When we moved into the new house, the telephone had not been installed, and it was not put in for a week. We felt much abused at having to send messages back and forth bye the men and the children. But being so thoroughly happy at having a home again, and being busy as well, I did not quite get out of temper. Instead, as I scrubbed plaster off of windows and floors and sorted through boxes and chests, I got to thinking of the years when no one had a telephone and managed nicely without. I thought of my father and mother starting out their married life on a "homestead" in Nebraska. Twenty miles from a railroad, no telephone, no car, no fuel but buffalo chips, no building but what they made themselves, no trees and not much other vegetation--not much of anything but sand. They had sandstorms and sand hills. "Old Baldy" was a sand mountain in the distance. Sometimes, when my father had to go to town for supplies, my mother would be alone on the prairie for a week at a time. Five children were born out there, with no doctor nearer than twenty miles, and no hospital in fifteen hundred square miles.
In Contrast
In contrast, we have house within a mile of a dozen neighbors. We can get to a doctor or one of the best hospitals in the state in half an hour. We can order our groceries in the early morning, when the stock is fresh and have everything ready to bring out whenever we want them. We can telephone or telegraph to any place in the United States in the time it takes to make the connection. Surely there is little to complain of.
Yet the telephone man was greeted with a smile, and the brisk Clear bell ringing every few minutes makes the place seem like home!