Yes. Who wants to know?

The answer was:

Your father. He has just waked me up.--Harvey.

With a light heart, Harry telegraphed, as briefly as possible, an account of his adventures; and then his father sent a message, telling him that the family had heard that he had been carried away, and had been greatly troubled about him, and that men had ridden down the stream after him, and had not returned, and that he, Mr. Loudon, had just come to Lewston's cabin, hoping for news by telegraph. Harvey had been there all day. Mr. Loudon said he would now hurry home with the good news, but before bidding his son good night, he told him that he must not think of returning until the creek had fallen. He must stay at Aunt Judy's, or go over to Hetertown.

When this had been promised, and a message sent to his mother and Kate, Harry hastened to business. He telegraphed to Harvey to transmit the company's messages as fast as he could; a boy would soon be there to take them over to Hetertown. The answer came:

What messages?

Then Harry suddenly remembered that he had had the messages in the breast-pocket of his coat all the time!

He dived at his pocket. Yes, there they were!

Was there ever such a piece of absurdity? He had actually carried those despatches across the creek! After all the labor and expense of building the telegraph, this had been the way that the first business messages had crossed Crooked Creek!

When Harry made this discovery he burst out laughing. Why, he might as well have carried them to Hetertown from Charity's cabin. It would really have been better, for the distance was not so great.

Although he laughed, he felt a little humiliated. How Tom Selden, and indeed everybody, would laugh if they knew it!

But there was no need to tell everybody, and so when he telegraphed the fact to Harvey, he enjoined secrecy. He knew he could trust Harvey.

And now he became anxious about Jim. Would he be able to borrow a mule, and would he come?

Every few minutes he went to the door and listened for the sound of approaching hoofs, but nothing was to be heard but the low snoring of Aunt Judy, who was fast asleep in a chair by the fireplace.

While thus waiting, a happy thought came into Harry's head. He opened the messages--he had a right to do that, of course, as he was an operator and had undertaken to transmit them--and he telegraphed them, one by one, to Harvey, with instructions to him to send them back to him.

"They shall come over the creek on our line, anyway," said Harry to himself.

It did not take long to send them and to receive them again, for there were only three of them. Then Harvey sent a message, congratulating Harry on this happy idea, and also suggested that he, Harvey, should now ride home, as it was getting late, and it was not likely that there would be any more business that night.

Harry agreed to this, urging Harvey to return early in the morning, and then he set to work to write out the messages. The company had not yet provided itself with regular forms, but Harry copied the telegrams carefully on note-paper, with which, with pen and ink, each station was furnished, writing them, as far as possible, in the regular form and style of the ordinary telegraphic despatch. Then he put them in an envelope and directed them to Mr. Lyons, at Hetertown, indorsing them, "In haste. To be transmitted to destination immediately."

"Now then," thought he, "n.o.body need know how these came over in the first place, until we choose to tell them, and we won't do that until we've sent over some messages in the regular way, and have proved that our line is really of some use. And we won't charge the Mica Company anything for these despatches. But yet, I don't know about that. I certainly brought them over, and trouble enough I had to do it. I'll see about charging, after I've talked it over with somebody. I reckon I'll ask father about that. And I haven't delayed the messages, either; for I've been waiting for Jim. I wonder where that boy can be!" And again Harry went out of doors to listen.

Had he known that Jim was at that moment fast asleep in his bed at home, Harry need not have gone to the door so often.

At last our operator began to be very sleepy, and having made up his mind that if Jim arrived he would certainly wake him up, he aroused Aunt Judy, who was now too sleepy to scold, and having succeeded in getting her to lend him a blanket (it was her very best blanket, which she kept for high days and holidays, and if she had been thoroughly awake she would not have lent it for the purpose), and having spread it on the floor, he lay down on it and was soon asleep.

Aunt Judy blew out one of the candles and set the other on the hearth.

Then she stumbled drowsily into the next room and shut the door after her. In a few minutes every living creature in and about the place was fast asleep, excepting some tree-frogs and katydids outside, who seemed to have made up their minds to stay up all night.

CHAPTER XXV.

PROFITS AND PROJECTS.

The next morning, Harry was up quite early, and after having eaten a very plain breakfast, which Aunt Judy prepared for him, he ran down to the creek to see what chance there was for business.

There seemed to be a very good chance, for the creek had not fallen, that was certain. If there was any change at all, the water seemed a little higher than it was before.

Before long, Harvey arrived on the other side, accompanied by Tom Selden and Wilson Ogden, who were very anxious to see how matters would progress, now that there was some real work to do.

The boys sent messages and greetings backward and forward to each other for about an hour, and then old Miles arrived with his mailbag, which contained quite a number of telegrams, this time.

Not only were there those on the business of the Mica Company, but Mr.

Darby, the storekeeper at Akeville, thought it necessary to send a message to Hetertown by the new line, and there were two or three other private telegrams, that would probably never have been sent had it not been for the novelty of the thing.

But that rascal, Jim Haskins, did not make his appearance, and when Harry found that it was not likely that he would come at all, he induced Aunt Judy to go out and look for some one to carry the telegrams to Hetertown. Harry had just finished copying the messages--and this took some time, for he wrote each one of them in official form--when Aunt Judy returned, bringing with her a telegraphic messenger.

It was Uncle Braddock.

"Here's a man to take yer letters," said Aunt Judy, as she ushered in the old man.

Harry looked up from his table in surprise.

"Why, Uncle Braddock," said he, "you can't carry these telegrams. I want a boy, on a mule or a horse, to go as fast as he can."

"Lor' bress ye, Mah'sr Harry," said the old negro, "I kin git along fas'

enough. Aunt Judy said ye wanted Jim, an' n.o.bleses mule; but dat dar mule he back hindwards jist about as much as he walks frontwards. I jist keep right straight along, an' I kin beat dat dar ole mule, all holler.

Jist gim me yer letters, an' I'll tote 'em ober dar fur ten cents. Ye see I wuz cotched on dis side de creek, an' wuz jist comin ober to see Aunt Judy, when she telled me ob dis job. I'll tote yer letters, Mah'sr Harry, fur ten cents fur de bag-full."

"I haven't a bag-full," said Harry; "but I reckon you'll have to take them. There's n.o.body else about, it seems, and I can't leave the station."

So Uncle Braddock was engaged as telegraph-boy, and Harry having promised him twenty cents to go to Hetertown and to return with any telegrams that were there awaiting transmission to the other side of the creek, the old man set off with his little package, in high good humor with the idea of earning money by no harder work than walking a few miles.

Shortly after noon, he returned with a few messages from Hetertown, and by that time there were some for him to carry back. So he made two trips and forty cents that day--quite an income for Uncle Braddock.

In the evening, Jim Haskins made his appearance with his mule. He said his brother hadn't told him anything about Harry's wanting him until that afternoon. Notwithstanding Uncle Braddock's discouraging account of the mule, Jim was engaged as messenger during the time that the creek should be up, and Uncle Braddock was promised a job whenever an important message should come during Jim's absence.

The next day it rained, and the creek was up, altogether, for five days.

During this time the telegraph company did a good deal of paying business. Harry remained at his station, and boarded and lodged with Aunt Judy. He frequently sent messages to his father and mother and Kate, and never failed, from an early hour in the morning until dark, to find the faithful Harvey at his post.

At last the creek "fell," and the bridge became again pa.s.sable to Miles and his waddling horse. The operators disconnected their wires, put their apparatus in order, locked the wooden cases over their instruments, and rode in triumph (Mr. Loudon had come in the buggy for Harry) to Akeville.

Harry was received with open arms by his mother and Kate; and Mrs.

Loudon declared that this should be the last time that he should go on such an expedition.

She was right.

The next afternoon there was a meeting of the Board of Managers of the Crooked Creek Telegraph Company, and the Secretary, having been hard at work all the morning, with the a.s.sistance of the Treasurer and the President, made a report of the financial results of the recent five days' working of the company's line.

It is not necessary to go into particulars, but when the sums due the company from the Mica Company and sundry private individuals had been set down on the one side, and the amounts due from the telegraph company to Aunt Judy for candles and board and lodging for one operator; to Uncle Braddock and Jim Haskins for services as messengers; to Hiram Anderson for damages to boat (found near the river, stuck fast among some fallen timber, with one end badly battered by floating logs), and for certain extras in the way of additional stationery, etc., which it had become necessary to procure from Hetertown, had been set down on the other side, and the difference between the sums total had been calculated, it was found, and duly reported, that the company had made six dollars and fifty-three cents.