226. Miss Annie Ellsworth brings good news.--The next morning Miss Annie G. Ellsworth met him as he was coming down to breakfast. She was the daughter of his friend who had charge of the Patent Office in Washington. She came forward with a smile, grasped his hand, and said that she had good news for him, that Congress had decided to let him have the money. Surely you must be mistaken, said the professor, for I waited last night until nearly midnight, and came away because nothing had been done. But, said the young lady, my father stayed until it was quite midnight, and a few minutes before the clock struck twelve Congress voted[8] the money; it was the very last thing that was done. Professor Morse was then a gray-haired man over fifty. He had worked hard for years and got nothing for his labor. This was his first great success. He doesn't say whether he laughed or cried--perhaps he felt a little like doing both. [Footnote 8: Voted: here this word means given or granted.] 227. The first telegraph line built; the first message sent; the telegraph and the telephone[9] now.--When, at length, Professor Morse did speak, he said to Miss Ellsworth, "Now, Annie, when my line is built from Washington to Baltimore, you shall send the first message over it." In the spring of 1844 the line was completed, and Miss Ellsworth sent these words over it (they are words taken from the Bible): "_What hath God wrought!_"[10] [Illustration: WHAT THE BIRDS THINK TELEGRAPH WIRES WERE PUT UP FOR.] For nearly a year after that the telegraph was free to all who wished to use it; then a small charge was made, a very short message costing only one cent. On the first of April, 1845, a man came into the office and bought a cent's worth of telegraphing. That was all the money which was taken that day for the use of forty miles of wire. Now there are about two hundred thousand miles of telegraph line in the United States, or more than enough to reach eight times round the earth, and the messages sent bring in over seventy thousand dollars every day; and we can telegraph not only clear across America, but clear across the Atlantic Ocean by a line laid under the sea. Professor Morse's invention made it possible for people to write by electricity; but now, by means of the telephone, a man in New York can talk with his friend in Philadelphia, Boston, and many other large cities, and his friend listening at the other end of the wire can hear every word he says. Professor Morse did not live long enough to see this wonderful invention, which, in some ways, is an improvement even on his telegraph. [Illustration: HOW A MESSAGE BY TELEGRAPH IS SENT.[11]] [Footnote 9: Telephone (tel'e-fone): this name is made up of two Greek words, the first of which means _far off_, and the second, _a voice or sound_. The telephone was invented by Professor Alexander G. Bell of Boston; he completed it in 1876. Professor Bell now lives in Washington.] [Footnote 10: See Num. xxiii. 23.]