Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1905-10-25


and Augusta railroad, now an i'm
portant division of the Southern
system. The telegraph office was in
the passenger station, which was
located in an Office building in the
heart of the business section Of the
town. The ticket room, express
room, baggage room, waiting room,
telegraph room and mail room we're
all in one. A large fireplace fur
nshed heat in the winter for the
whole layout.
"There was but little doing after
dark in the Fairfield county metropo-
lis, and after the day ticket agent,
telegraph operator, baggage agent,
express agent, intelligence bureau,
ETC., courteous gentleman named
Skinner, left the place at dusk, the
clock hands moved as slow as
United States Senate committee in
vestigating the case of Mormon
member of the upper branch of the
National Congress. Barring an oc-
casional visit from the lone police
man, Gilbert, who guarded the slum-
bering little city, had but few be-
tween-suns callers, and the pages of
my noctuary were filled mostly with
anecdotes related by the puritanical
patrolman.
zone night, while l was alone and
all was quiet as cemetery, save the
ticking of the big time. piece that
hung on the wall, and the every
now-and. then clicking of the tee-
graph instruments, when some ope-
rator along the line reported the
arrival or departure of train to the
dispatcher at Columbia, l was at
tracted by what seemed at the time
to be the jumbled echo of Morse
telegraph characters emanating from
the vicinity of the fireplace. This
kept up for several nights, and to
give the acoustics fair test, / would
open the telegraph key on one of
the wires and make lot of letters
and then listen for the echo. Not
all of the characters resounded at
first, the letter Sc being the only one
that came distinct-that letter being
the shortest one in the Morse alpha
bet. After weeks time | was able
to get The echo from such letters as
'g' and 81 and 'h.' Then | COM
menced on the two-letter system. |
would make the combination 'Ja' a
dozen times, and the hearthstone
would answer 'Ja' But when |
went near the fireplace to investigate,
mansoleum stiffness would creep
over the room. | was puzzled, and
laid the case before Policeman Gil
bert and his brother officer, McMas-
ter, to ferret out, but after week of
study and watching the minions
threw up their hands and said they
were stumped.
"Finally observed that frequent
chirruping under the hearth when
the telegraph Instruments were not
Ousy, had the same tone as the echo
of the Morse signals. This goaded
my thinkery, and | nursed notion
in my noodle that all the noise was
being made by a cricket, and this
conception was confirmed before
many more nights went by.
"lIaving noted that the grylus was
already possessed of rudimentary
smattering of telegraphy as result
of his place of abode in the dark re-
cesses of the hearthstone, where he
could hear the saunders clicking day
and night, and believing he had
thirst to know things, | determined
to teach him the entire alphabet, and
found in him an apt student. In a
few weeks the little, black orthop-
tcran had thoroughly mastered every
detail. lie had learned all the let
ters and figures and punctuation
marks, so that when would talk to
him on the instrument he would re-
peat back in inimitable Morse, every
character by rubbing the basal parts