Tesla's Time Travelers

by Tim Black

“This Congress is adjourned to 9 o’clock tomorrow,” Hancock said, gaveling the day over.

  The delegates spilled out into the street, a few clustering together to discuss the day’s events. A man and woman in plain Quaker dress were kneeling in prayer outside the Pennsylvania State House.

  “Abolitionists,” Victor heard a delegate say, dismissing the quiet protest.

  Thomas Paine, an interested bystander, overhead the delegate. “Mr. Rutledge, my friend from South Carolina, how can we say that all men are equal and yet allow slavery? Is that not the conundrum of our Congress?”

  “Mr. Paine,” Rutledge smiled. “I shall not cross words with our nation’s most famous wordsmith. I will only say, as Dr. Franklin has already stated, ‘We should all hang together or surely we will all hang separately.’”

  “I trust that it will be a noose of hemp gathered at some plantation by a man in bondage, Mr. Rutledge.”

  Rutledge lost the smile from his face.

  Mr. Paine, like a fisherman who had a bite, tried to reel Rutledge in with an argument. “Christians are taught to account all men their neighbors; and love their neighbors as themselves and do to all men as they would be done by; do good to all men. And man-stealing is ranked with enormous crimes. Is the barbarous enslaving of our inoffensive neighbors and treating them like wild beasts subdued by force, reconcilable with all these divine people? Is this doing to them as we should desire they should do to us? If they could carry off and enslave some thousands of us, would we think it just? One would almost wish they could for once; it might convince more than Reason, or the Bible.”

  “Good day, Mr. Paine,” Rutledge said and went off to join a group of delegates.

  “Free all the slaves, Mr. Rutledge,” Paine called after the South Carolina delegate. “Let us set an example to the rest of the world.”

  Then, in a move that totally surprised Victor, Thomas Paine joined the two Quaker abolitionists, kneeling with them in prayer. Victor remembered what Mr. Greene told them about Paine—how he went to France for the French Revolution and was arrested and imprisoned and sentenced to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror, but survived because a jailer forgot to paint an X on his cell door, the symbol for the condemned. Victor had a sudden respect for Thomas Paine, a true revolutionary thinker.

  The Quakers and now Thomas Paine quietly continued praying as the delegates passed. Victor pondered Paine’s point: It was a dilemma. Here the delegates to the Continental Congress were claiming that all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights, and one of those was liberty. Slavery was not liberty. Here in Philadelphia, living beside the Quaker abolitionists were slaves, for a fair percentage of the Philadelphia population was in bondage. In 1776, the slaves were not restricted to only the South; here they were abundant in the North as well. Mr. Greene said the first time Congress took a stand against slavery was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, when it outlawed slavery in the Northwest Territory, which would become the five states of Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. That was adopted under the Articles of Confederation, which was the first Constitution. Abe Lincoln used the Northwest Ordinance as his argument against the extension of slavery into new territories. And shoot, if you did the math, “four score and seven” was eighty-seven, and if you subtracted eighty-seven from 1863—the year Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address—you got 1776. Lincoln liked the Articles of Confederation. Boy, Victor thought, give him a Document Based Question on the Articles of Confederation on the A.P. exam. He would ace that! Such a nerd! Who knew if they would even get back to our own time? He didn’t know exactly what to do with the riding crop. Would the Beards know how to use the riding crop to get back if Mr. Greene were incapacitated?

  He stood outside the building that would forever be known as Independence Hall. He decided he needed to head for Mrs. Ross’s home and give the riding crop to Mr. Greene, and somehow wake him up. He hoped Minerva had retrieved the Anderson twins.

  Chapter 10

  When Minerva arrived at the Betsy Ross house on Arch Street, the legendary flag maker was feeding a conscious Mr. Greene a bowl of soup as he sat up on a bed without his glasses. Bette Kromer was applying a wet cloth to her teacher’s forehead and she smiled brightly when she noticed Minerva enter the room. It was a smile of welcome, Minerva thought, relieved. Bette was truly becoming her friend. She could have never figured that would happen. You never know what a little trip in time backward to Philadelphia could do, she thought. It really could change the future in unintended ways.

  “How is he?” Minerva asked Bette.

  “I’m not sure. He has a terrible headache. It wasn’t a concussion.”

  Mr. Greene swallowed a spoonful of soup and said: “I’ll mend, girls. I’ll mend.”

  “What are you feeding him, Mrs. Ross?” Minerva asked.

  “Chicken soup,” Betsy Ross replied. The bell to the shop rang. “I have a customer, would you take over?” she asked, handing Minerva the spoon.

  “Sure,” she replied. “How are you feeling, Mr. Greene?”

  He slid a hand into a pocket on his breeches and retrieved a two-pack of aspirin, ripped it open and downed the pills with a dry swallow. “Soup, please,” he said to Minerva, and swallowed again. “I’ve been waiting for Mrs. Ross to leave the room. “Aspirin wasn’t discovered until 1853 by the Frenchman Gerhardt, and I couldn’t risk a butterfly just because I had a headache. She’s a friend of Dr. Benjamin Rush, you see.”

  “We know,” Bette said.

  “You know?”

  “Dr. Rush was here to see you,” Minerva said.

  “Really? Benjamin Rush examined me? How thrilling!”

  “It might have been more than that if it hadn’t been for Minerva, Mr. Greene.”

  “I don’t understand, Bette.”

  “Dr. Rush was going to bleed you, but Minerva told him you were a hemophiliac.”

  “I didn’t use the term hemophiliac, Mr. Greene,” Minerva explained. “I said ‘bleeder.’”

  Mr. Greene smiled. “Well, that’s adaptive thinking I must say, Minerva. I thank you, and my veins thank you.”

  “Mr. Greene, we have a few problems I’m afraid,” Minerva said.

  Suddenly a crease of concern appeared on Greene’s forehead, as if he had suddenly remembered something. “What time is it?”

  “One-thirty, I believe,” Bette said.

  “Rodney’s riding crop!”

  “Relax, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said. “Victor went to get that. We have a problem with the Anderson twins.”

  “Now what?” Bette asked.

  “Well, they’ve been taken to Fort Mifflin.”

  “On the Delaware River?” Mr. Greene asked. “Mud island? Built by the British in 1771,” he said, his brain spitting out information like the results of a Google Search. Minerva knew Mr. Greene had a seemingly endless reserve of arcane knowledge, and a question in class might suddenly take him—and the class—down a historical path for a ten-minute side trip. She listened as he gave an overview of Fort Mifflin.

  “In 1777, the British shot 10,000 cannon balls at the fort. It stood between them and Philadelphia and slowed the British down, giving Washington and the Continental Army time to get to their winter quarters at Valley Forge. It’s called ‘the fort that saved America,’ and one hundred fifty Americans were killed there, including, I would think, the Anderson twins next year if we don’t get them out of there. Why are they there? Were they mistaken for militia deserters?”

  “Well,” Minerva began. “We had lunch at City Tavern and paid for it with your gold coin, I’m afraid.”

  Greene slipped a hand into his pocket and frowned when he noticed his sovereign was gone. “That was for an emergency if we were stopped by Loyalists, Minerva. You passed the coin at City Tavern? Heck, why not just sing Yankee Doodle at Independence Hall?”

  “What was wrong with Yankee Doodle?” Minerva asked.

  “The British army used it as a mocking song for the Patriots,
Minerva,” Bette explained.

  Oh, Minerva thought. This trip had destroyed another belief.

  “So what are we going to do, Mr. Greene?” Minerva asked. “Victor and I rescued Heath last time.”

  “Last time?” Mr. Greene asked.

  Bette intervened. “When you got conked on the head when Heath and Justin were fighting with two Spanish sailors who insulted Mrs. Ross. You’ve been here since then, Mr. Greene.”

  “Oh. I don’t remember much, I’m afraid.”

  Interesting, Minerva thought. Mr. Greene could rattle off history trivia but he couldn’t remember what had happened just a few hours before. It was the bump on the head, she assured herself. Either that or his advanced old age. He was forty, wasn’t he?

  “Mr. Greene,” said Minerva. “I pretended I was the Dread Pirate Roberta and I had a pistol…”

  “A pistol?”

  “Don’t worry, it was an authentic old pistol and it wasn’t loaded. Victor had a sword cane.”

  “What!”

  “Sword cane. Really kind of cute. The sword hides in…” She stopped in mid-sentence when she saw his frown.

  “I know what a sword cane is, Miss Messinger.”

  Oh oh, she thought. A student was in trouble with Mr. Greene when he used the Miss or the Mister with their last name. In her mind the letter “A” developed wings, flapped those wings and flew away. She saw herself at commencement being introduced by the principal as “the salutatorian.”

  Minerva was afraid to speak. Bette looked at her and exchanged a sisterly smile that made Minerva think of the Three Musketeers and their “one for all and all for one” philosophy—and in a way, if they included Victor, they were similar to the Dumas trio, although they were a bit short on swords, if not sword canes. Ego check, Minerva, ego check, she told herself. It was one thing to play Dread Pirate Roberta and quite another to take oneself seriously.

  “Mr. Greene, what do you suggest we do to rescue the twins?” Bette asked.

  Greene pondered a moment and replied, “Well, you are going to need a boat to get to Mud Island, that’s for sure. Benjamin Franklin was responsible for organizing the Pennsylvania Navy. He could probably help with transportation.”

  Was there anything Benjamin Franklin hadn’t done? Minerva wondered.

  “Mrs. Ross makes flags for the navy,” Bette offered.

  “Uh huh,” Mr. Greene replied, not really listening. His glasses were on an end table and the frame was twisted. He was unable to put them on. “Nuts,” he said. “I really need those glasses.”

  “For reading?” Minerva wondered.

  “They’re bifocals, Minerva. Notice the little line?”

  “My dad has some without the lines, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said, feeling relieved that she was back to plain old Minerva again.

  “Those are too expensive for me, Minerva… Well, girls, I won’t be much help without my glasses. Do any of you know Dr. Franklin?”

  Minerva blushed. “Well I do, sort of,” she admitted.

  “You do?” Bette said, all ears.

  “I met him at City Tavern. He kind of asked me for a date.” She blushed again.

  “What!” Bette Kromer said. She had a look of awe on her face. “Benjamin frapping Franklin asked you out?”

  “What am I, Bette, chopped liver?”

  “No, I didn’t mean that, Minerva. It’s just well…amazing.”

  Minerva was getting peeved. “What is so amazing about it?” she demanded.

  “Well,” Bette replied. “How can I put this delicately? He’s more a melon man than an apple guy.”

  Mr. Greene turned referee. “Franklin liked well-endowed women, Minerva, that’s all Bette is saying. He really asked you out, eh?”

  “Yes, Mr. Greene,” Minerva answered. She knew what Bette meant. She knew she had apples, not melons.

  “Well, that’s a first I’d say. In all my trips back to Philadelphia, Ben Franklin has never asked one of the girls out, but then neither has the teacher been knocked out in a bar brawl. The Anderson twins, two Huck Finns for the price of one… So you two need a boat and a plan. The fort is three-sided as I recall, it’s on the south side of the island, lot of bushes and scrub brush probably, and I don’t think the fort was totally completed in 1776; it has your basic redoubts, no doubt…” Mr. Greene waited, but neither girl caught the pun and he shrugged and went on: “But the stone wall wasn’t completed until late 1776, so you might sneak in from the north. I doubt that they will have that guarded. Wait a minute. I forgot—there is a moat. So you’ll have to cross a moat bridge from the north. So I’m afraid you will need to use your feminine charms to get inside the fort. Of course, you don’t want the soldiers to think you are, well…” Mr. Greene blushed now.

  “We understand, Mr. Greene,” Bette said. “We don’t want them to think we are strumpets.”

  “Yes… Still, you might need to carry a pistol, and you might need to have it loaded.”

  “We can’t shoot anyone, Mr. Greene,” Minerva said.

  “The butterfly effect, Mr. Greene?” Bette added.

  “It’s fifty-fifty, girls,” Mr. Greene said with a shrug. “Half the men at Fort Mifflin will die in the battle next year anyway. I mean, I hope it doesn’t come to that, but we have to retrieve the Anderson twins or history will, I’m sure, be changed, and with the Anderson twins left in Philadelphia in 1776 I doubt that history would be changed for the better. Somehow, I doubt that we would win the war if the Anderson twins were left here to mess things up. Heck, with those two miscreants stuck back in the 18th century, I’m not sure there would even be a 21st.”

  “Maybe Mrs. Beard can join us,” Minerva said. “By the way, where are Mr. and Mrs. Beard?”

  “They wanted to do some sightseeing,” Bette said. “They’ll meet us at the portable just before five.”

  “Mr. Greene, we don’t have enough time to rescue the twins,” Minerva said.

  “Then you’d better get going.”

  Just then Betsy Ross returned.

  “Mrs. Ross, we need your help,” Minerva said.

  “We need a loaded pistol…” Bette said

  “And a boat,” Minerva added. She and Bette informed Betsy Ross about what had happened to Heath and Justin and their mistaken identity. She was sympathetic and, to their surprise, Betsy Ross had two loaded pistols, which she let them borrow with a warning just to get their cousins back and not to shoot any of the soldiers.

  She explained that she had pistols because a shop a few blocks away had been robbed at knife-point and she was determined for that not to happen to her. After all, she was a widow without a husband to defend her. After she produced the pistols and handed them to the girls, the bell to her shop rang again and she went out to look after her customer.

  “I thought Quakers were pacifists, Mr. Greene?” Bette said.

  “John Ross was an Episcopalian. During this time Mrs. Ross had a pew at Christ Church, so she wasn’t a practicing Quaker. She returned to her Quaker roots sometime after this. Can’t recall when though.”

  It wasn’t a customer after all—it was another flag maker, Cornelia Bridges.

  “Cornelia is going to help you get a rowboat,” Betsy Ross said as she and Cornelia entered the room.

  “A rowboat?” Bette said.

  “A shallop, actually. A rowboat with a sail. Row the boat out to Mud Island. You look like strong girls,” Betsy Ross added.

  “We can do it,” Minerva said. “Woman up!”

  “Do you know how to row, Minerva?”

  “Summer camp, two summers,” Minerva said. “I’ll row, you navigate.”

  “Too bad we aren’t wearing jeans,” Bette said.

  “Uh huh, I’m going to row a boat in my ‘prom dress,’” Minerva replied.

  “What are these jeans you speak of?” Cornelia Bridges asked.

  “A type of pants.”

  “Women wearing pants!” Cornelia Bridges was shocked. “Is that what women wear in Florida?�
��

  “Well…when we chase alligators,” Bette lied.

  “What are ‘alligators?’” Cornelia asked.

  “Yes, Bette, please tell us,” Minerva said with a smile. Bette had stuck her foot in her mouth and Minerva was curious how she would get it out.

  It took a few minutes, but Bette Kromer lied her way out of it. Since Cornelia didn’t know what an alligator was, Bette told her that it was a type of bear that lived in a briar patch, and that dresses snagged on the briar patch and jeans were developed for men and women on bear hunts in Florida.

  At the Philadelphia docks, Cornelia found a friend who agreed for the girls to borrow his shallop. It had a small mast in its middle, and a canvas sail tied down just behind where the oarsman sat. Cornelia pointed to the horizon, and in the distance, which Minerva judged to be more than a mile, was Mud Island, smack dab in the middle of the Delaware River. High tide, she noticed from the day’s posting on a slate board, was 3:02 P.M. They had an hour and twenty minutes to rescue their classmates.

  “It will be easy getting there after you go east for a couple hundred yards,” Cornelia said. “The tide is coming within little more than an hour. The river current flows from north to south. Returning, unfurl your sail. With any luck the winds will favor you.”

  Great, Minerva thought. Now we need a breeze to get back. It would be a tough row upstream without a little help, she realized. They could do it! she told herself. They could do it!

  Minerva and Bette, adorned in their cumbersome dresses, managed to get into the small craft. Minerva realized the little boat could accommodate four people, but with the Anderson twins they would be cramped on the return trip. That was being optimistic. First, they had to rescue those idiots. This certainly wasn’t 18th century behavior. A woman expected to be rescued in the 18th century, not be the rescuer.

  “Better take our shoes and stockings off, Bette, until we’re ashore.”

  “Good idea,” Bette agreed. “Don’t drop your pistol in the water. It won’t fire if its wet.”

  Cornelia Bridges was correct. The current of the Delaware River made the journey to Mud Island fairly easy, and the girls put the boat ashore, pulling it up to a dirty beach. The hems of their dresses were dampened by contact with the water, but their shoes remained perfectly dry. They left their stockings in the boat, but grabbed the two pistols that Betsy Ross had loaned them. Thankfully, Mud Island didn’t live up to its name this day. Even though it had rained the night before, the soil appeared to have been tamped down. Probably the soldiers did that, Minerva thought.