“And then the doctor said, his eyes crinkling up at the corners in that funny way of his:
“‘But, Nellie, how can you blame those two chickens for what happened fourteen years ago?’”
Jessie laughed delightedly at this. It was so typical of the good clergyman’s humor. But she spoke with gravity, however, when she said:
“There’s Nell, too. I know she would like to do something on the program for the hospital fund. She sings awfully well, Amy.”
“Say!” exclaimed the eager Amy. “Remember that trio we three sang for the Sunday School Union that time? I know you want to sing your solo; and I want to recite. But if we could take Nell in, too, and make a trio of it—Oh, Jess! Let’s ask your mother.”
Jessie agreed to this; but when they arrived home they found Mrs. Norwood busy with various affairs connected with the charitable drive and Jessie had to sit down to the telephone and call up one person after another to whom her mother wished to send messages.
“Wish we could broadcast all this,” she said. “It certainly will be fine when every family has both a receiver and sender. Why, when that day comes, ordinary telephones will be scarcely necessary.”
“I don’t know that I would want to send into the air all my private affairs,” laughed her mother. “You know, sometimes I talk to Doctor Leffert over the telephone and tell him my symptoms—or the symptoms I think I have. Such very personal affairs——”
“And see!” broke in Amy, eagerly. “The air would be crowded with a lot of folks talking at once. Think of that Sara Truro, down on Breen Street, who chatters just like a magpie. She’d get the air and Central would have to say, ‘Busy’ to everybody else for hours at a time.”
“How very ridiculous,” chuckled Jessie. “A million people can talk at once on the ether without interference. Our radio telephones will be tuned to certain lengths of wave. If the person you want to talk to is busy, he shuts you out with a switch and will send you a signal to that effect. Oh, it’s coming!”