Every line was a party line shared by anywhere from eight to 12 competitive conversationalists, and the would-be user needed luck. If all was quiet, he would give the crank a lusty twirl or two. The operator, sitting in the central office of the telephone company on a high swivel chair in front of a confusing infestation of wires, would see a jack drop and hear it click. Nighttime crank twirlers got nowhere, since by eight o'clock the operator had disconnected everything, locked up and gone home to dinner and a good book. Naturally, this kind of system had its problems.
Calls are limited to three minutes.
No party should hold the line longer than five minutes. Do not take down receiver when others are using the line. Don't waste the operator's time in useless talk. If you will ring off, the operator will not have to listen to know when you are through. But the indoor difficulties that may have plagued the subscribers and operators of the tiny company, annoying though they were, never held a candle to what happened outdoors, especially in winter.