Read Hilda and Pearl for Free Online Page B

tape recorders. That’s the future, he says. People won’t need to use stenotype machines at all. They’ll just record everything by pushing a button.”
    Now Uncle Mike became extremely angry. He could not keep his voice down as he explained to the man what would be wrong with tape recorders—how they could not distinguish between street noise and the noise of voices, how they could not signal the judge to stop the proceedings if something was inaudible. “Chaos, you’re talking about. That’s what you want?”
    At this point Simon spoke for the first time since they had sat down. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, and both Uncle Mike and the man turned to listen to him. Even the women turned. “I bet they could make a tape recorder work. And with what they’d save on your salaries, there could be two or three of them. If one didn’t pick up the words, the other would.”
    â€œThat’s ridiculous!” said Mike. “Utterly infantile.” At that point, though, Ellie Potter got up at the lectern to speak, and the conversation was interrupted.
    The presentation and induction of officers took some time and was not interesting. Frances played with the remaining food on her plate. After a while it was carried away and cake with white icing was brought. When it was Uncle Mike’s turn to be inducted, they all clapped, and then Ellie Potter gestured in their direction and said, “Mike Lewis’s proud family” and Pearl and her mother, and then her father, stood up while the whole room applauded. Frances started to get up but it took her a moment to understand, and by that time almost everyone else was ready to sit down. Simon didn’t stand up.
    After the inductions came the introduction of the keynote speaker, a judge, by Uncle Mike. This was the reason he had wanted everyone to come. He had to make a real speech, Hilda had explained. Frances had thought he would just stand up and say the judge’s name, but her mother said that was not the way it was done.
    Uncle Mike talked about how much this judge had done for court reporters, how he had always understood that his reporters were human beings, how he had been willing to take a break if the reporter was tired. “You may think this simply proves that Judge Akers is a nice guy,” he said. “You may think this has nothing to do with justice. But if you do—you’re mistaken!” And Uncle Mike glared around the banquet hall.
    He had a card with notes on it, and every now and then he looked at it, but Frances could see that on the whole he was making up what he said as he talked, and he was talking very much the way he did when he came to their house and talked to her father on Sundays.
    â€œWhy, it’s the essence of justice,” he said, sounding angry, though he was praising Judge Akers. “It’s justice not only to the poor wretch who’s taking down verbatim what’s being said at maybe two hundred words a minute when people get mad and talk fast”—here there was a little laughter—“but it’s justice to the plaintiff and the defendant as well. Because Judge Akers knows that if the transcript isn’t accurate, there may not be much justice, and he knows we’re human. And you know what?” he said, and here he looked carefully around the room. “Being human may mean needing a break every now and then. It may mean having to go to the John every now and then.” More laughter. “Which, I admit, is not true of these tape recorders some people want to replace us with.” He looked around shrewdly. “I have never heard of a tape recorder that needed to visit the john.”
    Frances thought it was taking him awfully long, and the audience looked uncomfortable, too. “You have to realize,” Uncle Mike was saying, “that it takes a human being to get things right. A machine doesn’t