Ted and the Telephone

Ted and the Telephone, by Sara Ware Bassett

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Title: Ted and the Telephone
Author: Sara Ware Bassett
Illustrator: William F. Stecher
Release Date: November 2, 2007 [EBook #23292]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Transcriber's Note: Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained.
TED AND THE TELEPHONE
By Sara Ware Bassett
The Invention Series
PAUL AND THE PRINTING PRESS STEVE AND THE STEAM ENGINE TED AND THE TELEPHONE
[Illustration: "Would you like to go to college if you could?" persisted the elder man. FRONTISPIECE. See page 178.]

The Invention Series
TED AND THE TELEPHONE
By
SARA WARE BASSETT

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WILLIAM F. STECHER

BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1922
Copyright, 1922, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved
Published April, 1922
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO THE MEMORY OF
EDWIN T. HOLMES
WHO PLAYED A PART IN THE WONDERFUL TELEPHONE STORY, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
S. W. B.

It gives me much pleasure to acknowledge the generosity of Mr. Thomas Augustus Watson, the associate of and co-worker with Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, who has placed at my disposal his "Birth and Babyhood of the Telephone."
Also the courtesy of Mrs. Edwin T. Holmes who has kindly allowed me to make use of her husband's book: "A Wonderful Fifty Years."
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN UNHERALDED CHAMPION 1
II TED RENEWS OLD TIMES 11
III GOING TO HOUSEKEEPING 21
IV THE FIRST NIGHT IN THE SHACK 35
V A VISITOR 49
VI MORE GUESTS 60
VII MR. LAURIE 76
VIII DIPLOMACY AND ITS RESULTS 94
IX THE STORY OF THE FIRST TELEPHONE 106
X WHAT CAME AFTERWARD 122
XI THE REST OF THE STORY 141
XII CONSPIRATORS 152
XIII WHAT TED HEARD 163
XIV THE FERNALDS WIN THEIR POINT 173
XV WHAT CAME OF THE PLOT 189
XVI ANOTHER CALAMITY 199
XVII SURPRISES 213

ILLUSTRATIONS
"Would you like to go to college if you could?" persisted the elder man Frontispiece
"You can't be spreadin' wires an' jars an' things round my room!" protested Mr. Turner Page 9
Soon he came within sight of the shack which stood at the water's edge " 27
He heard an answering shout and a second later saw Ted Turner dash through the pines " 88

TED AND THE TELEPHONE
CHAPTER I
AN UNHERALDED CHAMPION
Ted Turner lived at Freeman's Falls, a sleepy little town on the bank of a small New Hampshire river. There were cotton mills in the town; in fact, had there not been probably no town would have existed. The mills had not been attracted to the town; the town had arisen because of the mills. The river was responsible for the whole thing, for its swift current and foaming cascades had brought the mills, and the mills in turn had brought the village.
Ted's father was a shipping clerk in one of the factories and his two older sisters were employed there also. Some day Ted himself expected to enter the great brick buildings, as the boys of the town usually did, and work his way up. Perhaps in time he might become a superintendent or even one of the firm. Who could tell? Such miracles did happen. Not that Ted Turner preferred a life in the cotton mills to any other career. Not at all. Deep down in his soul he detested the humming, panting, noisy place with its clatter of wheels, its monotonous piecework, and its limited horizon. But what choice had he? The mills were there and the only alternative before him. It was the mills or nothing for people seldom came to live at Freeman's Falls if they did not intend to enter the factories of Fernald and Company. It was Fernald and Company that had led his father to sell the tumble-down farm in Vermont and move with his family to New Hampshire.
"There is no money in farming," announced he, after the death of Ted's mother. "Suppose we pull up stakes and go to some mill town where we can all find work."
And therefore, without consideration for personal preferences, they had looked up mill towns and eventually settled on Freeman's Falls, not because they particularly liked its location but because labor was needed there. A very sad decision it was for Ted who had passionately loved the old farm on which he had been born, the half-blind gray horse, the few hens, and the lean Jersey cattle that his father asserted ate more than they were worth. To be cooped up in a manufacturing center after having had acres of open country to roam over