I'm sure we didn't have a telephone at the Flint place. But by about the time I started to school, almost everyone in our neighborhood had one. There were maybe eight or ten parties on the same line. We owned our own telephone, put up our own lines, and bought our own batteries. Having so many on one line wasn't the best arrangement but it was better than no phone at all. It was a big step forward at that time in the history of our community. Every day at noon--straight up twelve o'clock--the operator would ring a long, long ring. We could set our clocks by it and we could listen to the weather forecast immediately after the long ring. I don't know where they got the weather information, probably from a record of what the weather did on that same day a year ago, or maybe from the almanac. Anyway, wherever they got it, most of us listened to it and were stuck with it. In the above paragraph I said the operator would ring. That's not exactly right. It's true, she was a woman operator. And we kids knew she was a woman, but we didn't know she was an operator. We only knew her as "Central." As far as we were concerned, her name might just as well have been Mrs. Central. At any rate, when we wanted to ring someone on our line, out our direction from "Central," all we had to do was turn the crank and ring their ring. For instance, our ring was a long and four shorts. But, if we wanted to talk to someone on a line out another direction from Hamlin, we had to ring a long ring to get "Central" and get her to connect our line to the other line. Then she would ring that party for us. When any of us tried and tried to ring Central and couldn't get her to answer, naturally all the phones on our line would be ringing at the same time, and usually some neighbor on our line would volunteer to ring for us and help us get through to Central. Perhaps the neighbor's phone had a stronger magneto, or perhaps two or three of us ringing at the same time might send a stronger current and get through to her. We tried everything. Come to think of it, there was the possibility that Central's phone had been ringing from the beginning. It was just barely possible that she was eating a sandwich in another room. And of course, we shouldn't overlook the possibility that she might have been out in the little house backed up to the alley. Speaking of getting through to the operator, let me tell you about one day when the operator got through to me. Now, on this particular day, Frank was the operator. He was in command. Frank, Earl, Joel and I were hoeing cotton. Frank, being the oldest and the one who would have to answer to Papa if the work didn't get done, was working hard and was way out ahead of the rest of us. I was the youngest and least and was way behind, but not too far behind to be able to talk to Earl and Joel.