1018 
W* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
August 19, 1922 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
The First Telephone 
1’akt I. 
My boys hove rigged up a radiophone 
apparatus and have il installed just back 
of our sitting-room. They bought the 
pieces separately and put them together. 
The long wire stretches from an apple 
tree on our boundary line lo a big crab 
tree back of the bouse. There was an 
Indian scout in the West who claimed 
Hint he could hear with his lingers, lie 
would stand on a hill, hands up, with 
long, tapering lingers spread apart, or a 
wire held in his hand, and actually catch 
words from fur away. He stood with 
bare feet at certain parts of the hill 
where metals cropped out or lay close to 
the surface. Very likely this helped to 
make him a human ’phone, but. at any 
rate, he developed a strange and useful 
power. I think of him whenever I see 
this long finger of wire stretched above 
our house. It seems to reach up and pull 
the sound waves out of the air and 
pass them to the little instruments in 
that room at the rear of our house, where 
they are translated into speech. It all 
seems very wonderful to me. I cannot 
hear anything of il. but it means great 
things to our people, and 1 can easily 
see that as it is developed it will come 
to mean far more. 
* * * * * 
The other night 1 started to relate 
some of the day's experience. Little ltosc 
was sitting on my lap, when ail at once 
she put her hand over my mouth. That 
is the most effective way of enforcing 
silence upon a deaf man. i found that 
right behind me the hoys were "getting 
something important" out of their 'phone, 
stud of course there must be silence dur¬ 
ing such important periods. It turued 
out to be a senium which some clergy¬ 
man was delivering in Newark. N. .7. In 
truth, I presume this man was reading 
his sermon slowly, with his mouth close 
to it "receiver,” but as our folks listened 
they could imagine some great church, 
dimly lighted, with "echoing arches” and 
all the architectural tricks designed to 
make the service impressive.. For won¬ 
derful are the mental pictures which 
sound may paint upon the brain. Our 
folks took turns tit listening, and all pro¬ 
nounced it "fine!” About till 1 could do 
waste hunt tip the text. It was taken 
from the One Hundred and Third I’saltu. 
1 read it over several times. 
"Like as a father phieth his children, 
so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. 
"For he kuovvelh our frame; he re- 
membereth that we are dust. 
“As for man, his days are as grass; as 
a flower of the field, so he flounslleth. 
"For the wind pusseth over it aud it is 
gone: and the place thereof shall know it 
no more. 
“Hut the mercy of the Lord is from 
everlasting to everlasting upon them that 
fear him, and his righteousness unto chil¬ 
dren's children," 
The> tell me the sermon was a good 
one, and what a marvel it was that such 
words were thrown, as it were, out inio 
the air like dust, to he gathered and pre¬ 
served in this way. 
* »!« * * 
And the air is full of these sounds. 
Ilow long do they last? I>o they fade 
away for a few moments or hours, or 
are any of them stored up, ns it were, to 
repeat their message after long years of 
wandering? I am told that amid the 
distant tones of the human voice which 
reach the ear through these instruments 
there will come roars or indistinct jum¬ 
bles of sound, seeming from far away. 
Can these he the faint echoes of voices 
which long ago sough! to give messages 
to the world, and failed to reach beyond a 
narrow Circle? Who knows what may 
happen in the future, when the science 
of "wireless” is perfected vvi'h more deli¬ 
cate instruments? Wlmt wonder? of hu¬ 
man history nitty he taken from the air? 
For mighty ages the rains have washed 
over the surface of the earth through 
brooks and rivers into the ocean. This 
washing has been going on so long that 
today the ocean holds in solution every 
possible element of matter. From acids 
to Zirconium, and till that lies between 
—all may be found in the ocean water. 
In somewhat like manner, who knows 
what marvels of sound may yet be taken 
from the ait—at present uncharted and 
undiscovered ? You may smile at all 
this and say that it is only the dream of 
one who cannot even distinguish the qual¬ 
ity of the loudest sounds, yet do not he 
too auto. I can easily remember when 
men who were called the smartest of 
their age looked upon l'ell as a poor 
crank and his crude telephone as a mere 
toy. Such people accept our modern 
"wireless” as a matter of course, hut. 
having little respect for its past they have 
no dreams for its future. The fact is 
that most people of the present age have 
had so much done for them, and expect 
so much more, that they have lost the 
power of initiative, both in working or 
in thinking. At. any rate, I take il this 
radiophone is not unlike most human be¬ 
ings, for the air which it reports is full of 
strange and complicated messages as 
varied as the emotions which sweep over 
the human ntind. For example, a woman 
of rather serious mind and stern ideas 
about what should he put before the 
minds of youth, was induced to listen tit 
our 'phone. I have seen this woman 
burn tip (lie colored supplements in the 
Sunday papers rather than have her chil¬ 
dren see the pictures, and she keeps a 
close eye upon the household literature. 
She had a doubt fill notion of the value of 
those wireless reports, hot in the hope of 
hearing a tine lecture she "listened in” 
for a while. All went seriously and well 
for a time, until suddenly a coarse, rau¬ 
cous voice broke in upon the dignified 
lecture: 
"Say, pa, get up! Ala wants to use 
the sheets for a tablecloth!” 
You see, our faithful wire is not ex¬ 
pected to act as censor. It simply takes 
what passes by in the air, and passes it 
on without change. Evidently some so- 
eallcd comedian was sending out his no¬ 
tions of fine humor, and the air waves 
swamped those of tin* dignified lecturer. 
Well, that is not unlike the human mind. 
I presume that many of you have found 
yourselves victims of much the same 
trick. At funerals, at church, or other 
solemn occasions. I'll gun ran tee that the 
most absurd thoughts have crowded into 
your mind, lo upset the gravity of the 
occasion. The sub-con scions wires seem 
to have been crossed. And did this wom¬ 
an. after receiving such a shock, ever 
come back to the 'phone? Certainly she 
did. These great discoveries change life 
so completely that no one can live a nor¬ 
mal existence without making use of 
them. 
* * * * * 
The recent death of Alexander Gralium 
Hell has brought all these things forcibly 
to mind. Hell invented the telephone, 
and thus was responsible for one of the 
greatest social changes that the world has 
ever known. Younger people of tills gen¬ 
eration cannot realize what life would 
mean if "the talking wire” were to he 
entirely removed. 1 have often wondered 
what the thoughts of a man like Hell 
must have been when, in his later years, 
he could understand what his invention 
has meant to the world. 1 can imagine 
how some men, thinking of their power or 
gifts to the world, might become as 
haughty and arrogant as Napoleon or 
Alexander the Croat. Bell was not of 
that character. lie was of a humble, 
amiable type—not in any sense what you 
would call “a business man.” but fat- 
more—a genuine “friend of humanity.” 
I saw him nearly 50 years ago. He was 
wanted to use that wire for an experi¬ 
ment. 1 can remember him distinctly, 
lie was at that time a tall, slender man, 
with a pale face audit pair of black "side¬ 
burns/’ General Hum side was a New 
England man who has come down 
through history distinguished by an inci¬ 
dent and a habit. It was his evil for¬ 
tune to he ordered to attack General Lee's 
position at Fredericksburg, F ery mili¬ 
tary man knew that a frontal attack 
meant sure defeat, hut tin* nation de¬ 
manded action, and Burnside, against his 
lies! judgment, obeyed orders. And then 
General Burnside aequived the habit 
of shaving his chin and leaving a tuft of 
luiir on each cheek meeting through a 
bridge over liis upper lip. This form of 
facial adornment was known in those old 
days as a "Burnside." The next genera¬ 
tion. removed from the war, forgot the 
general, but renamed his creation "side- 
hum,” which seems to me to indicate 
•progress in the creation of language. At 
any rate. Hell, in those days, wore a 
pair of tine, thick, black "Burnsides,” 
with a great mop of hair on his head. 
From pictures printed at the time of his 
death, i imagine Hell finally decided to 
let the hair on his chin catch up with 
those "sideburns,” as the name changed, 
and thus produce a full heard. And these 
were the days of the "I’rinee Albert" coat. 
This black garment was broad at the 
shoulders and close at the waist, where it. 
spread out into long skirts which came 
down to the km-e. The one Bell wore had 
seen better days. There were two but¬ 
tons missing and on the skirts and along 
ihe seams were those shiny marks which 
on clothing represent what gray hair does 
in a man. II. w. c. 
(To Be Continued) 
Little Mary was quite young. She 
was visiting her grandmother in the coun¬ 
try. Her grandfather was a florist, there¬ 
fore. Mary, though young knew a few 
things about ilow era. Walking in the 
garden, she chanced to see a peacock, a 
bird she had never seen before. After 
gazing on it in silent admiration, she ran 
cpiickly into the house and cried out: 
“Oh, granny, come and see! One of your 
chickens is in bloom.”—Florists’ Ex¬ 
change. 
then a rather shabby inventor, with little 
capital except what most people called a 
preposterous idea and a most sublime 
faith in it. When 1 was about 14 years 
old this brief industrial statement was 
addressed to me: 
"We have found a job for you. It 
starts at once.” 
That was the way boys were managed 
at that time. As l was a "war orphan." 
a job, early in life, was the only thiug I 
had any right to expect. In these days 
there may lie some long family debate 
about the future of Willie or Dick or 
Stephen. Shall he he a lawyer, a doctor, 
or shall he go into "business"? Father 
usually knows his son's possibilities, but 
what chance does he have against mother 
and the girls? In my time, as soon as a 
hoy got big enough to count, a "job" was 
selected for him and he was planted down 
into il and told to grow. The job they 
picked for me was that of errand hoy in 
n publishing house of Boston. I was 
"everybody's waiter" and was paid a 
week for walking my legs off at the call 
of everyone in the shop. There were no 
telephones in those days. The telegraph 
service was imperfect and only used in 
matters of important business. Messages 
were mostly written out or spoken to hoys 
or men who trumped off to deliver them 
and bring back answers. There were 
slow horse cars which we took for long 
distance trips, but for the most part we 
tramped about- until I came to know all 
the alleys and short ruts in Boston. I 
may say that among the “industries driv¬ 
en out by science” is that of the errand 
boy. 
* * * * * 
There was a wire running from the 
publishing house to a printing shop in 
Cambridge. Mass., about eight miles. It 
was used as a form of mechanical tele¬ 
graph. There was a box at each end, 
with letters and numbers, with a foot 
power like that on a sewing machine. 
You worked it about as you would a par¬ 
lor organ, spelling out the letters slowly 
and grouping them into words. It was a 
slow, cumbersome machine, usually <>ut 
of order, especially when you had an im¬ 
portant message to send. Then came Al¬ 
exander Graham Bell! One day a young 
man walked into the store and said lie 
Outstanding in beauty, outstanding 
in the rugged reliability which is the 
farmer’s first need in his motor car. 
Cord tires, non-skid front and rear; due steel wheels, demountable at rim and at 
hub; drum type lamps; Alertim- lubrication ; motor driven electric horn unusually long 
springs; deep, u-ide, roomy seats; real leather upholstery in open cars, broadcloth 
in closed cars; open car side-curtains open with doors; clutch and brake action, 
steering and gear shifting, remarkably easy; new typi water-tight windshield. 
MAXWELL MOTOR CORPORATION, DETROIT, MICHIGAN 
MAXWELL MOTOR CO. OF CANADA, LTD., WINDSOR, ONTARIO 
T/ie Good 
MAXWELL 
