SOLANDER'S
RADIO TOMB
By ELLIS PARKER BUTLER
"Pigs Is Pigs" Butler quite surpasses himself
in this story. The intricacies in radio are so
great, and the changes occur so quickly that
no one can afford to make a will wherein a
radio provision figures. Once we thought of having
a radio loud speaker installed in our coffin
to keep us company and make it less lonesome.
After reading this story we quickly changed
our mind. The possibilities are too various.
I first met Mr. Remington
Solander shortly after I installed
my first radio set. I was
going in to New York on the
8:15 A.M. train and was sitting
with my friend Murchison and,
as a matter of course, we were
talking radio. I had just told Murchison
that he was a lunkheaded
noodle and that for two cents
I would poke him in the jaw,
and that even a pin-headed idiot
ought to know that a tube set
was better than a crystal set.
To this Murchison had replied
that that settled it. He said he
had always known I was a moron,
and now he was sure of it.
"If you had enough brains to
fill a hazelnut shell," he said,
"you wouldn't talk that way.
Anybody but a half-baked lunatic
would know that what a man
wants in radio is clear, sharp reception
and that's what a crystal
gives you. You're one of these
half-wits that think they're
classy if they can hear some two-cent
station five hundred miles
away utter a few faint squeaks.
Shut up! I don't want to talk to
you. I don't want to listen to
you. Go and sit somewhere else."
Of course, this was what was
to be expected of Murchison.
And if I did let out a few laps
of anger, I feel I was entirely
justified. Radio fans are always
disputing over the relative merits
of crystal and tube sets, but
I knew I was right. I was just
trying to decide whether to
choke Murchison with my bare
hand and throw his lifeless body
out of the car window, or tell
him a few things I had been
wanting to say ever since he began
knocking my tube set, when
this Remington Solander, who
was sitting behind us, leaned
forward and tapped me on the
shoulder. I turned quickly and
saw his long sheeplike face close
to mine. He was chewing cardamon
seed and breathing the
odor into my face.
Outraged citizens were removing their dead.
"My friend," he said, "come
back and sit with me; I want to
ask you a few questions about
radio."
Well, I couldn't resist that,
could I? No radio fan could. I did
not care much for the looks of
this Remington Solander man,
but for a few weeks my friends
had seemed to be steering away
from me when I drew near, although
I am sure I never said
anything to bore them. All I
ever talked about was my radio
set and some new hook-ups I was
trying, but I had noticed that
men who formerly had seemed to
be fond of my company now gave
startled looks when I neared
them. Some even climbed over
the nearest fence and ran madly
across vacant lots, looking over
their shoulders with frightened
glances as they ran. For a week
I had not been able to get any
man of my acquaintance to listen
to one word from me, except
Murchison, and he is an utter
idiot, as I think I have made
clear. So I left Murchison and
sat with Remington Solander.
In one way I was proud to be
invited to sit with Remington
Solander, because he was far
and away the richest man in our
town. When he died, his estate
proved to amount to three million
dollars. I had seen him often,
and I knew who he was, but
he was a stand-offish old fellow
and did not mix, so I had never
met him. He was a tall man and
thin, somewhat flabby and he
was pale in an unhealthy sort of
way. But, after all, he was a millionaire
and a member of one
of the "old families" of Westcote,
so I took the seat alongside
of him with considerable satisfaction.
"I gather," he said as soon
as I was seated, "that you are
interested in radio."
I told him I was.
"And I'm just building a new
set, using a new hook-up that I
heard of a week ago," I said. "I
think it is going to be a wonder.
Now, here is the idea: instead
of using a grid——"
"Yes, yes!" the old aristocrat
said hastily. "But never mind
that now. I know very little of
such things. I have an electrician
employed by the year to care for
my radio set and I leave all such
things to him. You are a lawyer,
are you not?"
I told him I was.
"And you are chairman of the
trustees of the Westcote Cemetery,
are you not?" he asked.
I told him I was that also.
And I may say that the Westcote
Cemetery Association is one of
the rightest and tightest little
corporations in existence. It has
been in existence since 1808 and
has been exceedingly profitable
to those fortunate enough to hold
its stock. I inherited the small
block I own from my grandfather.
Recently we trustees had
bought sixty additional acres
adjoining the old cemetery and
had added them to it, and we
were about ready to put the new
lots on the market. At $300
apiece there promised to be a
tremendous profit in the thing,
for our cemetery was a fashionable
place to be buried in and
the demand for the lots in the
new addition promised to be
enormous.
"You have not known it," said
Remington Solander in his slow
drawl, which had the effect of
letting his words slide out of his
mouth and drip down his long
chin like cold molasses, "but I
have been making inquiries
about you, and I have been meaning
to speak to you. I am drawing
up a new last will and testament,
and I want you to draw
up one of the clauses for me
without delay."
"Why, certainly, Mr. Solander,"
I said with increased pride.
"I'll be glad to be of service to
you."
"I am choosing you for the
work," Remington Solander said,
"because you know and love radio
as I do, and because you are
a trustee of the cemetery association.
Are you a religious
man?"
"Well," I said, a little uneasily,
"some. Some, but not much."
"No matter," said Mr. Solander,
placing a hand on my arm.
"I am. I have always been. From
my earliest youth my mind has
been on serious things. As a
matter of fact, sir, I have compiled
a manuscript collection of
religious quotations, hymns, sermons
and uplifting thoughts
which now fill fourteen volumes,
all in my own handwriting. Fortunately,
I inherited money, and
this collection is my gift to the
world."
"And a noble one, I'm sure,"
I said.
"Most noble," said Mr. Solander.
"But, sir, I have not confined
my activities to the study
chair. I have kept my eye on
the progress of the world. And
it seems to me that radio, this
new and wonderful invention, is
the greatest discovery of all
ages and imperishable. But, sir,
it is being twisted to cheap uses.
Jazz! Cheap songs! Worldly
words and music! That I mean
to remedy."
"Well," I said, "it might be
done. Of course, people like what
they like."
"Some nobler souls like better
things," said Remington Solander
solemnly. "Some more
worthy men and women will
welcome nobler radio broadcasting.
In my will I am putting
aside one million dollars to
establish and maintain a broadcasting
station that will broadcast
only my fourteen volumes
of hymns and uplifting material.
Every day this matter will go
forth—sermons, lectures on
prohibition, noble thoughts and
religious poems."
I assured him that some people
might be glad to get that—that
a lot of people might, in
fact, and that I could write that
into his will without any trouble
at all.
"Ah!" said Remington Solander.
"But that is already in my
will. What I want you to write
for my will, is another clause. I
mean to build, in your cemetery,
a high-class and imperishable
granite tomb for myself. I mean
to place it on that knoll—that
high knoll—the highest spot in
your cemetery. What I want you
to write into my will is a clause
providing for the perpetual care
and maintenance of my tomb. I
want to set aside five hundred
thousand dollars for that purpose."
"Well," I said to the sheep-faced
millionaire, "I can do
that, too."
"Yes," he agreed. "And I want
to give my family and relations
the remaining million and a
half dollars, provided," he said,
accenting the 'provided,' "they
carry out faithfully the provisions
of the clause providing for
the perpetual care and maintenance
of my tomb. If they don't
care and maintain," he said, giving
me a hard look, "that million
and a half is to go to the Home
for Flea-Bitten Dogs."
"They'll care and maintain,
all right!" I laughed.
"I think so," said Remington
Solander gravely. "I do think so,
indeed! And now, sir, we come to
the important part. You, as I
know, are a trustee of the
cemetery."
"Yes," I said, "I am."
"For drawing this clause of
my will, if you can draw it,"
said Remington Solander, looking
me full in the eye with both his
own, which were like the eyes
of a salt mackerel, "I shall pay
you five thousand dollars."
Well, I almost gasped. It was
a big lot of money for drawing
one clause of a will, and I began
to smell a rat right there. But,
I may say, the proposition Remington
Solander made to me was
one I was able, after quite a
little talk with my fellow trustees
of the cemetery, to carry
out. What Remington Solander
wanted was to be permitted to
put a radio loud-speaking outfit
in his granite tomb—a radio
loud-speaking outfit permanently
set at 327 meters wave-length,
which was to be the wave-length
of his endowed broadcasting station.
I don't know how Remington
Solander first got his remarkable
idea, but just about
that time an undertaker in New
York had rigged up a hearse
with a phonograph so that the
hearse would loud-speak suitable
hymns on the way to the cemetery,
and that may have suggested
the loud-speaking tomb to
Remington Solander, but it is
not important where he got the
idea. He had it, and he was set
on having it carried out.
"Think," he said, "of the uplifting
effect of it! On the highest
spot in the cemetery will
stand my noble tomb, loud-speaking
in all directions the
solemn and holy words and music
I have collected in my fourteen
volumes. All who enter the
cemetery will hear; all will be
ennobled and uplifted."
That was so, too. I saw that
at once. I said so. So Remington
Solander went on to explain that
the income from the five hundred
thousand dollars would be
set aside to keep "A" batteries
and "B" batteries supplied, to
keep the outfit in repair, and so
on. So I tackled the job rather
enthusiastically. I don't say that
the five-thousand-dollar fee did
not interest me, but I did think
Remington Solander had a grand
idea. It would make our cemetery
stand out. People would come
from everywhere to see and listen.
The lots in the new addition
would sell like hot cakes.
But I did have a little trouble
with the other trustees. They
balked when I explained that
Remington Solander wanted the
sole radio loud-speaking rights
of our cemetery, but some one
finally suggested that if Remington
Solander put up a new
and artistic iron fence around
the whole cemetery it might be
all right. They made him submit
his fourteen volumes so they
could see what sort of matter he
meant to broadcast from his
high-class station, and they
agreed it was solemn enough; it
was all solemn and sad and
gloomy, just the stuff for a cemetery.
So when Remington Solander
agreed to build the new
iron fence they made a formal
contract with him, and I drew
up the clause for the will, and
he bought six lots on top of the
high knoll and began erecting
his marble mausoleum.
For eight months or so Remington
Solander was busier than
he had ever been in his life. He
superintended the building of
the tomb and he had on hand the
job of getting his endowed radio
station going—it was given the
letters WZZZ—and hiring artists
to sing and play and speechify
his fourteen volumes of
gloom and uplift at 327 meters,
and it was too much for the old
codger. The very night the test
of the WZZZ outfit was made he
passed away and was no more on
earth.
His funeral was one of the biggest
we ever had in Westcote. I
should judge that five thousand
people attended his remains to
the cemetery, for it had become
widely known that the first
WZZZ program would be received
and loud-spoken from
Remington Solander's tomb that
afternoon, the first selection on
the program—his favorite hymn—beginning
as the funeral cortege
left the church and the program
continuing until dark.
I'll say it was one of the most
affecting occasions I have ever
witnessed. As the body was being
carried into the tomb the
loud speaker gave us a sermon
by Rev. Peter L. Ruggus, full of
sob stuff, and every one of the
five thousand present wept. And
when the funeral was really
finished, over two thousand remained
to hear the rest of the
program, which consisted of
hymns, missionary reports, static
and recitations of religious
poems. We increased the price
of the lots in the new addition
one hundred dollars per lot immediately,
and we sold four lots
that afternoon and two the next
morning. The big metropolitan
newspapers all gave the Westcote
Cemetery full page illustrated
articles the next Sunday, and we
received during the next week
over three hundred letters, mostly
from ministers, praising what
we had done.
But that was not the best of
it. Requests for lots began to
come in by mail. Not only people
in Westcote wrote for prices,
but people away over in New
Jersey and up in Westchester
Country, and even from as far
away as Poughkeepsie and Delaware.
We had twice as many requests
for lots as there were lots
to sell, and we decided we would
have an auction and let them go
to the highest bidders. You see
Remington Solander's Talking
Tomb was becoming nationally
famous. We began to negotiate
with the owners of six farms
adjacent to our cemetery; we
figured on buying them and making
more new additions to the
cemetery. And then we found
we could not use three of the
farms.
The reason was that the loud
speaker in Remington Solander's
tomb would not carry that far;
it was not strong enough. So we
went to the executors of his
estate and ran up against another
snag—nothing in the radio
outfit in the tomb could be altered
in any way whatever. That
was in the will. The same loud speaker
had to be maintained,
the same wave-length had to be
kept, the same makes of batteries
had to be used, the same
style of tubes had to be used.
Remington Solander had thought
of all that. So we decided to let
well enough alone—it was all
we could do anyway. We bought
the farms that were reached by
the loud speaker and had them
surveyed and laid out in lots—and
then the thing happened!
Yes, sir, I'll sell my cemetery
stock for two cents on the dollar,
if anybody will bid that
much for it. For what do you
think happened? Along came the
Government of the United
States, regulating this radio
thing, and assigned new wave-lengths
to all the broadcasting
stations. It gave Remington Solander's
endowed broadcasting
station WZZZ an 855-meter
wave-length, and it gave that
station at Dodwood—station
PKX—the 327-meter wave-length,
and the next day poor
old Remington Solander's tomb
poured fourth "Yes, We Ain't
Got No Bananas" and the
"Hot Dog" jazz and "If You
Don't See Mama Every Night,
You Can't See Mama At All,"
and Hink Tubbs in his funny
stories, like "Well, one day an
Irishman and a Swede were
walking down Broadway and
they see a flapper coming towards
them. And she had on
one of them short skirts they
was wearing, see? So Mike he
says 'Gee be jabbers, Ole, I see
a peach.' So the Swede he says
lookin' at the silk stockings,
'Mebby you ban see a peach,
Mike, but I ban see one mighty
nice pair.' Well, the other day
I went to see my mother-in-law—"
You know the sort of program.
I don't say that the people
who like them are not entitled
to them, but I do say they are
not the sort of programs to loud-speak
from a tomb in a cemetery.
I expect old Remington Solander
turned clear over in his tomb
when those programs began to
come through. I know our board
of trustees went right up in the
air, but there was not a thing
we could do about it. The newspapers
gave us double pages the
next Sunday—"Remington Solander's
Jazz Tomb" and "Westcote's
Two-Step Cemetery." And
within a week the inmates of our
cemetery began to move out.
Friends of people who had been
buried over a hundred years
came and moved them to other
cemeteries and took the headstones
and monuments with
them, and in a month our cemetery
looked like one of those
Great War battlefields—like a
lot of shell-holes. Not a man,
woman or child was left in the
place—except Remington Solander
in his granite tomb on top
of the high knoll. What we've
got on our hands is a deserted
cemetery.
They all blame me, but I can't
do anything about it. All I can
do is groan—every morning I
grab the paper and look for the
PKX program and then I groan.
Remington Solander is the lucky
man—he's dead.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April 1956 and
was first published in Amazing Stories June 1927. Extensive research did
not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed. |