When Love Calls by Lorna Seilstad

dipped her chin, ending the discussion. “And most of all, you will be trained in a separate, miniature operating room on the switchboard apparatus until you meet our proficiency standards.” She swept the room with her gaze. “Then, and only then, will you advance to work as an actual operator.”
    Rosie opened her notepad and began to jot down everything Mrs. Reuff said. The supervisor smiled in her direction, clearly pleased. “As you know, you were selected because you are intelligent, healthy, painstaking, and agreeable young ladies. Only half of the young ladies who applied reached this point. However, if at any point during your month of training we find you do not meet those qualifications, we will not hesitate to dismiss you.”
    Hannah felt as if someone had pulled her corset strings taut. Agreeable? For a whole month?
    “If any of you show an aptitude for operator’s work”—Mrs. Reuff frowned in Hannah’s direction—“which at this point remains doubtful, you may advance prior to the end of the four weeks.”
    Hannah drew in a long breath as the instructor again explained the pay scale. But Mrs. Reuff was quick to emphasize that half of them would prove to be unfit during the training period and would be dropped.
    Quick mental calculations told Hannah she’d make thirty-two dollars a month as an operator but only about twenty during her month as a student. If she could move on more quickly, she’d make more money, and she and her sisters needed those extra funds. She’d do whatever it took to fly through the course work and be one of the first promoted to the actual switchboard.
    Mrs. Reuff walked over to a cream-colored poster hanging on the wall and picked up a long, pointed stick. “A high-class service in an operating room is the fruit of good discipline, so let’s begin with the rules.”
    Hannah bristled. Why did they have to call them rules ? Couldn’t they refer to them as guidelines , or better yet, suggestions for conduct ?
    She bit back a smile, recalling her mother once teasing her about law being a strange profession for someone with such a dislike for rules. She’d explained to her mother that she liked the order of the law—how black-and-white things were and how the law applied to everyone regardless of station or gender. What she didn’t like about rules was the indiscriminate way they were handled, wherewomen were restricted and men were allowed to do as they pleased. She hated being confined.
    The instructor droned on for nearly half an hour, emphasizing the importance of punctual attendance, mental alertness, and courteous responses to all of the instructor’s directives.
    All of them? Hannah’s tongue was already sore from biting it. She would need to pray extra hard tonight.
    Mrs. Reuff went on to explain that the students would be taking several exams and would need to be diligent in their studies. “You must learn to do all things after a certain set form,” she said, “using the habitual actions we teach you, and making no mistakes in the process.”
    Hannah raised her hand. “But I thought—”
    “Your first mistake, Miss Gregory.” Mrs. Reuff’s brow pinched. “Everything you do will be completed by rote. There will be no thinking done here.”
    She tapped the long pointer against the final rule on the poster. “Because you each now represent Iowa Telephone, Mr. Bradford and I will be checking on your moral character.” Mrs. Reuff tapped rule five. “Church attendance is mandatory, and none of you are to receive male callers during the month-long training period. Ladies, do I make myself clear?”
    A few girls in the room gasped, but Hannah smiled.
    Finally, a rule that would be easy for her to follow.

 7 
    Smoke hung in the air.
    Lincoln stepped off the streetcar on Grand Avenue and scanned the sky. Thick, gray billows formed in the air two blocks down, not far from Pete Williams’s home. His chest tightened. Pete had gone home from the law office