The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-10-18
CUR TELEPHONE.

We were among the first in Deepclif
to have one. Mother thought it would
be 80 useful to us, household of wo-
men," aunty thought it would be ''as
good as a man in the house, and not
half the trouble" We girls agreed
with the higher powers, of course, with
the additional reelection that it would
save us many wet, windy, or warm
walk after forgotten triilcs, which in
our housekeeping were not few. Only
Lululaughed and laughed again, break
ing at intervals into ecstatic chuckles,
and picturing mother and aunty with a
vocabulary of telephone slang, calling
ont, "Hcllo! hello. do YOU get it?" etc.
"You're Just inviting the world, the
flesh and the devil into Spinsters' Snug
HarbOr, she saba remark which
mortified aunty, who said she had no
idea one would be obliged to use such
language But mother did not hesitate.
declaring i'll her stately way that she
should leave all personal contact with
the thing to us girls; what she thought
OF was the convenience and the safety.
SO it was decided, and the man came
on Saturday to put the wire up There
was some discussion as to whether we
should have a bell which should rinr
only our own call, or one of the less ex-
pensive ones which sounded the call of
every one on the line. The latter was
finally decided upon. 1t would be
company" aunty thought, to hear the
little musical tinkle; and. after all,
there were only seven subscribers on
each line. Mother. with dignity
which forbade all suspicion of curiosity,
inquired who the other subscribers
were.
The Ormes," the man said, "and
the Pcytons and brakes were all, so
far; but he was to 90 to Dyke House on
Monday to see about it. They had not
yet settled on it."
We girls exchanged chances. Lulu,
who was sitting on the lowest step of
the staircase, chuckled with fun and
mischief; mother drew herself up and
concluded the conversation. We all
felt it sort of triumph that our tele-
phone should have been put in first
There was bitter feud, long-stand-
ing and deadly, a sort ofMontague and
Capulet affair, between the Macartnevs
of Dannemora, and the Somerindykes
of the Dyke, beginning, of course, in q
dispute over property in old days when
the families had intermarried, and con-
tinued, by judicious litigation, to our
time, in the shape of dispute over a
perfectly worthless piece of land-a
mere rocky gully which divided the
two estates. In our early years there
had been a rotten bridge over the Dyke,
which a fearful fascination led us to
prefer as playground to many prettier
spots. And there had taken place
meetings, more or less clandestine, for
the purpose of playing "iack" and
other innocent games with the one hope
and heir of Dyke House But the
bridge had long since fallen down,
Frank Somerindyke was away over
seas, we had grown up to the family
enmity, and the Dyke was crossed only
by warlike glances.
The man was to come on Monday
morning to put up the instrument in
the hall.
Lulu continuedto giggle and chuckle,
and to produce more choice bits of
slang, learned Heaven knows where
she said from her Sunday-school BOYS
until at last on Sunday morning,
when she informed us that the church
bells were ringing us up,' mother
ruled sternly that not another word
word was to be said about telephones
until Morday. So the subject was
dropped, though think in her heart of