1450 
A Woman’s Farm Day 
Thrashing Under Difficulties 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
for dashes, being the old English system 
of telegraphy). As the working speed of 
the cables increased slowly, and the traf¬ 
fic much more rapidly, it became neces¬ 
sary to keep the cables working every 
minute of the 24 hours, and no stoppages 
even of a few seconds were permitted. 
All the signaling is now done automat¬ 
ically. AVe punch holes in paper slips 
Sunday, November 4, at G P. M., a farm rier and the sick man have to be fed. 
woman took a lantern and went to the Right after dinner the machine moves 
henhouse to select two victims to furnish up to the barn and the men begin to typewriter perforator, and this 
food for the thrashing day dinner table scurry around. The sick man pretends running through an automatic send- 
on the morrow. The flock had been pretty he isn’t nervous, and the nurse pretends machine, actuates a double key which 
well culled before, so she handled quite a she doesn’t think he is, but . The door tjjg signals through the cable. By 
number before finding a robber hen. To opens and a man hurries in, his baud arrangement all the signals are per- 
find a second victim was even more dif- covered with blood. A rusty nail from aa 
ficult, and selection was made on the gen- old plank from the table has run through 
eral appearance. The hens w'ere placed one finger and into the next. Lockjaw 
in solitary confinement, awaiting execu- comes from such avouiuIs as this. AA bile 
tion at daybreak. Five weeks before the he washes off the blood the manager- 
man of the two-per.son farm had been in- nurse gets her little popgun syringe, a 
jured accidentally and the weaker vessel pottle of iodine and some boiled watei*, 
had advanced to the position of farm puts a strip of cloth in a basin of water 
on the fire to boil and proceeds to cleanse 
December 22, 1017 
Tpie Day’s Business.—A s the morn¬ 
ing wears along the character of the work 
changes. The eastward traffic from yes¬ 
terday gets cleared up and the new work 
for the present day begins to come in, so 
that before we go to lunch we are in the 
full flow of today's business both ways. 
After having fortified the inner man 
we resume duty once more. The west¬ 
ward work gradually changes its charac¬ 
ter, as it is now the close of the day’s 
business on the other side, and the dif¬ 
ferent firms are sending their daily re¬ 
ports to arrive before L’. S. A. offices 
r if e 
manager—had taken her partner to a 
hospital where he underwent an opera¬ 
tion, and had brought him home the week 
before, on the road to recovery. This 
road passes, like Pilgrim’s Progress, over 
the Hill of Difficulty, and through the 
Slough of I>esp<)nd. Seemingly improving, 
the evening hours of Sunday saw him 
Buddenly and di.stressingly ill. It was 
midnight before the ministrations of phy¬ 
sicians and nurse eased him, and the 
later hours of the night brought only fit¬ 
ful sleep to patient or nurse. The younger 
pair who were helping out during these 
“ For the Thrashing Day Dinner Table ” 
weeks of stress were early astir, the man 
doing the barn chores and his wife get¬ 
ting breakfast when the fagged watcher 
the wound. She drops iodine in a cup of 
boiled water, fills her popgun, and, in¬ 
serting the point in one end of the nail 
hole, forces the solution through the hole. 
Yes, it bites, but the man is plucky. The 
strip of cloth that has boiled in the basin 
is lifted out with forceps. “You are not 
going to put it on hot,’’ says the man. It 
will cool in a jiffy, and in a jiffy the 
bandage is in place and the helpc'r, who 
has needle and thread ready, .sews it 
firmly in position. Before the crew leaves 
an ugly sore of a week’s standing is sim¬ 
ilarly treated. The machine starts; 10 
minutes later it stops, and the sick man 
asks: “AA’hat are they stopping for?” 
The stops are repeated, and the question 
is repeated many times during the after¬ 
noon, and the answer seem.s to be the 
men with the machine arc not “onto their 
job.” The sick man asks, “How many 
loads of buckwheat?” At first the answer 
is, “They say there will be four.” Then, 
“Now they are coming with the fifth” ; 
later, “they are going for the sixth.” 
About the middle of the afternoon the 
telephone rings, and rings, and women’s 
voices inquire, variously, “Are they still 
thrashing at your house? Are the thrash¬ 
ers there yet?” “AA’ill they be through 
before supiier?” “AA'ill my man be home 
to do the chores?” Later this woman in¬ 
quires if anything has happened. The 
thrashing should have been done by 5 
o’clock, or 5.30 at the latest. Supper is 
ready at G, but instead of coming to eat 
they come for lanterns. The mail carrier 
runs his Ford up in front of the harm 
One of the men cries, “Hurrah for Hen¬ 
ry.” Seven o’clock, finished; the day 
hands straggle in for supper, but it is 8 
before the men with the machine are 
through. All go home for the night, but 
feet, as the machine never tires or stops, 
and a man can do double the work that 
he could do by key. Above is a sample. 
East and AVest. —AA’e start work at 8 
A. AL, relieving the tired night staff, who 
have been kept hard at work all night, for 
there is no let-up here night or day in 
war times. There is a limit to the ca¬ 
pacity of the cables for business, and the 
enormous demands of the government war 
service use up a good portion of that ca¬ 
pacity. AA’hen we first start work most 
of the traffic going eastward consists of 
last night’s business messages from the 
Far AA’est. Their time being several hours 
later than New York’s, makes their filing 
time that much later, and f ives us a good 
chance to move the work from the Eastern 
division before the C’entral. AVestern and 
close, AA'e are also getting a few scat¬ 
tered messages for the press, official bul¬ 
letins, etc., from the different headquar¬ 
ters. Also the government messages are 
becoming more numerous; Russian and 
Italian are the first to arrive, they being 
farther east and their day starts earliest. 
(A peculiar thing about this difference in 
time: AA’e can receive a message, say 
from China, which was written the day 
after it is delivered in U. S, A., or, in 
other words, if it is written on a AA’ednes- 
day, in the Far East, it can be delivered 
the previous Tue.sday in U. S. A.) 
An Aik Raid. —At G P. M. we go to 
supper, and when we return at 7 P. M. 
the night work has fairly set in. Com¬ 
mercial messages are coming in right 
along, and the press work is in full 
Playing Checkers with Himself—a Photographic Trick 
Pacific each come on in its turn. The 
work going westward is of :i tliflerent 
class. All yesterday’s busine.ss from Eu¬ 
rope and East is cleared away, and we are 
swing, all the papers wanting delivery of 
their messages before going to press. 
'Suddenly London gives the “MQ”— 
“AA'ait”—signal, and we lose him for an 
a ioeared on the scene to lend a hand the machine crew come to breakfast next right iu full swing of the 'Stock Exchange indefinite time. AVe then know that our 
between frequent trips to the sick-room, morning. The tinner finishes his work and early business traflic, the time being colleagues at the other end of the cable are 
The man helper has a mail route, and 
must leave by a quarter to eight, but he 
has time to behead those hens. AA hile the 
helper washes the dishes and gets the 
pumpkin stirring, the misti'ess dressed 
the fowls. The robber hen proved a rob¬ 
ber all right, but the other was ready to 
lay; a nice big egg and a bunch of yolks 
of large size cause the helper to laugh at 
her mistress’s poor judgment, but the lat¬ 
ter’s more practiced eye discerned the 
telltale sign of failing vigor, the shriveled 
skin and imperfect mouth, and was sat¬ 
isfied that that clutch would have been 
the last—a good hen at the end of her 
use.fulness. 
Before the last hen was ready for the 
pot came a knock at the door, and in came 
a neighbor who is a justice of the peace, 
to witness the sick man’s signature to a 
legal document. This attended to, next 
came the tinner to fix the roof. 
before dark and is paid. After eating, the 
day hands are paid and the thrashing bill 
is paid. AA’^e are ofl'ered .'t!3.05 per cwt. 
for the buckwheat. AA'ill some expert 
■please figure the cost? c. 
A Day’s AVork in a Cable Station 
[Christmas will find our people at work 
or at play in every part of the world. 
Some of our readers are in France with 
the soldiers. Several are in Alaska, 
where they must thaw out the kerosene 
oil can in order to have light. Others 
are raising sheep and growing apples in 
Batagonia. Still others are failing them¬ 
selves in Cuba and Brazil—all busy and 
all friends of the paper. Here follows the 
story of a telegraph operator in a cable 
station in Newfoundland ! Surely a day’s 
work with him is something of a chore.] 
almost noon iu I.ondon. This traffic is 
nothing like so heavy as before the war 
conditions caused regulations to be en¬ 
forced, but a sharp change in markets al¬ 
ways causes a big rush. Before the war 
this traflic was of very great importance 
and volume, and was given the utmost 
dispatch; being mainly buying or selling 
orders, rapidity of transmission was es¬ 
sential. The quickest official record for 
transmission of a message to London, de¬ 
livery there, and receipt of the answer iu 
New York, is 20 seconds! Not much 
time lost on that. 
under bombardment by enemy aircraft, 
and we are thankful that our families 
and ourselves are at this end of the line. 
AA'e would not mind taking a chance in 
fighting, but have no wish to have our 
families bombed in their homes. AA'hen 
the raiders are clear away, London starts 
up once more; and this continues with¬ 
out a stop till we go off duty at midnight. 
Newfoundland. dexter. 
The Tireless Cable. —^The cable build- 
For ing itself is situated on a fine harbor, 
weeks he has been expected, and this day with deep water almost up to the lauding 
Sample of Trick Photography 
The picture showing the gentleman 
playing checkers with himself is mystify- 
Offici.\l Messages. —AA’e are getting ing to all not familiar with this form of 
nicely into our stride, when presently the trick photography. The composition shows 
receiver calls out, “Government coming.” the professor shifting one of his kings to 
The “Clear the line” signal is given, and a .strategic position while on the opposite 
all commercial messages, no matter how side of the board he is busied in brown 
important, are side-tracked, while the study over his next move. The making 
rush government work is being transmit- <>f the composition is really not so difficult 
ted. 'for, of course, this business takes RS would at first seem. Instead of one 
precedence over everything. The large iucture there are two pictures in the same 
amount of government work can be esti- plate, one-half of the plate being held 
mated by anyone considering the dis- back on each exposure by means of a little 
of all days in the calendar has brought place of the cables. It is quite an im- 
'him, but as it is a pleasant day, so rare posing structure of brick and stone. I 
at this season, the manager hustles around am on duty from 2 P. M. to midnight this imtches necessary to and from ambassa- device known as the duplicatoi*, whieffi 
and gets him* at work. Then two neigh- week, with an hour off (G P. M. to 7 dors, military and naval mes.sages, not covers one-half of the lens. In making 
gets 
■hors come to draw the buckwheat which 
is to be thrashed from the wagons. The 
situation is thoroughly thrashed out, and 
the men know just what to do. 
Then comes the vital question—will the 
thrashers be here to dinner? From the 
back door the machine can be seen in a 
neighbor’s barn. Frequent trips are made 
to that door. They arc thrashing at 11 
o’clock; at 11.30, at 11.45. They will 
stay there ^o dinner, but the men draw¬ 
ing buckwheat, the tinner, the mail car- 
P. M) for supper, but these are busy 
times on the cables, so I am assigned to 
extra duty, 8 A. M. to 1 P. M.. thus mak¬ 
ing the day’s work 8 A. M. to midnight. 
only American, but Canadian, British, the checker-game picture the man was 
and otiicr Allies, from all over the world, first photographed making his move. After 
and of course these messages must be shifting po.sitions the lens cut-off was also 
given the greatest dispatch. The iinpor- changed to the other side v.'ithout moving 
Our work consists of reading the signals tan government messages are an appar- camera and the picture finished. 
as they come over the Atlantic cables, 
and sending the messages on to the vari¬ 
ous places on this side, and vice versa. 
Formerly this sending was all done by 
hand, using a “key” (not the Morse key, 
so well known in the U, S, A., but a 
double key, one side for dots and the other 
ently meaningless jumble of letters or lig- In like manner other amusing and seem- 
ures, but on account of their character ingly impossible situations may be com- 
and importance, they demand the utmost posed, such as the same man working at 
care and concentration, as well as speed, both ends of a crosscut saw, treating one’s 
AATien we are through with this govern- self to a ride in a wheelbarrow and the 
ment work, and not before, we take up same juvenile dodging from opposite sides 
ordinary traffic again. of a tree. a. ii. p. 
