C. C. Phillips
C. C. Phillips
Morning sunshine filled the kitchen of Vera Mitchell's large two story house as the tall, regal woman set the table for her tea time. Red checked curtains were drawn back from two cross framed windows which occupied the east wall of the residence. The brilliant sunlight brightened the room as Danny Reid, the rural lineman, watched her fluid movements; with swift efficiency, she prepared a snack for her visitor. The faint but distinct odour of tobacco smoke lingered in the room and the visitor sub-consciously wondered about the source. He had never known Vera to have a cigarette. The young lineman often stopped to chat with Mrs. Mitchell, who ran the local telephone exchange. She had managed the operator duties for the company for more than twenty-five years and for most of those years she had been a widow. Her husband had been killed overseas during World War II and the lady had never remarried, seemingly disinterested in seeking love again.
Vera Mitchell understood her role as operator and few people could have performed the service with the extreme discretion she exhibited. All manner of conversation passed through the lines Mrs. Mitchell monitored, and if the tendency were not beneath her, she could have created enough gossip to fill many columns in the local rag. In the years that Danny Reid had managed the maintenance of the open wire circuits, he had never heard the veteran operator repeat a word of any telephone correspondence. The greying woman, now past middle age, very accurately assessed problems on the lines through her duty as monitor and this information often aided Danny immensely when called upon to repair a particular circuit. The operator informed the lineman of noise, ringing and out-of-service situations, often before the customers were aware of the difficulty. Stockton was not a terribly busy exchange, and though the operator sometimes requested an assistant, she managed most of the daily switching routine by herself. Jean Hatt, whose husband owned the John Deere dealership, and another lady from town, shared the night shift. Jean also relieved the Chief Operator in the event of Vera Mitchell's absence.
Today, between turns at monitoring the maze of circuits which terminated on a large circuit board perforated with plug-in jacks and situated in a corner of the big kitchen, Mrs. Mitchell, wearing a headset and tethered to the panel with a long cord, served her guest and passed along tidbits of information which may help Danny out on the route.
Pouring the steeped tea into Danny's cup, she said, “During that strong west wind the other day, I noticed that bunch-block 06 had intermittent hitting on it. There must be a little slack in a span out there on the north-south run.”
Danny added a spoonful of sugar to his cup, “I think I know the spot. During the storm break I made quite a few 'quick fixes'. There is still one out there on that run where the side blocks take over from that six pin running north.”
“Aside from that one trouble though, I would say you've pretty well cleared up the havoc wreaked by that thunder storm.”
The operator reached over and pulled a cord from the jack of a circuit as the ring-off sounded and then turned back to Danny. A slight frown creased her forehead, “Jean asked me to run a part of the night shift last Saturday and a call came through at 11:15 PM. It started out normal and I switched the call to a long-distance trunk. No ring-down came on and so, after awhile, I monitored the line to see that the call remained up. There was this horrendous screeching on the trunk. It was the most annoying sound, like someone dragging their finger nails down a chalkboard. At first I thought something had crashed on the toll route but the line was indeed connected. The noise kept up for almost an hour and then a disconnect ring came and I terminated the call.”
Danny Reid paused with his tea cup halfway to his lips. A shadow of worry creased his brow. “Whose line was it, Vera?”
“The private line. Robert Milto's.”
Setting the tea cup back on its saucer, Danny asked, “Have you ever heard the noise before? Have the Miltos been reporting any grief with their line?”
Vera Mitchell paused to route a long-distance request, “There have been no trouble reports from the Milto residence for a long time. And I have never heard the noise before, however, Jean has mentioned something about an odd sound a few times in the past… I think that she said it had been on the Milto line, too.”
After finishing his tea and bidding Mrs. Mitchell a good day, Danny Reid drove out to the six pin lead that ran north of town. He pondered the weird noise Vera had reported on the “Private Line,” the name assigned by the operator and the repairman. Danny had hired a construction crew to build the twenty-five mile stretch that ran out to the Milto headquarters. Local folk were astounded that someone outside of town would even consider having a private telephone line. Robert Milto did not so much as blink at the exorbitant price quoted for this service. He simply requested that the line be built to the very latest specifications and engineered accordingly. At the time Danny thought the man eccentric but his subsequent encounters with Robert Milto proved that the rancher was quite level headed and extremely intelligent. When Danny asked about the necessity of a private line for such expense, Robert Milto smiled disarmingly and said, “Someday everyone will have a private line, Danny.”
Where the six-pin crossarm line turned west, a single pair of wires on side-blocks continued northward to serve those customers on the circuit labelled bunch-block 06. Danny decreased his speed and studied the line carefully as he patrolled the pole lead near the road. The sunshine reflected on the fine ribbons of steel wire and the trouble was easy to discern upon arrival at the suspected area. When the lineman had hurriedly pulled up the downed lines during the storm break, the upper strand had caught on the tie wire preventing the line from becoming as taut as its neighbour. Due to the slack in the span, an east or west wind would cause the lines to intermittently collide causing the “hits” Vera Mitchell had reported.
Danny stopped the line-truck, quickly donned his climbing gear and spurred up the sturdy creosote treated pole. He belted in and jack-strapped the slack out of the line to make it even with its neighbour. Snipping off the excess and splicing the ends together took but a few minutes and the lineman was soon back in the truck, his thoughts reverting to the noise problem at the Milto establishment.
…We called it the 'Private Line' because there were no others in the entire Stockton rural exchange. I can't remember what the cost was, but it must have been enormous even in those days, to run steel or copper open wire all that distance…
Submitted by Wendy Miller as told by the late Vera Larson (Mitchell)
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