Party Line

Party Line

by Beth Hoven Rotto From left to right, Alfred Blagen on fiddle, unidentified dance partner, and Ellen Blagen. Photo courtesy of the author.

This story was written for my daughter when she was young. It is a work of fiction based on real stories shared with me by Ellen Blagen, Bob Bovee, Helen Ehrie, Orin Ehrie, Gail Heil, Orvin Johnsrud, Gladys Rude, and Euny Stoen.

S

ome time ago there was a boy named Emmons, who lived with his family in a sturdy farmhouse in Iowa.

Everyday he brought in a little wood from the shed for the cookstove in the kitchen and helped feed the chickens, and then he ran past the barn and climbed over the fence.

When he got to the stump near the Norway Pine tree, he settled down, put sunflower seeds on his hat and sat very still. Emmons tried this often in hopes that a bird would fly down and sit on his head. Chickadee-dee-dee. Chickadeedee-dee. This was his lucky day. First the plump little birds sat on the telephone wire, then the boldest flew down, sat on his hat, and ate some seeds.

When the seeds were gone, Emmons returned home.

“Where is Martina?” said Emmons to Mother. Just then his older sister brought their handsome rooster, Bluebell, into the tidy kitchen from the porch. Martina was fond of Bluebell and he liked her too, because she brought him bowls of milk and snips of tasty plants for treats. Martina set the rooster on the back of the wooden kitchen chair and they all admired him for a while. Then Bluebell squawked, ruffled his feathers, and made a bit of a mess. Emmons giggled. Mother cried, “Rooster outside, please! Clean it up!”

Like all of their farm neighbors, Emmons’s family shared telephone service with other people, so sometimes when Emmons picked up the receiver, he heard people talking together. It was called a party line. Emmons knew he should hang up if someone else was already using the phone, but it was hard not to listen just a little bit.

Vol. 7, No. 2 2009

Emmons’s telephone had a crank. By turning the crank, you reached Ellen or Marge, the telephone operators, who would connect your call. Every house on a party line had a special ring. If Emmons heard two short rings and one long, the call was for someone at his house. Ring, Ring, Rriing!

Mrs. Hanson was calling to invite everyone over for a house dance on Friday night. Other neighbors were coming too.

By the time Emmons and his family arrived at the party that Friday night, the Hansons had moved the table outside so there was room for dancing in the kitchen. Soon Mr. Hanson got out his fiddle and put rosin on his fiddle bow to make it play just right. Then Mrs. Hanson sat down at the organ and started pumping the pedals and they lit into a lively polka. It had such a terrific sound that everyone grabbed a partner and started to dance. The floor vibrated and creaked. Martina’s curls bounced. Mother’s skirt swirled.

Emmons’s heart pounded. The band played “Candlelight Waltz,” “Sweet Smile Schottische,” “Little Gem Polka,” and many more. Everyone was joking and laughing and soon the room was so warm that they had to open the windows.

After a while, the musicians took a break and everyone sat down and wiped their sweaty foreheads. Then Mrs. Hanson passed around a basket full of cups and served coffee for the grown-ups, milk for the children, and fresh doughnuts rolled in sugar for everyone. Mmmm . . .

The music started up again and Emmons sat down next to the musicians. It was getting late. Before too long Emmons started to fall asleep in his chair. Between tunes, Mr. Hanson tapped him on the head with his fiddle bow. “Hey, wake up!” he said. Emmons decided to slip upstairs and snuggled under one of Mrs. Hanson’s cozy quilts. He could still hear the music. When the last waltz was over, Mother and Martina woke Emmons and they made their way home.

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The next day, Mother baked bread. She asked Emmons and Martina to deliver a loaf of warm bread to the Hansons’.

Down the road, they heard music floating through the air like a memory of the night before. “Emmons, look!”

Martina pointed to Mr. Hanson who was near the top of his sky-high windmill. He was playing his fiddle up there!

Mr. Hanson waved at the children and went back to his practicing. The music echoed off the bluffs.

Mrs. Hanson was happy for the bread. She invited the children in for a visit. “I started to play the organ at church when I was just eight years old,” she said to them. “My legs were too short to reach the organ pedals, so my father had to sit next to me and pump them for me.”

Winter came early that year. By January there was blizzard after blizzard and the snow became too deep to go anywhere. The wind rattled the windows and it was bitter cold. Emmons grew restless. There was nothing fun to do.

“I’m tired of being snowed in,” cried Emmons.

That night Emmons and his family were cracking walnuts by the woodstove. Suddenly the quiet was interrupted by an unusually long series of rings from the telephone. They had never heard anything like it before.

What was going on? Emmons ran to the telephone and picked up the receiver. He listened, but he didn’t say anything.

“You’re not supposed to listen to other people’s conversations,” said Martina.

“Shh,” said Emmons.

“Hang up!” said Martina.

“Shh!” replied Emmons.

“What is it?” asked Martina.

Emmons said nothing, but his foot was tapping.

Martina came closer. “Let me listen,” she whispered.

“Please.”

Emmons shared the receiver. There was music coming over the phone! They heard a fiddle and the pump organ.

Helen Geving (Ehrie) and friendly fowl.

Photo courtesy of the author.

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Ellen Blagen, telephone operator, dressed up in her mother’s wedding dress, with added bow, for Decorah’s centennial. Photo courtesy of the author.

It was the “Gypsy Waltz”! They could hear exclamations of other neighbors as they picked up their telephones too. The Hansons were making music over the phone. It was a party on the party line!

Emmons set the receiver on the table, and they could hear the music in their own kitchen. Mother pushed the furniture against the wall to make more room. Martina hopped and twirled and her curls bounced. The floor vibrated and creaked. Emmons’s heart pounded and Mother’s skirt swirled. Everyone was smiling and laughing and the room became a little warmer. “Starlight Waltz,” “Gary’s Polka,” “Pop Goes the Weasel,” and many more. The party finally ended when the Hansons played “Show Me the Way to Go Home.” “Hey, we’re already home,” they laughed.

Soon it was spring again and the chickadees whistled a spring song. Fee-bee. Emmons skipped past the red barn and hopped over the fence. Then he sat on the stump by his favorite Norway Pine tree and listened. The woods were coming alive! Emmons smiled. There was music in the air, so he started to whistle the tune.

About the Author Beth Hoven Rotto is a veteran musician, performing primarily on fiddle with the band Foot-Notes, whose oldtime dance tunes are steeped in the Norwegian-American traditions of northeast Iowa and southeast Minnesota.

Foot-Notes formed in 1991 and carries on a tradition of community dances in the two-room schoolhouse in Highlandville, Iowa. Beth performed at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in 2008 and at Norway Day in San Francisco, California, in 2009. She was recently featured in Fiddler magazine in an article that highlighted her work collecting and performing traditional Norwegian-American dance music.

Vesterheim