"It's very easily learned," Tom continued. "You can learn the alphabet in an hour or two, and after a week's practice you can read the sounder slowly. Our houses stand just right for it, too."
Tom was certainly correct about that. Their houses were in a cluster in the suburbs of Westbridge, two on one side of the broad avenue, and one just across the way, with only about five hundred feet of space between them.
"It would be a grand thing," Joe said, after deliberating a little, "but I don't know whether I can get father to advance me the cash. That canoe about used up my money, and I may have trouble to get any money for a while."
"No, you won't!" Tom exclaimed, very decidedly. "You'll not have any trouble at all to get money for a telegraph line. I've thought that all out. You see, this thing is not just a toy to play with; it's for real use. You know what the worst drawback is to living here half a mile out of town; it's burglars, isn't it? That's what we always have to be looking out for, specially since they broke into your house two years ago, and took all your silverware. And I'd like to know what better burglar alarm we could have than a telegraph line between our houses."
The three families all took kindly to the telegraph idea, for they said that it would be a great convenience to them in asking and answering questions, and would save them many a step. Besides, if a burglar should visit any of the houses it would be such a consolation to know that they could call assistance in a few seconds. Tom and Harry put little tables close by their beds to hold the key and sounder, but Joe had to make other arrangements. His mother was afraid to have the wire so close to his head for fear it might conduct the lightning when there was a thunderstorm, so it was decided that his work-room over the kitchen should also be his telegraph-office. That was the room where he kept his printing-press and his carpenter's bench, and the turning lathe that he had saved up for months to buy.
This work-room was too far from Joe's sleeping-room for him to hear the click of the sounder if the other boys should call him at night; but Harry got his friend the operator to help put up the line, and the operator made an ingenious arrangement by which a little electric bell was rung in the work-room whenever any of the keys were used. By leaving the door open this bell could be heard.
"Ain't it grewh!" Harry clicked off after the boys had been practising a few days, meaning to say "Ain't it great!"
"Biggryf thirg out," Tom ticked in reply, imagining that he had said "Biggest thing out."
But they soon did better than that, and in the course of a week or two they were talking over the wire almost as glibly as though they were in the same room. Their mothers and sisters were delighted with it, for Mrs. Dailey found that without the trouble of going out she could ask Mrs. Barker just how much flour to put in those new ginger-snaps, and the girls made frequent appointments to walk down town together—all by telegraph.
The line was so successful that the boys had to talk with their schoolmates about it, and through them the news reached the reporter of the Westbridge Eagle, and he put a paragraph in the paper about it.