THE TELEPHONE

                    “Hello, is this Aunt Sarah?”
                    “No, this is Doctor Wheeze.”
                    “That’s not my number, Central,”
                    “Excuse it, if you please.”

The year that Jenny turned seven, Mother said, “Warren, I don’t think we should go another winter without a telephone. I was so scared when Margaret had those awful nosebleeds when you were in Kansas City. How could we call the doctor if someone got hurt? How could we call the neighbors if something happened and we needed help right away?”

Daddy said they’d get a telephone next week. He’d stop at the telephone company when he went to town.

Jenny knew that they had once had a telephone, but this was before she could remember. They’d had it taken out when Daddy got mad at the telephone company because he thought they had charged him too much by billing him twice and they wouldn’t back down. The line ran right up to their kitchen. The live line ran along the road right past their house. She and Margaret could sometimes hear the line humming on their way home from school. Margaret said that was people talking. On top of the tall poles was a pretty blue or clear glass dome shaped like a scoop of ice cream. Sometimes they fell to the ground. Sometimes young fellows with guns would test their marksmanship by shooting and breaking these pretty domes. Jenny found a clear colored one on the ground. It had little beads around the edge. She wished a blue one would have fallen instead. She took the dome home with her. Daddy said it was an insulator that was put there to keep the signal from being grounded.

A few days later the telephone truck drove into the driveway. A man came to the door and said he’d come to install the telephone. He said it wouldn’t take long since the wires were already there. Jenny and Margaret had been eagerly anticipating this and talking about what it would be like to have a telephone. They could hardly wait. In a short time the big brown wooden box was on the wall between the the east kitchen door and the window. Close to the top were two metal rounds that stuck out like bug’s eyes. These were the bells. If you put your hand across them when they were ringing, you could make the ringing more like a buzz. Under the bells was a round black bakelite mouthpiece on a jointed neck that could make it higher or lower. You talked into the mouthpiece. On the left side of the box was a black bakelite receiver attached to a cord. It fit into a hook when you weren’t listening through it. It was shaped like a slender bell and the flared end of the bell just fit your ear. On the right side of the box was a little crank which you turned when you wanted to ring the telephone operator or someone on your line. The telephone operator was called a central girl. When you rang once she would say, “Number please,” and you would say the number you wanted to call. The central girl sat at a switchboard at the telephone office in town. She had learned to plug in the right things to connect the caller to the number they wanted to call. The Barnes family family shared a party line with 10 other people. Their “ring” was three longs. They could hear the rings of everyone else on their line, and if they wanted, could listen in on their conversations. It was called “eavesdropping.” Most of the people on the line eavesdropped, if they had time, so people were careful about what they said on a party line. Eavesdropping was a way to learn about what was happening in the neighborhood.

On the first evening they had the phone, Margaret would rush to the phone and take down the reciever and “listen in” and then report the news to the family. It was exciting.

One family had a clock near the phone that ticked loudly and you could always tell when they were “listening in.” One woman would act insulted if she thought anyone was listening and would say, “I know who you are. Why don’t you stop being so nosy and hang up.” Mother said this woman was the worst gossip in the neighborhood and she must think everyone else was like her. One attractive 17 year old girl had many boyfriends who called. The conversations would be long and full of flirtatious talk and snappy comebacks. Daddy liked to listen to these conversations and if he thought they were talking too long, he would hold the receiver to the mouthpiece where it would make a loud screech and they wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation. This was the signal that their conversation had gone on long enough and that someone else wanted to use the line.

Jenny had to stand on a chair to talk on the phone. She first learned to talk on the phone by ringing the operator and saying, “Time please.” The operator would tell the correct time. After Jenny did this a few times, she felt confident enough to answer the phone herself.

There was an isolated community in the hills to their northwest called Reamsville. It had a filling station, a grocery store, a lodge building, a few houses, a large grist mill which was soon to be moved into town and restored with a beautiful little park built around it known as “The Old Dutch Windmill Park.” A woman named Milly lived with her family in one of the houses and ran a switchboard from her home. She was a good natured congenial person and people often called her for all sorts of things and she usually knew the answers and gave them cheerfully. Some of the central girls in town were snippety and impatient. Most of them were just out of high school.

Every day, usually in mid-morning, Mother would talk with each of her two sisters, Ada and Frances. She enjoyed keeping in touch with them. It seemed to make her happy.

If the phone rang for 10 rings or more that was the alarm signal that there was a disaster. One Sunday in late winter, the Barnes family was having Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. There was a series of many rings and Margaret took down the receiver and a voice said, “George Stein’s big barn is on fire. Everyone bring pails and gunny sacks.” This was the Uncle George who was married to Mother’s sister, Frances. This was more important then Sunday dinner, and their left their meal on the table and jumped into the car. As they drove over the hill, they could see the black smoke in the northeast. By the time they got there, the barn was in flames. There was a long line of cars on the road leading past Uncle George’s place. Men were hurrying with pails of water from the horse tank and some were beating out the tall dry grass with gunnysacks. It was too late to save the barn, but there was some wind and they could still keep the fire from spreading to the little house on the hill nor far from the barn. Daddy hurried over with his bucket and bags. It was a cold windy day and Mother and Margaret and Jenny stayed in the car where it was warm and away from the fire. The old workhorse, Sam, had been trapped in his stall and Jenny could see his glowing skeleton still standing in the burning embers. Other neighbors came over to the car to talk about the fire. One neighbor woman named Nell came to the car and said she’d just come in and talk with Mother while the men battled the blaze. Nell said some were saying the fire might have been caused by spontaneous combustion from the stored hay in the hayloft that -sometimes could get hot enough to burst into flames. Others said it was probably a spark from Uncle George’s cigarette, as he was known to be a heavy smoker. Aunt Frances came over to the car. By now the wind had died down and the danger to the house was nearly over. She had been helping quench the fire and her face was blackened and she smelled of burned grass. “I felt bad about poor old Sam,” she said, and tears came into her eyes. The fine big barn had “gone up like a tinderbox,” people said. Its walls were crumbling and it was reduced to charred wood and glowing rafters.

There was nothing to do now but go home, so they went home to a cold house with the plates of cold mashed potatoes and roast beef still on the table, of course. Nobody felt like eating, so they saved the food for an early supper and washed and dried and put away the dishes and talked about the fire. It had been quite an afternoon. Jenny thought it was far better than any moving picture show she had ever seen.

Other events they learned about through the general alarm were drownings, tornadoes heading their way, a house fire, blizzards and ice storms, but all these things were unusual events, and most of the time the phone was used just to get information or to have a friendly chat. Jenny was glad they had a telephone and felt sorry for and superior to any family that didn’t.

How fine it was to be able to peer every day at the world beyond their own walls. The telephone”s cheerful ring, with its promise of interesting news, enlivened the long days when time seemed suspended.