Wired Love - Ella Cheever Thayer (read any book txt) 📗

frowns than usual at the destiny that compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,—

"G. M. (good morning) C!"

Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the response,

"G. M., my dear!"

A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie. Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity? Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:

"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"

"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be amiable."

"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a laugh.

"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired
"C."

"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray yourself!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."

"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery, you are not a success, Mr. 'C'."

"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"

"Don't be in such a hurry to miss me. I have said nothing yet to give you that right," Nattie replied.

"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But you, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye—"

But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,

"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."

She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C" to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the settlement—and in the right direction!—of that vexed question of "C's" sex.

But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to the spelling-book, and a little less to the accumulation of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps

"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.

"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the first opportunity.

"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came, after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.

"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my sex."

As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the glass just over her head at the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a possibility—only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.

"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color."

"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."

"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face, which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different from the real was the ideal."

"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire—for we do, don't we?" said "C" asserting before he questioned.

"Certainly—here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between. "Now may I ask—"

"Oh! come, come! this will never do! You are getting on altogether too fast for people who were quarreling so yesterday!" broke in a third party, who signed, "Em." and was a young lady wire-acquaintance of Nattie's, some twenty miles distant.

"You think the circuit of our friendship ought to be broken?" queried
Nattie.

"Ah! leave that to time and change, by which all circuits are broken," remarked "C."

"Yes, but such a sudden friendship is sure to come to a violent end," Em. said. "Suppose now I should report you for talking so much—not to say flirting—on the wire, which is against the rules you know?"

"In that event I should know how to be revenged", replied "C." "I should put on my 'ground' wire and cut off communication between you and that little fellow at Z!"

Em. laughed, and perhaps feeling herself rather weak on that point, subsided, and Nattie began, "Sentiment—"

But the pretty little speech on that subject she had all ready was spoiled by an operator—who evidently had none of it in his soul—usurping the wire with the prefaced remark,

"Get out!"

The wire being unusually busy, this was all the conversation Nattie and
"C" had during the day, but Just before six o'clock came the call,

"B m—B m—B m—X n."

"B m," immediately responded Nattie.

"I merely want to ask for my character before saying g. n. (good night).
Haven't I been amiable to-day?" was asked from X n.

"Very, but there is no merit in it, as Mark Tapley would say," replied
Nattie. "You had no provocation."

"Now I flattered myself I had 'come out strong!' Alas! what a hard thing it is to establish one's reputation," said "C," sagely; "but I trust to Time, who, after all, is a pretty good fellow to right matters, notwithstanding a dreadful careless way he has of strewing crow's feet and wrinkles."

"Has he dropped any down your way?" asked Nattie.

"Hinting to know my age now, are you? Oh! curiosity! curiosity! Yes, I think he has implanted a perceptible crow's foot or two; but he has spared the hairs of my head, and for that I am thankful! Did you ever see an aged operator? I never did, and don't know whether it's because electricity acts as a sort of antidote, or whether they grow wise as they grow old, and leave the business. The case is respectfully submitted."

"Your organs of discernment must be very fully developed," Nattie replied. "It is fortunate I am too far away to be analyzed personally; but I don't think I will stay after hours to discuss these things to night. I am tired, for I have had a run of disagreeable people to-day. So g. n."

"G. n., my dear," said the gallant "C," in whose composition bashfulness seemed certainly to have no part. But then—as Nattie previously had thought—he was along way off.

It must be confessed "C" could hardly fail to have been flattered had he known how full Nattie's thoughts were of him, as she went home that night. A little foolish in the young lady, who rather prided herself on being strong-minded, this deep interest; but hers was a lonely life, poor girl, and "C" was certainly entertaining "over the wire," whatever he might be in a personal interview—of course, not very likely to occur. No! it was all "over the wire!"

As she reached her own door, absorbed in these meditations, she heard the sound of a merry laugh over in Mrs. Simonson's, and saw a large trunk in the hall. From this she inferred that Miss Archer had arrived, a fact Miss Kling confirmed, with uplifted eyebrows, and the remark,

"There must be something wrong about a young woman who has three immense trunks!"

Although Nattie felt a desire to make this newcomer's acquaintance, it was less strong than it might have been had she arrived a week sooner; for it was undoubtedly true that the interest she had in her new, invisible friend far exceeded that towards a possible visible one. Such is the power of mystery!

The office now possessed a new charm for her. To the surprise of an idle clerk in an office over the way, who had always noted how particular she was to arrive at exactly eight A. M., and to leave precisely at six P. M., she suddenly began to appear before hours in the morning, and to stay after hours at night. Of course this benighted person was not aware that by so doing she secured quiet chats with "C," uninterrupted, and without being told in the middle of some pretty speech to "Shut up!" or to " Keep out!" by some soured and inelegant operator on the line, to whom the romance of telegraphy had long ago given place to the monotonous, poorly-paid, everyday reality.

And it came to pass that "C" soon shared all her daily life, thoughts and troubles. Annoyances became lighter because she told him, and he sympathized. Any funny incident that occurred was doubly funny, because they laughed over it together, and so it went on.

That "good-night, dear," previously unchallenged, became a regular institution and still, on account of those long miles between them, Nattie made only a faint remonstrance when his usual morning salutation grew into "Good-morning, little five-foot girl at B m!" then was shortened to "Good-morning, little girl!"

And all this time it never occurred to them that excepting "N" was for Nattie, and "C" for Clem, they knew really nothing about each other, not even their names.

Thus the acquaintance went on, amid much banter from the before-mentioned "Em.," and interruptions from disgusted old settlers.

It was by no means to the satisfaction of Quimby, that Miss Rogers should thus allow the telegraphic world to supersede the one in which he had a part. That intimacy with Miss Archer, of which he had dreamed, as a means of improving his own acquaintance with her towards whom his susceptible heart yearned, did not make even a beginning. In fact, what with Nattie being engaged all day, and stopping after hours for a quiet talk with "C," and Miss Archer having many evening engagements, the two had never even met. And how a young man was to make himself agreeable in the eyes of a young lady he only caught a glimpse of occasionally, was a problem quite beyond solution by the brain of Quimby.

Two or three times, in his distraction of mind, he had stood in very light clothing, about Nattie's hour of returning home, full twenty-five minutes at the outer door of the hotel, with a cold wind blowing on him. But Nattie, utterly unconscious of this devotion, was enjoying the conversation of "C;" and so at last, half frozen, poor Quimby was compelled to retreat, his object unaccomplished. He would willingly have wandered about the halls for hours, and waylaid her, had it not been that the fear of those two terrific ones, Miss Kling and Mr. Fishblate, "catching him at it," prevailed over all other considerations. As for going to her office, Quimby, in his bashfulness, dared not even walk through the street containing it, lest she should penetrate his motives, and be offended at his presumption. Under these circumstances he began to despair of ever having the opportunity, to say nothing of the ability, of making an impression, when one afternoon he chanced to meet Miss Archer in the vicinity of Nattie's office, and was instantly overwhelmed by a brilliant idea; that was to ask Miss Archer—to whom he had talked much of Nattie during their short acquaintance—if she would call on her with him, omitting the fact that he dared not go alone.

Miss