It staggered me--the prospect of such opulence--and that very day I began my work. I have been lucky and prospered rather handsomely since then, but I have never received a sum so enduring and massive as that which came to me at the end of every month. I always hurried home with the roll of bills and flung it into my mother's lap proudly. Oh, what a lavish hand was mine those days! About the best happiness of all my life was in the few moments of sublime generosity at the month's end when I renounced the money and saw the look in my mother's face and hurried away to my chores. And when I saw the splendor of my sister's hats and gowns, and the neatness of her shoes, and heard people speak of her beauty, I was about as happy as one may be. I had “jerked lightning” some eight months and had become a figure in the life of Heartsdale, for I guided the flying horse of God that sped in and out of the village on its slender highway, and I was looked upon as a kind of sorcerer. Moreover, I--a boy of seventeen--received the princely income of forty dollars a month! In all this time, although I had written to Jo about the loss of the horruck and my ignorance of its secret and my growing curiosity, no word of her had come to me save a letter from Sam, which told me that Jo was well and hoped those few lines would find me the same. One afternoon my call came clicking into the sounder with the letters M. F. behind it. I knew that M. F. stood for the office at Merrifield. The operator said that he would have an important message for me at eight that evening, and, asked if I could be at the key to take it. The request was not unusual, for mine was the repeating office at the junction of two lines. I promised to be on hand, and went to the office at eight o'clock. Soon I got the call and answered it, and these words flashed into the sounder: “Is this Mr. Heron?” And I answered, “Yes; who are you?” “I am the operator at Merrifield, and I have a message for you.” “Well, go ahead,” I clicked, impatiently. I could see it was a new operator with a rather timid hand. So the message ran: _To Jacob Ezra Heron:_ Do you still care to hear from an old friend? Jo. I answered that very moment: _To Jo:_ I am dying for news of you. Answer. Cricket. Then I asked, “Can you deliver the message to-night?” “Yes; it has been delivered. I am Jo,” the sounder clicked. “This is confidential. See if any one is on the line.” I rang off the calls of the hill circuit and got no answer, and knew we had the wire to ourselves. “Are you an operator?” I asked. “Yes. I had to have a talk with you, and so here I am, at last.” “I'd rather talk face to face than with lightning,” I said. “Why can't I go and see you?” “Not now. Wait a little while,” she answered. “Why?”