Ellen Firebaugh - The Story of a Doctor's Telephone—Told by His Wife

The telephone has revolutionized the doctor's life.

In the old days when a horse's galloping hoofs were heard people looked out of their windows and wondered if that wasn't someone after a doctor! The steed that Franklin harnessed bears the message now, and comments and curiosity are stilled. In the old days thunderous knocks came often to the doctor's door at night; they are never heard now, or so rarely as to need no mention. Neighbors have been awakened by these importunate raps: they sleep on undisturbed now.

The doctor's household enjoys nothing of this sweet immunity. A disturbing factor is within it that makes the thunderous knocks of old pale into insignificance.

When the telephone first came into the town where our doctor lived he had one put in his office of course, for if anyone in the world needs a 'phone it is the doctor and the people who want him. By and by he bethought him that since his office was several blocks from his residence he had better put one in there, too, because of calls that come in the night. So it was promptly installed. The doctor and his wife found their sleep disturbed far oftener than before. People will not dress and go out into the night to the doctor's house unless it is necessary. But it is an easy thing to step to the 'phone and call him from his sleep to answer questions – often needless – and when several people do the same thing in the same night, as frequently happens, it is not hard to see what the effect may be.

One day the doctor had an idea! He would connect the two 'phones. It would be a handy thing for Mary to be able to talk to him about the numberless little things that come up in a household without the trouble of ringing central every time, and it would be a handy thing for him, too. When he had to leave the office he could just 'phone Mary and she could keep an ear on the 'phone till he got back.

About this time another telephone system was established in the town – the Farmers'. Now a doctor's clientele includes many farmers, so he put one of the new 'phones into his office. By and by he reflected that farmers are apt to need to consult a physician at night – he must put in a Farmers' 'phone at home, too. And he did. Then he connected it with the office.

When the first 'phone went up Mary soon accustomed herself to its call – three rings. When her husband connected it with the office the rings were multiplied by three. One ring meant someone at the office calling central. Two rings meant someone calling the office. Three rings meant someone calling the residence, as before. Mary found the three calls confusing. When the Farmers' 'phone was installed and the same order of rings set up, she found the original ring multiplied by six. This was confusion worse confounded. To be sure the bell on the Farmers' had a somewhat hoarser sound than that on the Citizens' 'phone, but Mary's ear was the only one in the household that could tell the difference with certainty. The clock in the same room struck the half hours which did not tend to simplify matters. When a new door-bell was put on the front door Mary found she had eight different rings to contend with. But it is the bells of the Telephone with which we are concerned and something of their story will unfold as we proceed.

When the doctor was at home and the 'phone would ring he would start toward the adjoining room where the two hung and stop at the first.

Mary would call “Farmers'!” and he would move on to the next. Perhaps at the same instant the tall boy of the household whose ear was no more accurate than that of his father would shout “Citizens'!” and the doctor would stop between the two.

“ Farmers'! ” the wife would call a second time, with accrued emphasis. Then she would laugh heartily and declare:

“Any one coming in might think this a sort of forum where orations were being delivered,” and sometimes she would go on and declaim:

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears – my husband has borrowed mine.”

So the telephone in the doctor's house – so great a necessity that we cannot conceive of life without it, so great a blessing that we are hourly grateful for it, is yet a very great tyrant whose dominion is absolute.

I had a pleasing picture in my mind in the writing of this chronicle, of sitting serene and undisturbed in a cosy den upstairs, with all the doors between me and the 'phone shut tight where no sound might intrude. In vain. Without climbing to the attic I could not get so far away that the tintinnabulation that so mercilessly wells from those bells, bells, bells did not penetrate.

I hope my readers have not got so far away from their Poe as to imagine that ringing sentence to be mine. And I wonder if a still greater glory might not crown his brow if there had been telephone bells to celebrate in Poe's day.

So I gave up the pleasant dream, abandoned the cosy den and came down stairs to the dining room where I can scatter my manuscript about on the big table, and look the tyrants in the face and answer the queries that arise, and can sandwich in a good many little odd jobs besides.

Through a doctor's telephone how many glimpses of human nature and how many peeps into the great Story of Life have been mine; and if, while the reader is peeping too, the scene suddenly closes, why that is the way of telephones and not the fault of the writer.

And knowing how restful a thing it has been to me to get away from the ringing of the bell at times, I have devised a rest for the reader also and have sent him with the doctor and his wife on an occasional country drive where no telephone intrudes.

Robinson, Ill.

The hands of the clock were climbing around toward eleven and the doctor had not returned. Mary, a drowsiness beginning to steal over her, looked up with a yawn. Then she fell into a soliloquy: