Far over on one side of a room is the switch board. To the untutored mind it looks like numberless long parallel strips of bra.s.s tacked on the side of the wall, and each strip perforated by a number of small holes, while stuck around, in what seems endless profusion, are many gutta-percha-topped bra.s.s pegs. Yet through all this seeming ma.s.s of confusion, everything is in apple pie order, and each one of those strips represents a wire and every plug a connection to some set of instruments. The wire chief and his a.s.sistants are in full charge of this work, and it must needs be a man of great ability to successfully fill such a place in a large office.

The chief operator has entire supervision over the whole office, and his duties are hard, constant, and arduous. Like competent train despatchers, men able to be first-cla.s.s chief operators are few and far between. Not only must he be an expert telegrapher, but he must thoroughly understand line, battery and switch board work, and his executive ability must be of the highest order.

I had always supposed if a man were a first-cla.s.s railroad operator he could do equally good work on a commercial wire; in fact the operator in a small town is always employed by the railroad company and does the little amount of commercial work in addition to his other duties.

After leaving Blue Field I loafed a while, but that's tiresome work at best, so I journeyed down to Galveston, Texas, one bright fall morning, and after trying my luck at the railroad offices, I wandered into the commercial office on the Strand and asked George Clarke, the chief operator, for a job.

"What kind of a man are you?" he said.

"First-cla.s.s in every respect, sir," I replied.

"Sit down there on the polar side of that Houston quad and if you are any account, I'll give you a job at seventy dollars per month."

Now a "Quad" is an instrument whereby four messages are going over the _same_ wire at the _same_ time. The mechanism of the machine is different in every respect from the old relay, key and sounder, used on the railroad wires. In a vague way I had heard of "quads," and imagined I could work them as well as an "O. S." wire, but when he said for me to sit down on the "Polar side," I was, for a minute, stumped. However, there were already three chaps sitting at that table, so the fourth place must be mine. I sat down and presently I heard the sounder say, "Who?" I answered "BY," and then "HO," said, "Hr. City," I grabbed a pen and made ready to copy, but by the time he had finished the address I was just putting down the number and check. "Break" I said, "G. A.

from," B-r-r-r-r- how that sounder did jump. This interesting operation was repeated several times, but finally I succeeded in getting the message down, and then without giving me time to draw my breath, he said, "C. N. D." and started ahead with a jargon of figures and words that I had never heard of before. His sending was plain enough, in fact it was like a circus bill, but I wasn't on to the combination, and it was all Greek to me. Perspiration started from every pore, and in my agony I said, "Break, G. A. Ahr.," Holy Smoke! how he did fly off at that, and how those other three chaps did grin at my discomfiture.

"Call your chief operator over here," and with that he refused to work with me any more. Clarke came over and that blasted chump at "HO" said,

"For heaven's sake give us an operator to do the receiving on the polar'

side of this quad. We are piled up with business and can't be delayed by teaching the ropes to a railroad ham. He's been ten minutes taking one message, and I haven't been able to pound into his head what a 'C. N.

D,' is yet."

Clarke quietly gave him "O. K." and then turned to me with,

"I guess you are not used to this kind of work. Better go back to railroading, and learn something about commercial work before tackling a job like this again. Come back in six months and I'll give you another trial." I sneaked out of the office, followed by the broad smiles of every man in the place, and thus ended the first lesson.

I took Clarke's advice and went back to work on a narrow-gauge road running northwards out of Houston, through the most G.o.d-forsaken country on the footstool. Sluggish bayous, foul rank growth of vegetation, alligators as long as a rail, that would come out and stop trains by being on the track, and air so malarious in quality that it was only a question of time until one had the fever. I stuck it out for two months and then succ.u.mbed to the inevitable and went to the hospital where I lay for three weeks. After I had fully recovered they put me to work in the Houston General Office, and some eight months after reaching there I received a message from my old friend Clarke, saying, "if I had improved any in my commercial work he would give me a job at seventy dollars per month." I hadn't improved much, but as this world is two-thirds bluff, I made mine, and said I'd come, trusting to luck to be able to hold on.

I reached there one pleasant afternoon and the next morning went to work. I must have had my rabbit's foot with me, because I was a.s.signed to a "Way Wire." I think if he had told me to tackle a "Quad," again, I should have fainted. A "Way Wire," is one that runs along a railroad, having offices cut in in all the small towns. There wasn't a town on the whole string that had more than ten or fifteen messages a day, but the aggregate of all the offices made up a very good day's work. Then again I didn't have to handle any of those confounded "C. N. D." messages.

Clarke watched me closely and at the end of the first day he said my work showed a marked improvement. You may rest a.s.sured I watched my P's and Q's, and it wasn't long before I had the hang of the system and could take my trick on a "Quad" with the best of them. Rheostats, wheatstone bridges, polarized relays, pole changers, and ground switches became as familiar to me as the old relay key and sounder had been.

Some of the rarest gems of the profession worked in "G" office at this time--George Clarke, "Cy" Clamphitt, "Jack" Graham, Will Church, John McNeill, Paul Finnegan alias the "Count," and a score or more of men, as good as ever touched a key or balanced a quad. A day's work was from eight A. M., until five P. M., and for all over time we were paid extra at the rate of forty cents per hour. This extra work was called "Scooping."

One day in December, Clarke asked me if I wanted to "scoop" that night.

I acquiesced and after eating a hasty supper I went back to the office and prepared for a long siege. I was put to sending press reports, which is just about as hard work as a man can do. I sent "30" (the end) at two o'clock in the morning, and went home worn to a frazzle. I was boarding on Avenue M. with ten other operators, in a house kept by a Mrs.

Swanson, and roomed with her little son Jimmie, who was a hopeless cripple. I undressed, and after shoving little Jim over to his own side of the bed, tumbled in and was soon sleeping like a log. It seemed as if I had just closed my eyes when I felt some one pulling my hair. I knocked the hand away and prepared to take another snooze, when there was that awful pull on my red head again. I opened my eyes prepared to fight, when I felt an extra hard pull, and heard the wee sma' voice of my diminutive room mate say,

"Get up, the house is on fire." "Rats," I said--Again,--the awful pull,--and,--"Mr. Bates, for G.o.d's sake get up; the house is on fire; the whole town is burning up."

I sprang out of bed and the crackling of the timbers, the glow of the flames, and the stifling smoke, soon a.s.sured me it was time to move, and quickly at that. I grabbed up a few clothes in one arm, and grasping brave little Jimmie Swanson in the other, I started for the steps. On our side, the whole house was in flames, and the smoke rushing up the stair-way was something awful. I wrapped Jimmie's head in his night shirt, and throwing a coat over mine, I started down the stairs. Half way down my foot slipped, and we both pitched head first to the bottom.

Poor little Jim, his right arm was broken by the fall, and when he tried to get up, he found that his one sound leg was badly strained. He said,

"Never mind me, Mr. Bates, save yourself. I'll crawl out."

Leave him to roast alive? Never! I grabbed him again and after a desperate effort succeeded in getting him out. All our supply of clothing had been lost in our mad efforts to escape, and as a bitter norther was blowing at the time, our position was anything but pleasant.

I found a few clothes dropped by some one else and we made ourselves as warm as possible. Then I grabbed Jimmie up again and fled before the fiery blast. The awful catastrophe had started in a fisherman's shack over on the bay, twenty-seven squares from where we lived, and being borne by a high wind, had swept everything in its path. The houses were mostly of timber and were easy prey to the relentless flames. Although Galveston is entirely surrounded by water, the pipe-lines for fighting fire at this time extended only to Avenue H, ten blocks from the Strand.

Beyond that, the fire department depended on the cisterns of private houses for the water to subdue the flames.

With lightning-like rapidity the flames had spread and almost before they knew it the town seemed doomed. Arches of flame, myriads of falling sparks, hundreds of fleeing half-clad men, women and children, the hissing of the engines in their puny attempts to fight the monster, and ever and anon the dull roar of the falling walls, made a scene, as grand and weird as it was desolate and awful. In less than two hours time fifty-two squares had been laid waste, leaving a trail of smoldering black ashes. That the whole city did not go is due to a providential switch of the wind that blew the flames back on their own tracks.

Of the fifteen operators in the day force, twelve had been burned out, and the next morning, at eight o'clock, when all had reported for duty, they were as sorry a looking lot of men as ever a.s.sembled.

"Some in rags, some in jags, and one in velvet gown." "Count" Finnegan had on a frilled shirt, a pair of trousers three sizes too small for him, and his manly form was wrapped in a flowing robe of black velvet, picked up by him in his mad flight.

It was many a day before the effects of this direful calamity were entirely obliterated.

CHAPTER VIII

SENDING A MESSAGE PERFORCE--RECOGNIZING AN OLD FRIEND BY HIS STUFF

Some time after this I was in Fort Worth copying night reports at eighty dollars per month. The night force consisted of two other men besides myself. The "split trick" man worked until ten o'clock, the other chap stayed around until twelve, or until he was clear, while I hung on until "30" on report which came anywhere from one-thirty until four A. M.

After midnight I had to handle all the business that came along.

When I had received "30" I would cut out the instruments and go home.

One morning, about two-thirty I had said "G. N." to Galveston, cut out the instruments, put out the lights in the operating room, and started to go home through the receiving room and I was about to put out the last light there, when the outer door opened and in staggered a half drunken ranchman who said,

"Hold on there, young fellow, I want to send a message to St. Louis."

"I'm sorry, but it's too late to send it now. All the instruments are cut out and we wont have St. Louis until eight o'clock in the morning.

Come around then and some of the day force will send it for you."

"But," he said in a maudlin voice, "I've got nineteen cars of cattle out here that are going up there to-morrow and I want to notify my agents."

I persisted in my refusal and was beginning to get hot under the collar, but my bucolic friend also had a temper and showed it.

"D--n it," he said, "you send this message or there is going to be trouble."

"Not much, I won't send your confounded old message. Get out of this office: I'm going home."

Just then I heard an ominous click and in a second I was gazing down the barrel of a .45, and he said,

"Now will you send it? You'd better or I'll send you to a home that will be a permanent one."

A .45, especially when it is loaded, c.o.c.ked and pointed at your head, with a half drunken galoot's finger on the trigger, is a powerful incentive to quick action.

"Give me your blamed old message, and I'll send it for you."

Now there wasn't a through wire to any place at the time, but I had thought of a scheme to stave him off. I took his telegram, went over and monkeyed around the switch board for a while, and then sat down to a local instrument and went through the form of sending a message. My whole salvation lay in the hope that he was not an operator and would fail to discover my ruse. I glanced at him furtively out of the corner of my eye, and there he stood, pistol in hand, grinning like a monkey and swaying to and fro like a reed in the wind. I didn't know what that grin portended for me, but after I had gone through the form of sending the telegram, I hung it up on the hook, and turned around with,

"There, I hope you are satisfied now. Your blamed old message has been sent."

"Satisfied! Why certainly I'm satisfied. I just wanted to show you that the Western Union Company wasn't the whole push. Come on over to the White Elephant with me and we'll have a drink together, just to show there's no hard feelings between us," and with that he put away his pistol and we went out. On the way over to the Elephant he said,

"Say, kid, did you think I'd shoot if you hadn't sent the message?"