If any twelve-year-old child who lives fifty miles from 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 the _Herald_ Uncle 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:
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 he said, "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."