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The Project Gutenberg eBook, Wired Love, by Ella Cheever Thayer

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Title: Wired Love A Romance of Dots and Dashes

Author: Ella Cheever Thayer

Release Date: January 18, 2008 [eBook #24353] [Last updated: August 4, 2013] [Last updated: August 12, 2013]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIRED LOVE***

This book was transcribed from the 1880 edition by Andrew Katz.

WIRED LOVE: A ROMANCE OF DOTS AND DASHES BY ELLA CHEEVER THAYER.

"The old, old story,"—in a new, new way.

DEDICATION. DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A DEAR FRIEND BUT FOR WHOM THIS LITTLE WORK HAD NEVER BEEN

[Transcriber's Note. The dedication was printed in American Railroad dialect of Morse. It cannot easily be represented in ASCII as it requires dashes of different lengths]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

    I. Sounds from a Distant "C."
   II. At the Hotel Norman
  III. Visible and Invisible Friends
   IV. Neighborly Calls
    V. Quimby Bursts Forth in Eloquence
   VI. Collapse of the Romance
  VII. "Good-By"
 VIII. The Feast
   IX. Unexpected Visitors
    X. The Broken Circuit Reunited
   XI. Miss Kling Telegraphically Baffled
  XII. Crosses on the Line
 XIII. The Wrong Woman
  XIV. Quimby Accepts the Situation
   XV. One Summer Day
  XVI. O. K.

WIRED LOVE. CHAPTER I. SOUNDS FROM A DISTANT "C."

-… — .-.. -.

Just a noise, that is all.

But a very significant noise to Miss Nathalie Rogers, or Nattie, as she was usually abbreviated; a noise that caused her to lay aside her book, and jump up hastily, exclaiming, with a gesture of impatience:—

"Somebody always 'calls' me in the middle of every entertaining chapter!"

For that noise, that little clatter, like, and yet too irregular to be the ticking of a clock, expressed to Nattie these four mystic letters:—

"B m—X n;"

which same four mystic letters, interpreted, meant that the name, or, to use the technical word, "call," of the telegraph office over which she was present sole presiding genius, was "B m," and that "B m" was wanted by another office on the wire, designated as "X n."

A little, out-of-the-way, country office, some fifty miles down the line, was "X n," and, as Nattie signaled in reply to the "call" her readiness to receive any communications therefrom, she was conscious of holding in some slight contempt the possible abilities of the human portion of its machinery.

For who but an operator very green in the profession would stay there?

Consequently, she was quite unprepared for the velocity with which the telegraph alphabet of sounds in dots and dashes rattled over the instrument, appropriately termed a "sounder," upon which messages are received, and found herself wholly unable to write down the words as fast as they came.

"Dear me!" she thought, rather nervously, "the country is certainly ahead of the city this time! I wonder if this smart operator is a lady or gentleman!"

And, notwithstanding all her efforts, she was compelled to "break"—that is, open her "key," thereby breaking the circuit, and interrupting "X n" with the request,

"Please repeat."

"X n" took the interruption very good-naturedly—it was after dinner—and obeyed without expressing any impatience.

But, alas! Nattie was even now unable to keep up with this too expert individual of uncertain sex, and was obliged again to "break," with the humiliating petition,

"Please send slower!"

"Oh!" responded "X n."

For a small one, "Oh!" is a very expressive word. But whether this particular one signified impatience, or, as Nattie sensitively feared, contempt for her abilities, she could not tell. But certain it was that "X n" sent along the letters now, in such a slow, funereal procession that she was driven half frantic with nervousness in the attempt to piece them together into words. They had not proceeded far, however, before a small, thin voice fell upon the ears of the agitated Nattie.

"Are you taking a message now?" it asked.

Nattie glanced over her shoulder, and saw a sharp, inquisitive nose, a green veil, a pair of eye-glasses, and a strained smile, sticking through her little window.

Nodding a hasty answer to the question, she wrote down another word of the message, that she had been able to catch, notwithstanding the interruption. As she did so the voice again queried,

"Do you take them entirely by sound?"

With a determined endeavor not to "break," Nattie replied only with a frown. But fate was evidently against her establishing a reputation for being a good operator with "X n."

"Here, please attend to this quick!" exclaimed a new voice, and a tall gentleman pounded impatiently on the shelf outside the little window with one hand, and with the other held forth a message.

With despair in her heart, once more Nattie interrupted "X n," took the impatient gentleman's message, studied out its illegible characters, and changed a bill, the owner of the nose looking on attentively meanwhile; this done, she bade the really much-abused "X n" to proceed, or in telegraphic terms, to

"G. A.—the."

"G. A." being the telegraphic abbreviation for "go ahead," and "the" the last word she had received of the message.

And this time not even the fact of its being after dinner restrained "X n's" feelings, and "X n" made the sarcastic inquiry,

"Had you not better go home and send down some one who is capable of receiving this message?"

Now it would seem as if two persons sixty or seventy miles apart might severally fly into a rage and nurse their wrath comfortably without particularly annoying each other at the moment. But not under present conditions; and Nattie turned red and bit her nails excitedly under the displeasure of the distant person of unknown sex, at "X n." But no instrument had yet been invented by which she could see the expression on the face of this operator at "X n," as she retorted, and her fingers formed the letters very sharply;

"Do you think it will help the matter at all for you to make a display of your charming disposition? G. A.—the—."

"I am happy to be able to return the compliment implied!" was "X n's" preface to the continuation of the message.

And now indeed Nattie might have recovered some of her fallen glories, being angry enough to be fiercely determined, had not the owner of the nose again made her presence manifest by the sudden question:

"Do you have a different sound for every word, or syllable, or what?"

And, turning quickly around to scowl this persevering questioner into silence, Nattie's elbow hit and knocked over the inkstand, its contents pouring over her hands, dress, the desk and floor, and proving beyond a doubt, as it descended, the truth of its label—

"Superior Black Ink!"

And then, save for the clatter of the "sounder," there was silence.

For a moment Nattie gazed blankly at her besmeared hands and ruined dress, at the "sounder," and at the owner of the nose, who returned her look with that expression of serene amusement often noticeable in those who contemplate from afar the mishaps of their fellow beings; then with the courage of despair, she for the fourth time "broke" "X n," saying, with inky impression on the instrument,

"Excuse me, but you will have to wait! I am all ink, and I am being cross-examined!"

Having thus delivered herself, she turned a deliberately deaf ear to "X n's" response, which, judging from the way the movable portion of the "sounder" danced, was emphatic.

"A little new milk will take that out!" complacently said the owner of the nose, watching Nattie's efforts to remove the ink from her dress with blotting-paper.

"Unfortunately I do not keep a cow here!" Nattie replied, tartly.

Not quite polite in Nattie, this. But do not the circumstances plead strongly in her excuse? For, remember, she was not one of those impossible, angelic young ladies of whom we read, but one of the ordinary human beings we meet every day.

The owner of the nose, however, was not charitable, and drew herself up loftily, as she said in imperative accents,

"You did not answer my question! Do you have to learn the sound of each letter so as to distinguish them from each other?"

Nattie constrained herself to reply, very shortly,

"Yes!"

"Can you take a message and talk to me at the same time?" pursued the investigator.

"No!" was Nattie's emphatic answer, as she looked ruefully at her dress.

"But your instrument there is going it now. Ain't they sending you a message?" went on the relentless owner of the nose.

At this Nattie turned her attention a moment to what was being done "on the wire," and breathed a sigh of relief. For "X n" had given place to another office and she replied,

"No! Some office on the wire is sending to some other office."

The nose elevated itself in surprise.

"Can you hear everything that is sent from every other office?"

"Yes," was the weary reply, as Nattie rubbed her dress.

"What!" exclaimed the owner of the nose, in accents of incredulous wonder. "All over the world?"

"Certainly not! only the offices on this wire; there are about twenty," was the impatient reply.

"Ah!" evidently relieved. "But," considering, "supposing you do not catch all the sounds, what do you do then?"

"Break."

"Break! Break what? The instruments?" queried the owner of the nose, perplexedly, and looking as if that must be a very expensive habit.

"Break the circuit—the connection,—open the key and ask the sending office to repeat from the last word I have been able to catch!"

Then seeing unmistakable evidence of more questions in the nose, Nattie threw the ink-soaked blotting-paper and her last remnant of patience into the waste basket, and added,

"But you must excuse me, I am too busy to be annoy—interrupted longer, and there are books that will give you all the information that you require!"

So saying, Nattie turned her back, and the owner of the nose withdrew it, its tip glistening with indignation as she walked away. As it vanished, Nattie gave a sigh of relief, and sat down to mourn her ruined dress. Whatever may have been her previous opinion, she was positive now that this was the prettiest, the most becoming dress she had ever possessed, or might ever possess! Only the old, old story! We prize most what is gone forever!

"And all that dreadful man's—or woman's—fault at X n!" cried Nattie, savagely. Unjustly too, for if any one was responsible for the accident, it was the owner of the nose.

But not long did Nattie dare give way to her misery. That fatal message was not yet received.

Glancing over the few words she had of it, she read; "Send the hearse," and then she began anxiously "calling" "X n."

"Hearse," looked too serious for trifling. But either "X n's" attention was now occupied in some other direction, or else he—or she—was too much out of humor to reply, for it was full twenty minutes before came the answering,

"X n."

At which Nattie said as fiercely as fingers could, "I have been after you nearly half an hour!"

"Have you?" came coolly back from "X n." "Well, you're not alone, many are after me—my landlord among others—not to mention a washerwoman or two!"

Then followed the figure "4," which means, "When shall I go ahead?"

"Waxing jocose, are you?" Nattie murmured to herself, as she replied:

"G. A.—hearse—"

"G. A.—what?"

"Hearse," repeated Nattie, in firm, clear characters.

To her surprise and displeasure "X n" laughed—the circumstance being conveyed to her understanding in the usual way, by the two letters "H a!"

"What are you laughing at?" she asked.

"At your grave mistake!" was "X n's" answer, accompanied by another "Ha!
To convert a horse into a hearse is really an idea that merits a smile!"

As the consciousness of her blunder dawned upon her, Nattie would gladly have sank into oblivion. But as that was impossible, she took a fresh blank, and very meekly said,

"G. A.—horse—!"

With another laugh, "X n" complied, and Nattie now succeeded in receiving the message without further mishap.

"What did you sign?" she asked, as she thankfully wrote the last word. Every operator is obliged to sign his own private "call,"