The ground wire went down the side of
the house beside a drain pipe.
The house receiver, in a cabinet that had cost the boys much painstaking
labor, was set by a window and, after Grace and Skeets had been
instructed how to tune the instrument to varying wave lengths, they and
good Mrs. Hooper enjoyed many delightful periods of listening in, all
zealously consulting the published programs from the great broadcasting
stations.
The other outfit made by the boys, which, except the elaborate box and
stand, was an exact duplicate of the Hooper receiver, was taken to the
Brown cottage. Gus insisted that Bill had the best right to it, and as
the Griers and Mrs. Brown had long been the best of friends and lived
almost next door to each other, all the members of the carpenter's
family would be welcome to listen in whenever they wanted to. The little
evening gatherings at certain times for this purpose were both mirthful
and delightful.
The boys' aerial was a three-wire affair, stretching forty feet, and
erected in much the same way as that at the Hooper house, except that
one mast had to be put up as high as the gable end of the cottage, which
was the other support, thirty-five feet high.
Then, when the announcement was made that the talks on Edison were to be
repeated, Bill and Gus told the class and others of their friends, so
the Hoopers came also, the merry crowd filling the Brown living-room.
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