CHAPTER XVIII. A DISTURBING MESSAGE
THE DEACON HURRIEDLY LEAVES FOR CHATTANOOGA.
THAT evening Lieut. Bowersox sent a telegram to Deacon Klegg. It had to be strictly limited to 10 words, and read:
JOSIAH KLEGG, ESQ.,
Somepunkins Station, Ind.:
Josiah not killed. Hospital at Chattanooga. Badly wounded.
E. C. BOWERSOX.
It did not arrive at Sumpunkins Station, three miles from the Deacon's home, until the next forenoon. The youth who discharged the multifarious duties of Postmaster, passenger, freight and express-agent, baggage-master, and telegraph operator at Sumpunkins Station laboriously spelled out the dots and dashes on the paper strip in the instrument. He had barely enough mastery of the Morse alphabet to communicate the routine messages relating to the railroad's business aided by the intelligence of the conductors and engineers as to what was expected of them. This was the first outside message that he had ever received, and for a while it threatened to be too much for him, especially as the absence of punctuation made it still more enigmatical. He faithfully transcribed each letter as he made it out and then the agglomeration read:
"Josiamn otkildho spitalat chatano ogabadl ywounded ecbower sox."
"Confound them smart operators at Louisville and Jefferson ville," he grumbled, scanning the scrawl. "They never make letters plain, and don't put in half of 'em, just to worrit country operators. I'd like to take a club to 'em. There's no sort o' sense in sich sending. A Philadelphia lawyer couldn't make nothing out of it. But I've got to or get a cussing, and mebbe the bounce. I'll try it over again, and see if I can separate it into words. Why in thunder can't they learn to put a space be tween the words, and not jumble the letters all to gether in that fool fashion?"
The next time he wrote it out:
"J. O. S. I am not kild Hospital at Chattanooga badly wounded E. C. Bower sox."