When boys live some distance apart, it is pleasant to be able to communicate with each other by means of signals. Many and ingenious have been the methods devised by enthusiastic boys for this purpose. But it can be brought much nearer perfection than has yet been done, by means of a very simple system.

At the age of fourteen I had an intimate friend who lived more than a mile away, but whose home was in plain sight from mine. As we could not always be together when we wished, we invented a system of signalling requiring a number of different colored flags; but we were not quite satisfied with it, for we could send but few communications by its use. Then, when we came to test it, we found the distance was too great to allow of the different colors being distinguished. The white one was plainly visible. It seemed necessary, therefore, that only white flags should be used. We studied over the problem long and hard, with the following result.

We each made five flags by tacking a small stick, eighteen inches long, to both ends of a strip of white cloth,[B] two feet long by ten inches wide. Then we nailed loops of leather to the side of our fathers’ barns, so that, when the sticks were inserted in them, the flags would be in the following positions:

The upper left hand position was numbered 1, upper right 2, lower right 3, lower left 4, centre 5. Notice, there was no difference in the flags; the positions they occupied determined the communication.

Thirty combinations of these positions can be made:

These combinations were written down; and opposite each was written the question or answer for which it stood. The answers likely to be used most we placed opposite the shortest combinations, to save time in signalling. My old “Code” lies before me, from which I copy the following examples:

Suppose, now, that I place flags in positions 2 4 and 5. (See the above examples.)

Harry glances down his “code” until he reaches 2 4 5 and its signification, and perhaps answers with a flag at 1.

Then the following dialogue ensues:

I. 1 2.

He. 1 5.

I. 4.

He. 2 5.

And, in a few moments,

He. 1.

We usually spent our noon hour conversing with each other in this manner; and, when it became necessary for either to leave his station, all the flags, 1 2 3 4 5, were put out, signifying “gone.”

One combination, 1 2 3 4, was, by mutual consent, reserved for a communication of vital importance, “Come over!” It was never to be used except in time of trouble, when the case would warrant leaving everything to obey the call. We had little expectation of its ever being used. It was simply a whim; although, like many other things, it served a serious purpose in the end.

Not far from my father’s house stood a valuable timber lot, in which he took an especial pride. Adjoining this was an old apple-orchard, where the limbs of several trees that had been cut down, and the prunings of the remainder, had been heaped together in two large piles to be burned at a favorable opportunity. One afternoon, when there was not the slightest breath of wind, we armed ourselves, father and I, with green pine boughs and set the brush-heaps a-fire. We had made the heap in as moist a spot as possible, that there might be less danger of the fire spreading through the grass. While the flame was getting under way, I busied myself in gathering stray bits of limbs and twigs—some of them from the edge of the woods—and throwing them on the fire.

“Be careful not to put on any hemlock branches!” shouted my father from his heap. “The sparks may snap out into the grass!”

Almost as he spoke a live coal popped out with a loud snap and fell at my feet, and little tongues of flame began to spread through the dead grass. A few blows from my pine bough had smothered them, when snap! snap! snap! went three more in different directions. As I rushed to the nearest I remembered throwing on several dead hemlock branches, entirely forgetting their snapping propensity.

Bestowing a few hasty strokes upon the first spot of spreading flame, I hastened to the next and was vigorously beating that, when, glancing behind me, I saw to my dismay that the first was blazing again. Ahead of me was another, rapidly increasing; while the roaring, towering flame at the heap was sputtering ominously, as if preparing to send out a shower of sparks. And, to make matters worse, I felt a puff of wind on my face. Terror-stricken I shouted:

“Father! The fire is running! Come quick!”

In a moment he was beside me, and for a short time we fought the flame desperately.

“It’ll reach the woods in spite of us!” he gasped, as we came together after a short struggle. “There isn’t a neighbor within half a mile, and before you could get help it would be too late! Besides, one alone couldn’t do anything against it!”

A sudden inspiration seized me.

“I’m going to signal to Harry!” I cried. “If he sees it he’ll come and, perhaps, bring help with him!”

“Hurry!” he shouted back, and I started for the barn. The distance was short. As I reached it I glanced over to Harry’s. There were some white spots on his barn. He was signalling and, of course, could see my signal.

Excitedly I placed the flags in 1 2 3 4, and, without waiting for an answer, tore back across the fields to the fire. It was gaining rapidly. In a large circle, a dozen rods across, it advanced toward the buildings on one hand and swept toward the woods on the other. We could not conquer it. We could only hope to hinder its progress until help should arrive.

Fifteen minutes of desperate struggle and then, with a ringing cheer, Harry and his father dashed upon the scene. Their arrival infused me with new courage; and four pairs of hands and four willing hearts at length conquered the flame, two rods from the woods!

My father sank down upon a rock, and, as he wiped the perspiration from his smutty face, he said:

“There, boys, your signalling has saved the prettiest timber lot in the town of Hardwick! I shall not forget it!”

Were we not justly proud?

Two days after I found upon my plate at breakfast a small package, which contained two pretty little spy-glasses.

“Perhaps they will enable you to enlarge your ‘signal code,’” was all my father said when I thanked him.

We soon found that with the aid of the glasses we could distinguish any color. So we made a set of blue flags, which gave us thirty more communications by using them in place of the white ones. And, by mixing the blue flags with the white combinations and the white with the blue combinations, over two hundred communications could be signalled. Thus we could converse with each other by the hour.

The way we wrote down the mixed combinations was, by using a heavy figure to represent a blue flag; as 1245, which meant that positions 1 and 4 were occupied by white flags, 2 and 5 by blue ones.

Blue flags can be inserted in the original thirty combinations in the following manner: 12, 123, 123, 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234, 1234, 235, 235, 2345, 2345, 2345, 2345, 2345, 2345, 2345, and so on.

Among the many recollections that throng my memory in connection with this subject, is that of an incident which has caused me many a hearty laugh since its occurrence, although at the time I did not feel particularly amused. Harry had gone away visiting, giving me no definite idea of when he would return. So, one drizzling, uncomfortable day, as I was sitting rather disconsolate at my barn window, I was delighted to see several flags appear on his barn.

Eagerly I read:

1 3 4. “Can you go a-fishing?”

The fine drizzling rain was changing into larger drops, and there was every reasonable prospect of a very wet day, and I thought he must be joking; but I answered:

“When?”

“Now,” was the reply.

“Where?” I asked.

“Bixbee’s pond.”

“Are you in earnest?”

“I will meet you there.”

I answered “Yes,” and, shouldering my fish-pole, started off across-lots. The distance was fully a mile and a half, and before I had passed over a quarter of the distance the bushes, dripping with rain, had completely drenched me. When nearly there the increasing rain became a heavy shower; but I kept on. I reached the pond, but nothing was to be seen of Harry. Not a frog could I find for bait, owing to the incessantly pouring rain, and I knew it would be difficult to find a worm. So, after half an hour of tedious waiting and monotonous soaking, I started for Harry’s, my patience entirely worn out.

The rain came down in torrents as, at length, I turned in at the gate; and I suppose I looked as forlorn as a drenched rooster, for I heard a girlish giggle as I stepped upon the piazza, but I did not then suspect the truth.

“Where’s Harry?” I asked of his mother whom I found alone.

“Why, you didn’t expect to find him at home, did you? He won’t be back for a number of days yet.”

(Another subdued giggle from the next room.)

“You’re as wet as a drowned rat!” went on the motherly woman. “What on earth started you out in this rain?”

“It’s that Hattie’s work!” I burst out angrily, and told her the whole story.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, holding up her hands, despairingly, “I never did see such a torment as that girl is! I noticed she has seemed very much tickled over something! I’ll give her a real scolding!”

I darted out the door; and, as I splashed my way disconsolately down to the road, I heard a voice, struggling between repentance and a desire to laugh, call after me:

“Forgive me, Charlie, but it was such a joke!”

Hattie never meddled with her brother’s signals again. For her mother’s displeasure and the severe cold that followed my drenching more than balanced the enjoyment she derived from that very practical joke.

Two years ago I visited my native town. Resuming my old place by the barn window, I gazed across the intervening forest to where Harry used to stand and signal to me. Tacked up against the window-sill was my old “signal code,” covered with dust and cobwebs. Harry was hundreds of miles away, carving himself a name among his fellow-men. Of all the friends of former days, scarcely one remained in the old town. And I could only wish, with all my heart, that I were once again enjoying my boyhood’s happy hours.