Stand By

e so that he nearly dropped the glass jar half full of salt water, in

ed, gray-headed fellow, with twinkle lines arou

ew. He told me I'd find you up here. I'm Doctor Pendexter from Tilton, old friend of Gem's. Just now heard about his bum leg and came over to see him. Gem, consarn him, never does

I could." Lee touched the jar with its half load of sa

ndexter drew up a chair clo

However, as he struggled sturdily on with what he had planned to do, interest in t

is crude electrodes to the other. He'd test it in his own way. With a quick clip, he cut the wire in the middle, setting the ends apart but very nearly touching. He laid a finger on the gap. A tiny prickling shot through

It ought to. I've dabbled at that

But just something to play with is as far as I seem to get. I can'

ealization of what a struggle this boy must be having as he strove alone to fathom the almost unfat

Voltaic pile and the crystal wheel with its renovated gear. "The trouble is, you're going sort of one-sided with nothing but one old book to learn out of," and he flipped the calfskin c

ammered Lee Ren

g out on one of the biggest things in electricity.

metal that you can pick up a needle or a tack or the like wi

thing that puts the 'go' in telegraphy, the telephone, this radio business. Say, I'm going to send you a boo

ad the feeling that he had only imagined Dr. William Pendexter. The wizened little man with the outlandi

was postmaster as well as storekeeper, shoved a package over the counter to him and said, "Today's mail day." (Mail came only three times a week to this little backwash village of King's

s trembled so that he could hardly tear the wrappings away. Ah, there it was-a bi

jars containing salt water, each jar holding its strips of zinc and copper, and fitted with wiring, he charged a bar of soft iron until it was magn

experienced hand might have been stalled by the lack of material. But Lee Renaud staunchly refused to be stalled, even though his supply of workin

ee proposed to make him

or him. If he were going forwa

it in a circuit through a loop of wire which lay in a strongly magnetized field. The push of power in the lines of magnetic force, through changes in th

inders connected to the revolving loop of wire and touched at each half-turn by stationary metal brushes. The metal brushing was to turn the alternating current into a direct current. In the making, Lee ran into all sorts of troubles, mostly due to his

essing-which really wasn't necessary for old Mr. Renaud was coming on finely. He might just as well have admitted

anky, balky dynamo. When he was climbing into his car, he called, "Hi there, Lee! I've g

e progressive world that he had slipped out of for a spell. Drug stores, banks, cars, tall poles for telegraph and telephone wires, electric

Lee stood like one transfixed, staring in fascination at the telegraph instruments on the dispatcher's table. Almost without knowing it,

the boy's direction when he

own there in the Cove experimenting all by himself. Consarn it, John Akerly, tell him something about

d the instrument. "Want to know something about that?" he que

he click and the voi

hing about

solution so as to produce an electric current. Then a lot of jars with this s

begin with, I've got a battery here, with a wire from one pole of it passing through my table and going all the way to Birmingham

cuit," answered

ingham station in its circle. On

n't a cir-"

s old earth of ours is a mig

he hadn't thought of that. "I've groun

'll say this circuit is fixed around some instruments on my table, and fixed around the same sort of instruments on the table in Birmingham. Well, wh

." Lee cocked his head sidewise in dee

, that's t

mping catfish! Is tha

, special stuff and duplex work, signals, the code to be learned." The dispatcher paused a moment in his recita

ry grin, "or rather I don't see! How do you hitch all those l

ond. We call that a 'dot.' A three-tenths of a second tap makes the 'dash.' Put 'dot,' 'dash,' 'dot' together in all sorts of combinatio

wo of them still at it, with the talk switching back and forth about magnetic rotat

," rumbled the Doctor. "Didn't mean to leave you at

he passage of time. "Your work, I didn't mea

again and we'll jaw some more." Lanky,

s and codes and induction and what-not. Electricity was a language that Dr. Will

octor started pulling a wooden box out of the back of his car. Lee put a willing shoulder

started to ease the thing down in his G

and following directions, slid i

e junk I'm going to leave with you,"

me tattered pamphlets full of sketches and diagrams, and these well mixed in with coils of copper wire, screws, an old sounder still bea

stuff such as he had never even hoped to

ou don't really m

e if I brought that box back home to just sit and catch dust and

't keep his hands from straying over the ol

backing off testily from any further tha