!" he exclaimed excitedly.

It was quite true. Mr. Hubbard, Mr. Bell's assistant, had spoken in a low voice at the other end of the wire and his exact words had been reproduced. The Emperor's excitement was contagious. Everybody forgot how hot and hungry he was. One after another of the judges listened at the magic box to hear Mr. Hubbard or another of their number speak into the instrument at the other end.

"Oh, Uncle, do you suppose I can listen too after a while?" inquired Arthur, when he could no longer keep still.

Just then Mr. Bell himself interposed.

"Now it must be the little boy's turn."

The grateful little boy was not slow in stooping over to the receiver.

"What does he say, Arthur?" asked his uncle.

"Why, he says, 'To be or not to be,' whatever that means."

"You don't know your Hamlet very well yet, little boy."

"But I have heard a speaking telegraph, and that is better," replied Arthur.

By this time Mr. Hubbard was returning with the apparatus he had been using at the other end. It was time to see how the marvel had been wrought.

"Now tell us how it works, Mr. Bell," commanded Dom Pedro.

"It is very simple," Mr. Bell explained. "You know, of course, that for some years it has been possible to transmit articulate speech through India rubber tubes and stringed instruments for short distances; but I worked, as you see, to transmit spoken words by electric current through a telegraph wire.

"Here on the table before you is the instrument I call the transmitter, into which Mr. Hubbard spoke. This projecting part is only a mouth-piece. Inside is a piece of thin iron attached to a membrane, and this piece of iron vibrates whenever one speaks into the transmitter. For you know, gentlemen, that if you hold a piece of paper in front of your mouth and then sing or talk, the paper will vibrate as many times as the air does.

"Now, of course, if I could reproduce those sound or air waves at a distance, a person listening would hear the same sounds that caused the first vibration. I have accomplished that by making and breaking an electric current between two pieces of sheet iron. My assistant spoke into the cone-shaped mouth-piece. At the end of it, as you couldsee if I took off the cover, is the first thin plate of sheet iron. Near that iron, but not touching it, is a magnetized piece of iron wound around with a coil of wire.

Bell's TelephoneBell's Telephone in March, 1876.

Bell's Telephone in March, 1876.

"This magnet is connected by this wire with another magnet that also has a coil of wire around it. On the other side of the second magnet is the other thin plate of sheet iron. This last part makes what I call the receiver. It is the part at which you listened. It looks, you see, like a metallic pill box with a flat disc for a cover, fastened down at one side and tilted up on another. When you put your ear to that, you heard the reproduction of the original sound."

"Marvelous!" "Wonderful!" "Stupendous!" "Incredible!" were some of the exclamations.

"But, gentlemen," confirmed one of the judges, a man named Elisha Gray, "it is perfectly true. I myself have an invention of a similar sort, by which I can send musical sounds along a telegraph wire."

There was a moment of amazement and congratulation for Mr. Gray. Then came a question addressed to Mr. Bell.

"Could you talk into the iron box and hear at the transmitter?"

"Yes, but not easily. So far I have had to use different instruments at each end of the circuit. I shall remedy that some day," continued Mr. Bell, confidently.

"I am sure you will," agreed the questioner. "We want to see this again, sir," spoke one of the group. "May it not be transferred to the Judges' Hall?"

"Certainly, as far as I am concerned," was the reply. "Mr. Hubbard will see to that, I am sure. I myself must return to Boston to-night."

"My young friend," now spoke Sir William Thomson (who later became Lord Kelvin), perhaps the most noted of all the scientists present, "is it not possible to arrange for a test with your apparatus over a considerable distance? If so, I shall be glad to go to Boston also to witness such an experiment."

"I shall be most delighted, Sir William," answered Bell. "I will make the necessary arrangements and telegraph you at once."

After more congratulations for the young inventor, the group dispersed, the judges going awayto the dinner they had for a while forgotten. But during the meal and through the evening they talked of little but the new invention; and Arthur distinctly remembers to this day the enthusiastic remark of Sir William Thomson: "What yesterday I should have declared impossible I have to-day seen realized. The speaking telegraph is the most wonderful thing I have seen in America."

When Arthur went back to his home in one of the country towns of Massachusetts, he had many things to tell his family and his friends. To him the Exposition had been a veritable fairy land. But the most wonderful genie there was Electricity, and his most remarkable work was the speaking telegraph.

"And you could really hear through that wire?" questioned more than one incredulous person.

"I really could, and as plainly as I hear you," insisted Arthur.

"Sho, now!" remonstrated a farmer neighbor, "you only thought you could."

"Well, maybe," commented another, cautiously, "but of course there was a hole in the wire that you didn't see."

Arthur's own family were more thoughtful and intelligent people.

"I knew," said Grandfather, "that the marvels of electricity were not all understood. When I was a young man, the telegraph was the greatest wonder the world owned. But using that was somehow like talking at arm's length; the telephone brings your friend almost beside you."

"To me," said Arthur's mother, "the telephone, in comparison with the telegraph, seems like a highly finished oil painting. The old invention is like a page of black and white print."

"Why, I have seen Mr. Bell," remembered Arthur's older sister, who was studying to be a teacher, after she had heard the story. "He came to the normal school last year to explain his system of teaching deaf mutes to speak."

The Burtons heard no more of the telephone for six months or more; but the next winter, when Herbert, the older brother, came home from Tufts College to spend a week end, he exclaimed:

"Well, Arthur, I've talked through a telephone, too!"

"You have!"

"Where?"

"Tell us about it!" were the quick replies.

"Professor Dolbear, the physics instructor, has made one in his laboratory. It's a little different from Professor Bell's. Your professor, Arthur,had a battery, you know, to make the electro-magnet. My professor has a permanent magnet instead."

Early in February Herbert came home with more news and an invitation: "Professor Bell is going to give a public lecture and exhibition of his telephone at Salem next Monday evening. He expects to carry on a conversation with people in Boston. Want to go back to college with me Monday morning, Arthur, and go down to Salem in the evening?"

So it happened that on Monday evening, February 12, 1877, Arthur and Herbert, with about five hundred others, were at Lyceum Hall in Salem. It was an eager audience, full of curiosity.

Upon the platform and well toward the front was a small table, on the top of which rested an unimportant-looking covered box. From this box wires extended above to the gas fixture and out through the hall. At the back of the platform was a blackboard on a frame, and at the side a young woman, an expert telegrapher, who was to help Mr. Bell.

"Rather an unpromising set of apparatus!" Arthur heard a man behind him whisper to his neighbor.

"I'm not expecting much," returned the neighbor. "They say Professor Bell's going to talk to Boston. That's nonsense!"

But just then Professor Bell began. He brieflyexplained the instrument upon the table, which, Arthur saw, varied but little from that at Philadelphia.

"Only," thought Arthur, "he uses it now as he said he should, for transmitting and receiving too."

Then Professor Bell gave a brief account of the studies he had made since 1872, when he came to Boston to teach speech to deaf mutes.

"I made up my mind," said he, "that if I could make a deaf mute talk, I could make iron talk. For two years I worked on the problem, but unsuccessfully. At last, about two years ago, while a friend and I were experimenting daily with a wire stretched between my own room at Boston University and the basement of an adjoining building, I spoke into the transmitter, 'Can you hear me?' To my surprise and delight the answer came at once, 'I can understand you perfectly.' To be sure," continued the lecturer, "the sounds were not perfect, but they were intelligible. I had transmitted articulate speech.

"My problem was a long way toward its solution. With practically those same instruments, improved with a year's experimenting, I went to the Exposition, where, as you know, I interested many people. Since last June Sir William Thomson and I have succeeded in talking over a distance ofabout sixty miles. Moreover, I have talked, but not so successfully, between New York and Boston, a distance of over two hundred miles. To-night I expect to establish a connection between this hall and my study in Exeter Place in Boston, eighteen miles away. My colleague, Professor Watson, is there, in company with six other gentlemen."

Then, in an ordinary tone, as if speaking to some one a few feet away, Professor Bell inquired, talking into the transmitter:

"Are you ready, Watson?"

Evidently Watson was ready, for there came from the telephone a noise much like the sound of a horn.

"That is Watson making and breaking the circuit," explained Professor Bell.

Soon Arthur heard plainly the organ notes of "Auld Lang Syne," followed by those of "Yankee Doodle."

"But that's not the human voice," objected Arthur's neighbor to his companion. "Musical sounds we know can be telegraphed."

Just then Mr. Bell spoke again into the transmitter.

"Watson, will you make us a speech?"

There came a few seconds of silence. Then, to the astonishment of all, a voice issued from the telephone. All the five hundred people couldhear the sound, and those less than six feet from the instrument had little difficulty in making out the words:

"Ladies and gentlemen: It gives me great pleasure to address you this evening, though I am in Boston and you are in Salem."

"I wonder what those men think now," reflected Arthur.

But the answer was forthcoming.

"We can no longer doubt. We can only admire the sagacity and patience with which Mr. Bell has brought his problem to a successful issue."

At the conclusion of the lecture many of the audience went to the platform to examine the wonderful box more closely. Arthur and Herbert were of the number, you may be sure.

"Is it all right for me to speak to Mr. Bell, Herbert?" whispered Arthur.

"Certainly, if you don't interrupt."

Arthur watched his chance.

"Mr. Bell," he said finally, "you did make the receiver into a transmitter, didn't you? I saw you at Philadelphia, you know."

Mr. Bell's puzzled look wore away.

"Why," he exclaimed, "you're the boy I saw at the Exposition that Sunday afternoon last June, aren't you?" Then he added, before turning awayto answer a question that a man was asking, "Better buy a BostonGlobein the morning. You'll find a new triumph for the telephone there."

Arthur bought hisGlobethe next morning before breakfast. Mr. Bell was right. The paper recorded even more successes than the boys had witnessed the night before. Its account of the evening ended with these words:

"This special by telephone to theGlobehas been transmitted in the presence of about twenty, who have thus been witnesses to a feat never before attempted: that is, the sending of a newspaper despatch over the space of eighteen miles by the human voice, all this wonder being accomplished in a time not much longer than would be consumed in an ordinary conversation between two people in the same room."

Probably no child who reads this story can remember when the telephone was not so common an object as a lawn mower or an elevator; but those of us who lived through the years when its wonders were slowly developing can never forget our strange, almost uncanny feeling when the voice of a friend who, we knew, was miles away actually came out of a little iron box.

From that day of theGlobereport Arthur watched the telephone grow rapidly into public notice. Salem people invited Mr. Bell to repeat his lecture; leading citizens of Boston, Lowell, Providence,Manchester, and New York within a few weeks clamored for demonstrations in their cities.

Part of a Telephone ExchangePart of a Telephone Exchange.

Part of a Telephone Exchange.

By September, 1878, a telephone exchange was set up among the business houses of Boston, with about three hundred subscribers. Two years later the telephone found its way to the little town where Arthur lived, and two instruments were installed—one at the railroad station and another at the lawyer's office.

The next day came the presidential election; and in the evening the lawyer's office was filled with curious men and boys, eager to see whether the telephone would really work or not. Arthur and his father were there, of course. But before any message came, the lawyer had to see a client for a few minutes.

Alexander Graham BellAlexander Graham Bell in 1900.

Alexander Graham Bell in 1900.

"Here, Arthur, you've used a telephone before. Take my place at the receiver, will you?"

There was no need to ask. Arthur was at the receiver when the lawyer's question was finished. No message came for some time; but at last the bell rang, and Arthur announced proudly:

"He says Florida has gone Republican."

"I knew the thing couldn't be trusted," sputtered an old voter then. "As if the solid South were broken! I'll get my news some other way." And off he went.

"You didn't hear right, I fancy," said the lawyer, returning. "The operator couldn't have said that."

"But he did," insisted Arthur. "I'm sure he did."

"And why not?" quietly asked the school teacher from one corner of the room. "He means the town of Florida, not the state."

"Of course," said everybody.

By 1883, Arthur heard that conversation had been carried on between New York and Chicago, cities one thousand miles apart. "That is all we can hope for," was the general verdict. For a long time it seemed true. But when the country had been covered by a network of wires, there came another long-distance triumph. Communication was open to Omaha, five hundred miles farther west.

And not long ago, Arthur, now a prosperous business man of fifty, a member of the City Club of Boston, sat with several associates around a table at the new club house, each with a telephone in front of him; and over the wires, across three thousand miles of mountain, lake, and prairie, came clearly the voices of the governor of Massachusetts and the mayor of Boston, speaking from the Panama Exposition at San Francisco.

What will be the next triumph of the telephone? To transmit speech around the globe, perhaps. Anyway, here is a newspaper paragraph that asks an interesting question:

"TheMayflowerhas been called the last fraillink binding the Pilgrims to man and habitable earth. With its departure from Plymouth in America that frail link was severed. The Atlantic cable has surely bound the countries together again. Will the telephone and the aeroplane make the desert of the Pilgrims a popular London suburb?"

"Uncle John, I've decided to go to Wellesley College."

"I'm glad to hear it, Dora. Have you money enough?"

"That's just the trouble, Uncle John. I have exactly twenty-four dollars that I've earned picking berries the last three summers. But I'm only eleven, you know, and I shan't try to go before I'm eighteen. That will give me seven more summers to work. Only I can never pay my college expenses if I can't earn more than eight dollars a summer."

"That's true, Dora. I wish I were rich enough to send you myself. But school teachers are not wealthy, you know."

"Oh, I don't want anybody to give me the money, Uncle John. I want to earn it. Don't you know of something that's more profitable than berry-picking?"

"I'll think about it, Dora."

This conversation took place in 1878, whenDora's Uncle John, who was a high school principal in New Jersey, was spending his Christmas vacation at Dora's home in a little village on the Maine coast. Nothing more was said about the college money then; but when Uncle John came again in February, he showed that he had interested himself in the ambitious plans of his little niece.

Wellesley CollegeWellesley College in 1886.

Wellesley College in 1886.

"Dora," he inquired, "do you want to go to college as much as ever?"

"Yes, more, Uncle John. Have you thought of anything for me to do this summer?"

"I know something you can do, Dora, if you want to."

"Oh, Uncle John, what is it?"

"How should you like to work for me?"

"I should like to ever so much. But I don't know enough yet to correct high school papers. All I can do is housework."

"And that's just what I want of you, Dora. You didn't know I had leased the Atlantic House, did you?"

"No, indeed, Uncle John. Do you mean you're coming here summers to manage that hotel?"

"Yes, for the next ten years, anyway, I expect. Do you like to fill lamps and clean chimneys, Dora?"

"Why, that's the part of the housework I can do best."

"That's good. Will you work for me twelve weeks this summer for three dollars and a half a week?"

"Oh, Uncle John, of course I will. But isn't there gas in that hotel?"

"No, just kerosene lamps. I know some people like gas better, but I don't. It's too dangerous and it's bad for one's eyes. So even if I could spare the money this summer, I shouldn't pipe the house for gas. It can't be many years before there will be a cleaner and better light. The Wizard will soon attend to that."

"What do you mean, Uncle? Who is the Wizard?"

"The most wonderful man in America, Dora. His name is Thomas Alva Edison, and he lives in Menlo Park, New Jersey, not far from where I teach. I know him a little. He is the man who, Ithink, best represents the scientific spirit of the nineteenth century. He's an inventor, but a systematic one. He doesn't trust to chance."

"What has he invented, Uncle? I don't think I ever heard of him."

"I fancy not, Dora. So far his work has been largely improvements on inventions already made. Just now, as I said, he is experimenting to find a way of lighting buildings by electricity. He will succeed, I know; and I shall wait for his electric light. I expect, though, to wait a number of years yet, for even though he should discover the secret within a few months, no one can supply the necessary apparatus. It will take years, I'm sure, before electric lighting is cheap enough to be common."

"How did you get acquainted with such a wonderful man, Uncle?"

"I knew him first when I was getting ready for college. Like you, I had my own way to pay; and I learned to be a telegraph operator. The summer before I entered Harvard I had a place in the Boston office of the Western Union Telegraph Company. Mr. Edison was a young man too, and he came to work in the office while I was there.

"The night he came we tried to play a joke on him, but the joke was decidedly on ourselves. Edison wore an old linen duster, and looked somuch like a country boy that we thought he couldn't know much about taking messages. So we arranged with a skillful New York operator to send a long message faster and faster, and we saw to it that the new boy had to take it. To our surprise, he proved the fastest operator we had ever known and very carelessly and easily handled the quick dots and dashes. The joke was on the New York operator, too, for after a while Edison signaled, 'Say, young man, why don't you change off and send with your other foot?'

"An operator like that didn't stay long in the office. He went to New York, and almost at once got a position at three hundred dollars a month because he was bright enough to repair a stock-indicator in a broker's office. Soon afterward he improved the indicator so much that the president of the company gave him forty thousand dollars for his new idea.

"Next he proved his value to the telegraph company again by locating a break in the wire between New York and Albany. The president of the Western Union had promised to consider any invention Edison might make if the young man would find the trouble on the line in two days. Edison was not two hours in locating the break; and ever after that the Western Union people were glad enough to be told of all his new ideas."

"Is he working for the Western Union now?"

TickerStock Indicator or "Ticker"

Stock Indicator or "Ticker"

"No, not now. Just as soon as he had enough money in the bank so that he could afford time to experiment, he opened a factory and laboratory of his own. He made stock tickers for a while; but he cared more about improving them than selling them. 'No matter,' I have heard him say, 'whether I take an egg beater or an electric motor into my hand, I want to improve it. I'm a poor manufacturer, because I can't let well enough alone.' So, instead of making stock indicators, he went to work to improve the telegraph. He saved the Western Union Company millions of dollars by making a device for sending four messages at the same time over one wire. So you see he made their one hundred thousand miles of wire into four hundred thousand without using any more wire. That's a wizard's work, I think."

"I should think so, too," agreed Dora. "That seems to me as hard as singing two notes at once."

"But it can be done, nevertheless; and Edison was so pleased with that invention that he puthis factory at Newark into the hands of a capable superintendent and established a laboratory at Menlo Park, where he is now, about twenty-five miles from Newark. Then he began to think about the telephone. Do you know what that is, Dora?"

"I've heard about it, of course, but I never saw one. There are some telephones in Portland, though."

"Yes, and there's going to be one here. I'm going to connect the hotel with the telegraph office at the station this summer, and sometime I'll give you a chance to talk over the wire. It's easier to use the telephone now than it was at first, for in the beginning there was a continual buzzing that was very annoying; but Edison has stopped all that by improving what we call the transmitter."

Dora's idea of a telephone was indistinct; but she was satisfied with the explanation to come, and she wanted to hear more of Mr. Edison. "Has he made anything else?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," replied Uncle John. "What I think is the most wonderful thing Edison has done is the phonograph. Next to the telephone, that to me is the biggest marvel in the world of science. Think, Dora, of speaking into a machine that makes a picture of the sound waves produced by your voice, and then, a day or a year or a century later,letting the instrument work backward and hearing your own voice exactly as it sounded at first. Such a mechanism almost frightens me. It makes me sure that if a man like Edison can keep the idle words men speak through centuries, the Master Mind of this universe can keep them for us forever."

PhonographEdison's First Phonograph.

Edison's First Phonograph.

Dora must have caught a little of her uncle's thought, for she said, slowly, "Do you mean that everything I say I shall hear again sometime?"

"I don't know exactly, Dora. But I am sure that God, who gave you power to speak, knows how to keep your words forever; and I am sure you will never cease to be glad for all the kind words you may speak for human ears to hear.

"But I'd almost forgotten about the electriclight, Dora. Let me tell you what Edison said about that the last time I saw him. He told me of seeing in Philadelphia what is called an arc lamp—two pieces of carbon that electricity has heated white hot and that give off a powerful light, much more powerful than any gas lamp you ever saw could give. But a lamp like that, though it makes a fine street lamp, is not suitable for lighting a house. It's too bright and too big. Edison says it needs to be subdivided so that it can be distributed to houses just as gas is now.

"That's Edison's present problem, Dora. He is such an untiring worker that I don't believe it will take many months; and when the process is perfected and the implements for generating the electricity can be secured, I mean to make my hotel the prettiest place at night on the Maine coast. But meantime, Dora, suppose you learn to wipe lamps so dry and polish chimneys so bright and trim wicks so even that every summer visitor at the 'Atlantic' will be glad to get away for a while from the flaring, ill-smelling, poisonous gas light."

"I will, Uncle John, I will! I'll be the best lamp-trimmer on the whole Maine coast!"

"That's the spirit that will take you to college, Dora," answered her uncle. "Don't lose a bit of it."

For all the long hot weeks of the next summer Dora worked faithfully every day on the hotel lamps. She had to be at her work at eight o'clock every morning, and she seldom finished before two in the afternoon. But every week her uncle paid her three dollars and a half, and by the end of the season she had forty-two dollars carefully put away. When the hotel closed, her uncle made her a present of eight dollars, so that when she started for school in the fall she rejoiced in the thought of fifty dollars put away in the savings bank as a college fund.

She was happy, too, in the prospect of making as much money the next summer. For the Wizard, Uncle John told her, had not the secret yet. He had succeeded in making a platinum wire, encased in a glass globe, give a light equal to that of twenty-five candles without melting. But he needed to exhaust all the air from the glass globe, and still one one-hundred-thousandth of the original volume remained.

"But that's not sufficient," commented Uncle John. "I know enough about the matter to be sure that so much air as that would prevent the platinum from giving out the light it ought to give. Still, within a short time, Dora, I expect even thePortland papers will describe Mr. Edison's success with the electric light."

Uncle John's prediction was fulfilled. By the first of October the vacuum was so nearly perfect that only one-millionth part of the original air was left in the glass bulb. By the last of that same month, moreover, the whole secret was practically in Edison's grasp. He had stopped experimenting with platinum for a burner and had gone back to carbon, on which he had pinned his faith at first.

But this time he used the carbon only as a coating for a piece of cotton thread that he had bent into a loop and sealed up in the almost perfect vacuum of glass. When this lamp was connected with the battery, it flashed forth with the brightness that the inventor had so long waited to see. But how long would it burn? There was no sleep for Edison till that question was answered; and it was not answered for forty hours—nearly two days of growing delight and diminishing anxiety.

Such a discovery meant the end of all fruitless experimenting. The secret of the incandescent light was revealed; and the newspapers all over the country—theDaily Eastern Argusof Portland among them—spread the knowledge of the great event in science and prophesied the speedy conquest of kerosene and gas. Late in November Uncle John sent Dora a copy of theScientific Americanwhich gave the authoritative account of what had been accomplished.

EdisonEdison in his Library.

Edison in his Library.

"But," wrote Uncle John in the letter accompanying the paper, "now the real work has only begun. The Wizard knows that some carbonized material is what he needs, but he is sure that carbonized cotton thread is not the best thing. Now he is carbonizing everything he can lay his hands on—straw, tissue paper, soft paper, all kinds of cardboard, all kinds of threads, fish line, threads rubbed with tarred lampblack,fine threads plaited together in strands, cotton soaked in boiling tar, lamp wick, twine, tar and lampblack mixed, and many other materials that I can't remember. Why," finished Uncle John, "so far he has examined no fewer than six thousand different species of vegetable growth alone. Somebody said something to him the other day about his wonderful genius. 'Well,' modestly answered the great man, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief, 'genius, I think, is one per centinspiration and ninety-nine per centperspiration.'"

In December there came into Dora's life the most happy and exciting experience of her childhood. The letter from Uncle John in November had ended with this paragraph:

"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 milesfrom 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 theHeraldUncle 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, 1880Dear 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 hesaid, "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 tosleep 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

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 hesaid, "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 tosleep 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:

A NIGHT WITH EDISONMenlo Park, N. J.Dec. 30, 1879All 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.

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.

The afternoon trains brought some visitors, but in the evening every train set down a coupleof 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."

"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."

Dora's New York visit colored all the next five years that she worked and waited for college. Her interest in the electric light never wavered for an instant. Like many another, she marveled at the thoroughness of Mr. Edison's search for the right sort of filament and followed expectantly reports of those men whom he sent around the world in search of it.

She read with a bit of almost personal pride the item in the Portland paper that told how, on September 4, 1882, at three o'clock in the afternoon, electric light was supplied for the first time to a number of New York customers; and when, in 1884, that same paper stated that at Brockton,Massachusetts, the first theater ever lighted by electricity from a central plant had been thrown open, she wrote her uncle:

"I'm sure you'll have to discharge your lamp trimmer pretty soon. But I don't care now, for with father's help, I think I can enter Wellesley in the fall. Of course I hope to work one more summer for you."

Uncle John answered that letter in person, for he needed to go to Maine to make arrangements for the summer.

"I congratulate you, Dora," said he. "You deserve a college course. But I shan't discharge you yet. I expect now to wire the hotel by 1889; but even if I shouldn't need a lamp trimmer all the time till then, I shall always be glad of a capable waitress.—Will you work for me the next three summers?"

"Of course I will, Uncle John," replied Dora as eagerly and gratefully as she had made the same reply six years before. "With the money I can earn the next three summers, I can lessen college expenses a good deal."

So it happened that the ambition of Dora's girlhood; largely through her own pluck and persistence, was realized in due season. Still, she always felt that Mr. Edison unknowingly had a large share in the making of her career; for when in after yearsshe became an instructor in physics at an influential school, she could easily trace back her love for her subject to her interest in the early experiments upon the electric light.

In March, 1852, Lucy Hobart began a six months' visit with her grandparents who lived just outside Trenton, New Jersey. One morning at the breakfast table, Grandfather Hobart, whom most people called Lawyer Hobart, said to Lucy, "Little girl, a most important case is being tried at the court house this week. It may not be very interesting to a child, but I think that you, as well as Grandmother, ought to attend this morning. I want you to be able to say that you have heard the great Daniel Webster make a plea."

"Do you mean Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, Grandfather?" inquired Lucy. "I thought," she resumed rather timidly, for she feared Grandfather might think she was contradicting him, "I thought people didn't like him any more."

"You come from a strong anti-slavery family, Lucy, the worst kind," answered Grandfather, good-humoredly. "Webster did seem to many people to sacrifice his ideal in that seventh of March speech two years ago, but he's a keen lawyeryet. His health is broken, though, from the criticism he has suffered. I don't believe he will live much longer. That's why I think you had better go to-day."

"I should like to ever so much," replied Lucy.

"Is it the Goodyear case?" inquired Grandmother.

"Yes," replied Grandfather. "It's his case against Horace Day, who, I think, has been outrageously infringing his patents."

"It's raining a little," remarked Grandmother. "Shall you take us if it keeps on?"

"If you feel like going. If it hadn't been for Mr. Goodyear, you know, you couldn't have gone anyway on such a day," Grandfather added.

"Why couldn't we?" inquired Lucy, after trying to think it out a few seconds.

"My stars! Don't you, a Boston girl, know about Goodyear and his rubber goods?"

"I don't believe so," answered Lucy. "Unless," she added after a pause, "you mean the man that advertises in theTranscriptevery night. Ever since I could read, I've seen advertisements in the paper about rubber that's been heated to two hundred and eighty degrees."

"Yes, Lucy, that's an advertisement of the Charles Goodyear I mean. I've known him a good many years (he's only a little younger than I, and we were both born in New Haven), and he's had ahard, sad life so far. To be sure, he's reckoned now as one of New Haven's prosperous business men; but unless he wins this suit, his poverty will come back again. Shall I tell you a little about him so that you'll understand some of the references you'll be sure to hear at the trial?"

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