Ted and the Telephone

by Sara Ware Bassett

"How strange!" murmured Ted in an awed tone.

"Yes, it was like magic, was it not?" replied the tutor. "For the speaking telephone was born at that moment. Whatever practical work was necessary to make the invention perfect (and there were many, many details to be solved) was done afterward. But on June 2, 1875, the telephone as Bell had dreamed it came into the world. That single demonstration on that hot morning in Williams's shop proved myriad facts to the inventor. One was that if a mechanism could transmit the many complex vibrations of one sound it could do the same for any sound, even human speech. He saw now that the intricate paraphernalia he had supposed necessary to achieve his long-imagined result was not to be needed, for did not the simple contrivance in his hand do the trick? The two men in the stuffy little loft could scarcely contain their delight. For hours they went on repeating the experiment in order to make sure they were really awake. They verified their discovery beyond all shadow of doubt. One spring and then another was tried and always the same great law acted with invariable precision. Heat, fatigue, even the dingy garret itself was forgotten in the flight of those busy, exultant hours. Before they separated that night, Alexander Graham Bell had given to Thomas Watson directions for making the first electric speaking telephone in the world!"

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CHAPTER X

WHAT CAME AFTERWARD

"Was that first telephone like ours?" inquired Ted later as, their lunch finished, they sat idly looking out at the river.

"Not wholly. Time has improved the first crude instrument," Mr. Hazen replied. "The initial principle of the telephone, however, has never varied from Mr. Bell's primary idea. Before young Watson tumbled into bed on that epoch-making night, he had finished the instrument Bell had asked him to have ready, every part of it being made by the eager assistant who probably only faintly realized the mammoth importance of his task. Yet whether he realized it or not, he had caught a sufficient degree of the inventor's excitement to urge him forward. Over one of the receivers, as Mr. Bell directed, he mounted a small drumhead of goldbeater's skin, joined the center of it to the free end of the receiver spring, and arranged a mouthpiece to talk into. The plan was to force the steel spring to answer the vibrations of the voice and at the same time generate a current of electricity that should vary in intensity just as the air varies in density during the utterance of speech sounds. Not only did Watson make this instrument as specified, but in his interest he went even farther, and as the rooms in the loft seemed too near together, the tireless young man ran a special wire from the attic down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor of the shop and ended it near his workbench at the rear of the building, thus constructing the first telephone line in history.

"Then the next day Mr. Bell came to test out his invention and, as you can imagine, there was great excitement."

"I hope it worked," put in Laurie.

"It worked all right although at this early stage of the game it was hardly to be expected that the instrument produced was perfect. Nevertheless, the demonstration proved that the principle behind it was sound and that was all Mr. Bell really wanted to make sure of. Watson, as it chanced, got far more out of this initial performance than did Mr. Bell himself for because of the inventor's practical work in phonics the vibrations of his voice carried more successfully than did those of the assistant. Yet the youthful Watson was not without his compensations. Nature had blessed him with unusually acute hearing and as a result he could catch Bell's tones perfectly as they came over the wire and could almost distinguish his words; but shout as he would, poor Mr. Bell could not hear him. This dilemma nevertheless discouraged neither of them for Watson had plenty of energy and was quite willing to leap up the two flights of stairs and repeat what he had heard; and this report greatly reassured Mr. Bell, who outlined a list of other improvements for another telephone that should be ready on the following day."