Sentence:  When the telephone rang on the day after Hino went down to the village , Rector had a hunch it would be Hino with some morsel of information too important to wait until his return , for there <WSD>were</WSD> few telephones in the village and the phone in Rector 's office rarely rang unless it was important . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have an existence, be extant