“Right. And you know what is so cool? Since Wythe wasn’t there to sign the final document with everyone else, all the other members of the Virginia delegation left a space before their signatures so that Wythe could sign on top. They were showing him respect.”
“Wow, that is cool,” said Sam. “So then according to the letter, Thomas Jefferson gave Wythe some kind of early version of the Declaration of Independence, and then hid it in his house in Williamsburg?”
This was exciting, thought Sam. Complicated, but exciting.
“That would be my guess,” replied Caitlin. “Tell me more about the key you found with the letter. Is it some kind of map?”
“A treasure map?” asked Billy.
“No, it wasn’t like that,” Sam answered. “It’s some kind of tool the shape of a ruler. And it has these strange markings on it that sparkle when the light shines through it. Derek and I can’t figure it out. The letter said it was something that went with a device in Wythe’s study.”
“I wonder what that could be?” Caitlin said.
“I have no idea,” Sam said. “I hope we can figure it out if we go to Williamsburg. Derek and I are still trying to get our parents to take us there this weekend.”
“What about the guys who were chasing you?” asked Billy. “Aren’t they’re looking for the same thing?”
Sam wished that Billy hadn’t brought Jerry up. His stomach did a somersault again. Surely Jerry couldn’t know that Sam had the Jefferson letter. But he could still be trying to find it. Maybe he was trying to find Sam too! Sam tried not to think about it.
“I wonder how Jerry knows about all of this in the first place?” asked Caitlin.
“I don’t know, and right now, I don’t really care,” said Sam. “We have Jefferson’s letter, and he doesn’t. We’re one step ahead of him, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
NINE
The Drive
Sam and Derek managed to convince their parents to take a trip to Colonial Williamsburg that weekend. It hadn’t been too hard. During the week, they saw Mom pulling out old photos and going through boxes of clothes she used to wear in college. They heard Dad whistle as she tried on some jean shorts that had been cut up with scissors on the bottom.
It was going to be their fifteen-year wedding anniversary in the fall, so they were definitely getting all romantic. It was fine with Sam, even if it did include some gross kissing. The more they were caught up in their mushy memories, the less likely they would be to notice Derek and him snooping around for clues at the Wythe House.
Williamsburg was only an hour or so away, but Dad wanted to get an early start because of traffic. He said they weren’t the only family who wanted to see people run around in colonial costumes and check out old buildings.
That was probably true, thought Sam, but they were the only ones there to discover a secret historical document at the Wythe House.
Once they were motoring down the highway, Dad glanced up at them in the rearview mirror. “Let’s play the license plate game,” he suggested.
The boys groaned that they’d rather watch a movie.
“Nope, no movies on this trip,” replied Dad. “We’re stepping back into history. Did you know when Mom and I were kids there were no DVD players in cars? We read books, played games, and even talked to each other. Can you imagine that? It was crazy!”
Sam rolled his eyes. He’d heard this speech many times before. Next Dad was going to say he walked five miles to school, barefoot, in the snow. Plus it was uphill both ways.
“Come on, this is the perfect road to play the license plate game on,” Dad said, undaunted by their lack of enthusiasm. “Williamsburg is a huge tourist area, which means people drive from all over the country to go there on vacation. Let’s see how many different states we can find. Sam, what’s your prediction?”
“Seventy-two,” said Sam without even thinking about it.
Derek laughed and poked Sam in the ribs. “States, Sam. There aren’t even seventy-two states all together. The most you could find is fifty.”
“Oh, right,” said Sam, feeling a bit stupid even though he hadn’t been trying. He thought about the question a little harder. “Well, I don’t think it’s very likely we’d find a car from Hawaii, since that’s all the way across the ocean.”
“But it’s still possible,” argued Derek. “Someone could be from Hawaii.”
“They could be from Hawaii,” said Sam, “but they wouldn’t have their car here. You can’t drive across the ocean to Virginia.”
“But it’s possible,” Derek repeated.
Sam hated when they got into arguments like this. Derek always had to win no matter what.
“Nope. It’s not.” Sam dug in.
“Dad, tell Sam that it is possible for a car from Hawaii to be on this road.”
“Well, I suppose it’s possible,” said Dad, “but not overly likely. Technically, if someone really wanted to spend time on the mainland, they could have their car brought over on a ship. But it would be expensive.”
“See, Sam! It’s possible!”
“Technically,” Sam sniped back.
“Technically is still a yes,” said Derek.
“Whatever.”
“All right, let’s look for those states, boys!” said Dad. “Look, there’s Alabama. That’s one.”
“There’s Virginia!” said Sam, sarcastically.
“Of course there’s Virginia, we’re in Virginia!” shouted Derek. He made an ‘L’ with his hand and held it up over his forehead. He mouthed the word ‘lo-ser’ at Sam and smirked.
Sam punched him in the stomach. Derek groaned and doubled over in his seat.
“Samuel! Why did you hit your brother?” Mom yelled from the front seat, twisting around to see the boys. “There’s no need for that. Sit quietly if you don’t want to play Dad’s game.”
It felt good to punch Derek, but Sam knew he shouldn’t have. His brother was so obnoxious sometimes! Sam had been on edge all week with the craziness around the letter. Maybe he needed a vacation, but not one to Williamsburg.
Sam leaned his head against the window and watched the cars speed by. Somehow everything reminded him of their mystery, even the license plates.
A pickup truck from Pennsylvania went by with the words ‘State of Independence’ written along the bottom of its tag. A BMW from New York motored by with a picture of the Statue of Liberty in the middle of its plate.
Sam was about to close his eyes, when a bright yellow convertible caught his attention. Behind the wheel was a hippie-looking guy with long gray hair. A bunch of stickers were on his bumper. Sam stared closer to see the license plate. It definitely looked unusual. Was that a rainbow?
Derek saw it at the same time Sam did.
“Hawaii! Look, Sam, it’s Hawaii! Ha! Ha! I told you!”
Unbelievable, thought Sam, as he closed his eyes.
TEN
The Wythe House
Sam heard the engine turn off and the van doors open. He raised his head and looked out the window. His neck hurt. He must have drifted off to sleep in an awkward position. They were in a parking lot surrounded by cars and people were walking along the road.
“Come on, Sam, we’re here!” shouted Derek.
Sam climbed out of the van and joined his family on the sidewalk. After Mom and Dad bought tickets, they began walking along what seemed like the main street of Colonial Williamsburg.
“This is Duke of Gloucester Street, boys,” explained Mom.
Sam looked up and down the wide road, sensing he was back in another time. There were two horses tied to a post and a carriage probably for giving rides to tourists. A brown wooden barrel stood on each corner of the intersection instead of a modern-looking trashcan.
They’d arrived early, so there weren’t many visitors yet. Those who were there were dressed in old-time colonial clothes. A woman with a wide skirt and white bonnet on her head set up a table of hand-woven baskets on one side of the street.
A younger man with a tri-cornered hat tapped merrily on a drum as he marched along.
“Where should we go first?” asked Dad. “There’s the Capitol, the Governor’s Palace…oh, and you boys were asking about the George Wythe House, too. That’s right over here before the Palace.” He pointed to a square on the map.
Sam and Derek looked at each other quickly and nodded. “The Wythe House!” The boys were excited to look around and find clues in the study.
Mom and Dad laughed. “Okay, the Wythe House it is. I hope it’s as great as you think it will be. I’ve actually never been inside,” said Mom.
They walked around the corner, past a church, to a square brick house with a set of steps leading up to the front door.
Sam looked at a sign in the grass next to the sidewalk. “This is it! How do we get in?” He looked around for an entrance sign.
“Young man, are you looking to visit Mr. Wythe?” called a voice from their left.
Sam jumped up in surprise. He turned and saw a man in a vest and long white socks. He was sitting on a bench in front of a small building next door.
Sam walked over to him. “Yes, we’d like to tour the Wythe House.”
“Well, Mr. Wythe is presently away in Philadelphia, but I’m sure we can arrange for you to walk through his home.”
Sam looked over at Mom and Dad, confused. They chuckled and gestured to keep talking to the man.
“He’s away? Uh…isn’t he dead?” Sam asked.
“Dead!” the old man shouted, jumping up from his bench. The small round glasses that rested on his nose nearly fell to the ground. “Where have you heard this news? Mr. Wythe has been serving in the Congress in Philadelphia! I’ve been told no such thing.” He looked quite alarmed.
“I thought he was poisoned?” added Sam. Maybe this guy was older than he looked.
“Poisoned? Goodness, I hope not,” the man continued. “Surely it wasn’t from any food we prepared here. I just had some fresh strawberries this morning.”
Sam was sure this guy had lost his marbles.
“Why don’t you ask him today’s date?” suggested Dad, smiling. “I think that might help with your confusion.”
Derek turned back to the man. “What day is it?” he asked.
“Why, August 15, 1776, of course. Didn’t you know? There’s been quite a bit of excitement lately, what with everything happening up in Philadelphia. They say we declared our independence from the throne.”
“Oh…” said Sam. Now it was all making more sense. The man must be playing a character on a particular date in history. That was cool. Confusing, but cool.
“Then why isn’t Mr. Wythe here?” asked Sam. “I thought he came back to Williamsburg while they made the final copy of the declaration?”
The man paused for a moment, clearly surprised by Sam’s historical knowledge. He quickly recovered with a smile. “Well, aren’t you an informed young man!”
Sam grinned, feeling proud that he had impressed the man.
“I haven’t met many children your age who know about Mr. Wythe,” he commented.
“Oh sure,” said Derek. “We know all about him. We saw his grave up at St. John’s Church in Richmond.”
“His grave!” the man shrieked.
Oh brother, here we go again, thought Sam.
“Never mind,” laughed Derek. “What we’d really like to see is Mr. Wythe’s study. We heard he had, I mean has, some very cool stuff up there.”
“I’m not sure if it is cold in his study, if that’s what you mean by cool. But he certainly does have some interesting items,” replied the man. “Mr. Wythe is a great admirer of Enlightenment philosophy. While primarily a teacher of the law, Mr. Wythe believes one should use all of the body’s senses to be fully educated.”
The man moved toward the white picket fence next to him. “But you said you wanted to see Mr. Wythe’s study, didn’t you? Let’s proceed into the house, and I can show you.”
The boys followed the man through the front door with Mom and Dad behind them. Sam looked around at the colorful rooms. The walls he could see were covered by wallpaper with fancy patterns. Bright greens, reds and blues. The floors were wide wooden boards with only a few small rugs under some of the tables. In the room to his left, a woman sat in a fancy parlor playing a dancing tune on the violin that sounded like Yankee Doodle.
They walked down the hall, peeking into the other rooms. The ceilings were especially high, and the windows were tall and set deep into the wall. It looked like seats were built into the bottom part of the windowsills. Each room had its own fireplace.
Sam pictured George Wythe and Thomas Jefferson sitting in front of the crackling logs discussing the revolution. Everything must have seemed so new and exciting back then.
The guide led them up a large wooden staircase to a corner room. Sam could tell that this was Wythe’s study. There was a table in the middle of the room filled with papers, drawings, and what looked like scientific equipment. A small jar had a feather sticking out of it. A map on a wall above the fireplace was labeled Virginia and Maryland, although it looked a lot different than the maps Sam had seen in his book at school. The boys wandered around the room and studied all of the items, trying to find something that fit the description given in Jefferson’s letter.
“What’s this thing?” Sam asked, pointing to a gold-colored metal instrument on the table. It looked similar to a small telescope, but it was mounted to a square piece of wood and pointing down toward the table. Some similar devices lay next to it.
“That,” answered their tour guide, “is a microscope.”
“It is?” said Derek. “It doesn’t look like any microscope that I’ve ever seen.”
“And why do you think that is?” asked the man.
“Because it’s old,” volunteered Sam. “It must be a very early kind of microscope.”
“That’s correct, young man. It is a form of what’s called a solar microscope.” The guide pointed to a round piece of glass near the bottom. “You see this lens? It’s the key to the microscope. It reflects the sun and illuminates whatever is on the slide under the main viewer. Remember, we must rely on the sun’s power or a flame for our light.”
Something that the man had said struck Sam. He had said it was the key to the microscope.
“That’s pretty neat, isn’t it, guys?” said Dad from the other side of the room. “Remember, they didn’t have electricity back then.”
“Since you boys are so astute in your learning, and since no one else is here at the moment, I’ll show you one more interesting type of solar microscope that Mr. Wythe uses with his students.” The guide picked up one of the other instruments from the table.
“This is a projecting solar microscope.” He closed one of the window shutters, and Sam noticed for the first time that it had a round hole about the size of an orange cut out of the wood.
“What’s that hole?” Derek asked. “Did someone hit the window with a baseball?”
The man looked up from the shutter. “What is this base-ball that you refer to? I’m not familiar with it.”
Sam rolled his eyes. The date thing again. Baseball hadn’t been invented back then. “So what is that hole?”
“Watch closely,” answered the man. He took the instrument from the table and fitted it on the shutter. The viewer part of the microscope fit directly in the hole, and there were clamps on both sides holding it in place.
“Is that so they can see outside when it’s raining?” asked Derek.
The man laughed. “No, that’s not it.”
He picked up a rectangular piece of glass, about the shape of a small ruler, from the table and laid it in the contraption that was now mounted on the shutter.
“You place a glass slide into the viewer by the lens here. Then, when the sun comes through the window through the hole in the shutter, it goes into the lens of the microscope and projects the image from the slide up onto the wall. This allows others in the room to see an enla
rged view of the tiny thing on the slide.”
He maneuvered the shutter and turned a dial on the lens. “Like this!”
A round light appeared on the wall like a flashlight beam or a spotlight up on a stage. There was some kind of shadow in the middle that Sam couldn’t quite make out.
“What is that?” Sam asked.
“That, gentlemen, is a flea. If the sun was a little brighter and we had all of the window shutters closed, you might be able to make it out more clearly. Amazing, isn’t it? This is the latest innovation for the eighteenth century.”
Sam looked at the light shining onto the wall. He thought about the key they had found and how it had made all the patterns of light on their bedroom wall through its tiny holes. What would happen, he wondered, if they put their key into the solar microscope just like their tour guide had showed them with the glass slide? It was roughly the same size. Even though it had just been a series of sparkles at home, maybe if it went through the lens, it would reveal something spectacular!
Sam was excited again. He caught Derek’s attention, nodding toward the device. Derek’s mouth opened in anticipation, and Sam could tell he understood Sam’s message. But how could they get their key into the microscope without explaining it to everyone?
“Thank you for showing that to us,” said Mom, motioning to the boys to say thank you. “That was a pretty special treat.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Derek. “Thank you.”
“Thank you,” said Sam.
“You’re welcome, boys. Now let’s head out and look at the gardens in the back of the house.” The guide led them into the hallway with Mom and Dad following him out of the room.
Sam lingered a moment, fumbling with his bag. He pulled his key out and held it up to the microscope on the shutter. Although he didn’t have time to place it in, he could tell it was the same size as the glass slide. He was pretty sure it would fit.
“Sam, come on!” Dad yelled from the hallway. Quickly Sam put the key back into his bag and hustled into the hall.
The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3 Page 12
