What Might Have Been Expected

by Frank R. Stockton

The procuring of the telegraphic instruments, however, and the necessity of having an operator on the other side, presented difficulties not easy to surmount.

But Harry did not despair.

To be sure the machines would cost money, and so would the wire, insulators, etc., but then the mica company would surely be willing to pay a good price to have their messages transmitted at times when otherwise they would have to send a man twenty miles to a telegraphic station.

So if the money could be raised it would pay to do it—at least if the calculations, with which Harry and Kate had been busy for days, should prove to be correct.

About the operator on the other side, Harry scarcely knew what to think. If it were necessary to hire any one, that would eat terribly into the profits.

Something economical must be devised for this part of the plan.

As to the operator on the Akeville side of the creek, Harry intended to fill that position himself. He had been interested in telegraphy for a year or two. He understood the philosophy of the system, and had had the opportunity afforded him by the operator at Hetertown of learning to send messages and to read telegraphic hieroglyphics. He could not understand what words had come over the wires, simply by listening to the clicking of the instrument—an accomplishment of all expert telegraphers—but he thought he could do quite well enough if he could read the marks on the paper slips, and there was no knowing to what proficiency he might arrive in time.

Of course he had no money to buy telegraphic apparatus, wire, etc., etc. But he thought he could get it. "How does any one build railroads or telegraphic lines?" he had said to Kate. "Do they take the money out of their own pockets?"

Kate had answered that she did not suppose they did, unless the money was there; and Harry had told her, very confidently, that the money was never there. No man, or, at least, very few men, could afford to construct a railroad or telegraph line. The way these things were done was by forming a company.

And this was just what Harry proposed to do.