Tesla's Time Travelers (11 page)

The waitress returned with tankards of cider and a question for Victor.

“Where ya from, sir?”

“Florida, near St. Augustine,” Minerva answered.

The waitress seemed surprised that Minerva answered.

“Your wife answers for you, sir?” the waitress wondered.

“I’m not his wife,” Minerva said. “He is my cousin.”

The waitress smiled. “Is he now?” She walked back to the kitchen.

“The nerve of that girl,” Minerva said.

Heath and Justin laughed. Victor was embarrassed once more. But he got over that quickly when he noticed Thomas Paine walk through the tavern and ascend the back stairs. Suddenly a number of men were heading up the stairs: John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin and the Adams cousins, Sam and John. Victor heard John Adams lament, “Where is Rodney? We need Caesar’s vote or there will be no independence.”

A tall red-haired man walked alone into the tavern and took a moment to adjust his eyes to the light just as Victor noticed: Thomas Jefferson. On impulse, Victor waved in his direction, gaining Jefferson’s attention. Thomas Jefferson smiled and walked over to their table.

“Ah, my young fly catcher friend,” Jefferson said, offering a hand, which Victor stood up and shook.

Who would ever believe I shook Thomas Jefferson’s hand, he thought, starstruck at Jefferson’s acknowledgement of him.

“It is good to see you again, Mr. Jefferson. You remember my friends?”

“Yes, yes, students, but aren’t we all students? And where pray is your teacher?”

“Indisposed at the moment, I’m afraid.”

“
Tant pis
,” said Jefferson in French. But noticing the confusion on Victor’s face, he translated the French phrase into English. “Too bad.”

“Yes. Yes it is,” Victor replied.

“You must join me upstairs, my fly catcher friend, and show my colleagues how you catch a fly. You don’t mind if I borrow your friend, do you?” Jefferson said to Minerva and the Anderson twins.

The three of them nodded no, but the ever-practical Minerva asked, “What about his dinner?”

“Have the maid bring it upstairs,” Jefferson said and turned abruptly. “Come, lad,” he said, and Victor handed Heath his money to cover the meal and was off, following Thomas Jefferson up the stairs to catch a fly for the Founding Fathers.

Sitting around a long oak table was a Who’s Who of the American Revolution. Rotund John Adams, looking cranky, sat next to his equally surly cousin Samuel Adams, the failed brewer who had organized the Boston Tea Party, and who, Victor thought, might be amused to learn a successful beer now bore his name. Perhaps John Adams, who seemed to have suffered from a need to be loved, would have smiled at the awards his HBO mini-series had garnered—finally vindicated after all those years of being sandwiched between the presidencies of Washington and Jefferson, like a crusty piece of lettuce. The frizzy-haired Ben Franklin, though clearly the oldest of the group, could cross words, if not swords, with men half his age.

“A word of advice, my fly catcher friend,” Thomas Jefferson whispered to Victor as the two took seats at the far end of the table. “Do not mention Dr. Franklin’s son, William, the governor of New Jersey.”

“Why is that, Mr. Jefferson?”

“William is a bastard in more ways than one,” Jefferson quipped.

Victor searched his memory for what it knew on William Franklin. He had been the boy in the famous painting of Franklin with his kite, but in reality he was a grown man when Franklin did his electricity experiment. Victor knew Benjamin Franklin had an illegitimate son, and that the son wound up as a royal governor of New Jersey, and he and his father didn’t speak to each other for ten years. Certainly, Victor realized, Dr. Franklin would be sensitive to any mention of his Tory son, especially among the Patriots.

“Jefferson,” Dr. Franklin called. “Come. Sit here beside me. I have a few things to say to you.”

Jefferson said to Victor. “Follow me, fly catcher.”

Thomas Paine and John Hancock vacated their chairs for Jefferson and Victor to sit down next to Dr. Franklin.

“Who is this lad, Jefferson?”

“Why, he is my fly catcher friend I spoke to you about, Dr. Franklin.”

As if in on cue, an enormous housefly lit on Dr. Franklin’s nose. He shooed it off and it flew away toward Thomas Jefferson, but Victor snapped it out of the air with a quick hand.

“Bravo!” Dr. Franklin said. “Does the lad have a wit as quick as his hand, Mr. Jefferson?”

“He is a bit shy,” Jefferson said in Victor’s defense.

What do I say to Benjamin Franklin? Victor wondered. Hi, Ben, do you know your face will be on the currency that is used by drug dealers all over the world? The one-hundred-dollar bill? Of course not, Victor told himself. Remember a Franklin axiom. “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Funny, but drug dealers will shout, “Show me the Benjamin’s” for hundred-dollar bills.

Benjamin Franklin looked at Victor and Victor felt he was being evaluated.

“What is your name, lad?” Franklin asked.

“Victor, Dr. Franklin. Victor Bridges.”

“Are you kin to Cornelia Bridges, the flag maker?”

“No sir. I am Mr. Greene’s student.”

“I met Mr. Greene and his students this morning, Dr. Franklin. Mr. Greene is General Greene’s cousin.”

“Is he now?” Franklin said. Victor sensed a note of skepticism in Franklin’s voice. “What have you to say for yourself, lad?”

Victor remembered a Franklin saw. He smiled as he delivered it. “A man wrapped up in himself makes a small bundle, Dr. Franklin.”

“Ha,” Franklin said, and slapped his hand on the table. “Caught with my own epigram. Indeed, the lad’s wit is as quick as his hand. Barmaid, give this lad a tankard of ale.”

Victor cringed. He couldn’t drink. He’d be suspended from school. Suddenly two figures appeared in his mind—a little white cherub and a little red devil, complete with pitchfork. The cherub cautioned Victor, but the devil stuck his pitchfork in the cherub’s rear end and Victor made no protest. Having an ale with Benjamin Franklin was worth risking a suspension from school. But Franklin wasn’t paying attention to Victor any longer. He was trying to encourage Jefferson, who was saying, “I am not insensible to these mutilations to my writing, Dr. Franklin. They have eviscerated my words, excising my criticism of the king for the slave trade. And they cut half of the last five paragraphs.”

“You are too verbose, Jefferson,” an eavesdropping John Adams critiqued.

Benjamin Franklin frowned at Adams, and John Adams said no more. Victor knew that look—it was the look Mr. Greene used in class when he restored order. Victor called the look Mr. Greene’s
Darth Vader
glare. Benjamin Franklin, like the teacher he was, simply frowned at John Adams as if he were a recalcitrant student.

“Mr. Jefferson,” Franklin said. “Let me tell you a story…”

Suddenly the room quieted as Franklin spoke. It was an odd scene, Victor thought. It was as if Franklin was the father and the other Founding Fathers were little boys waiting for a bedtime story from daddy; they were rapt in their attention.

“When I was a young printer, a friend starting out in the hat-making business wanted a sign for his business. He composed it in these words: ‘John Thompson, hatter makes and sells hats for ready money,’ with a figure of a hat subjoined (
added
). But he thought he would submit it to his friends for their amendments. The first he showed it to thought the word ‘hatter’ tautologous (
redundant
), because it was followed by the words ‘makes hats,’ which showed he was a hatter. It was struck out. The next observed that the word ‘makes’ might as well be omitted, because his customers would not care who made the hats… He struck it out. A third said he thought the words ‘for ready money’ were useless, as it was not the custom of the place to sell on credit. Everyone who purchased expected to pay. They were parted with, and the inscription now stood, ‘John Thompson sells hats.’ ‘Sells hats!’ says his next friend. ‘Why, nobody will expect you to give them away. What then is the use of the word?’ It was stricken out, and ‘hats’ followed, as there was one painted on the board. So his inscription was reduced ultimately to ‘John Thompson’ with the figure of a hat subjoined”
(p.313, Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson, Simon & Schuster 2003).

Jefferson led the laughter at Franklin’s anecdote on editing, and Victor laughed along, although he hadn’t caught all the subtlety of Franklin’s advice on editing a document. But he recalled that the Continental Congress did edit the Declaration of Independence thoroughly, and Franklin was the source of “self-evident,” changing Jefferson’s phrase from “we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” to the shorter and clearer “we hold these truths to be self-evident,” which echoed down through the ages like the ring tone of the Liberty Bell.

A young man in a blue militia uniform excused himself and handed Dr. Franklin a note. Franklin scanned it and said to the courier, “No reply is needed. Gentlemen,” he addressed the group. “This lad is a courier. Mr. Rodney is in Chester. He is changing horses. He should be here within two hours. Rodney has ridden all night through a storm from Dover.”

“Huzzah for Rodney!” shouted Thomas Paine. “Huzzah for Rodney and independence!”

“Huzzah!” the others shouted.

“Why is Rodney so important, Mr. Jefferson?” Victor whispered to his host.

“Well, Victor. We must have unanimous consent of all the colonies for independence, and the Delaware delegation is deadlocked one vote for and one against. Rodney is what they call ‘the swing’ vote—whichever way he votes, Delaware goes, and so do we.”

How appropriate, Victor thought, remembering a Delaware license plate he once saw, and its motto: “The First State.” But wasn’t that because they were the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution? Or was it because of Rodney? He’d have to look that up when he got back.

“And he’s for independence?” Victor asked, already knowing the answer but not wanting to miss a chance to talk with Thomas Jefferson.

“Yes. Right now he is the key, if the cancer doesn’t kill him.”

“Cancer?” Victor asked, continuing to play dumb.

“On the face. Rodney is very sensitive about his appearance. He deigns not to sit for a portrait because of it.”

A waitress brought Victor’s dinner on a pewter plate and Benjamin Franklin took time out from a discussion with John Adams to flirt with the young woman, who played along with the septuagenarian as if he were a young man.

Franklin was, Victor thought, something of a dirty old man.

“What a waste of effort and time,” Jefferson mused. “The poor maid must climb the steps to bring us our meals; what if the meals could be sent up to our floor without a maid, lifted up so to speak, by pulley perhaps?”

Victor realized Jefferson was ruminating on a future invention: the dumb waiter he invented for Monticello to send food from the first floor to the second floor, and dirty dishes from the second to the first. Victor was not about to say a word and cause a
butterfly
to flutter into the future. Instead, he listened to Samuel Adams, a man who seemed to have everyone’s attention when he said, “Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth and words talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for protection. Had she a single eye to our advantage. A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested.”

The others slapped the table with their palms in a form of applause for the Boston Patriot. His cousin John Adams stood up and took the floor. There was something obnoxious about John Adams, Victor thought—he had sort of a chip on his shoulder, and Victor noticed a number of sour faces around the table. But John Adams was undaunted and his lawyer’s voice filled the room more naturally than his cousin’s.

“The second day of July,” he proclaimed, “will be the most memorable day in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illumination, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for evermore.”

Victor watched the sour faces turn to smiles. “Huzzah!” someone shouted, and the others joined in. “Huzzah! Huzzah for Mr. Adams!” It was too bad, in some ways, that we celebrated Independence on the Fourth of July, Victor thought, for John Adams was so impassioned about the second. Adams beamed like he had just been elected class president, Victor thought. He looked like a happy little boy. Even a Founding Father wanted to be loved, Victor realized. What was so different about them, really?

“To liberty!” Paine shouted.

“Liberty!” the men shouted as they raised their tankards.

Victor pretended to sip his ale, but after a taste it was a bit strong and bitter for him. Still, he did not want to alienate Thomas Jefferson, so he faked it as best he could.

“Jefferson,” Paine shouted from the other end of the table. “I do like so much the way you ended your ‘declaration.’”

“You are not a delegate, Mr. Paine,” Benjamin Harrison snipped.

Victor wondered if there were some hard feelings between Harrison and Paine. Perhaps Harrison was envious of Thomas Paine’s celebrity, but from what Victor had read, the Second Continental Congress might not even be considering independence were it not for Thomas Paine’s
Common Sense.

“I am indeed, Mr. Harrison, not a delegate, but like you sir, and everyone at the table, I choose no longer to be a subject, as I have so often said.”

Harrison smiled at Paine’s remark. “Mr. Paine, you are so right, but every subject needs a verb.”

“We need an action ‘verb,’ Mr. Harrison,” Paine said. “We must
do
something. Mr. Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence is, in reality, an ‘explanation of independence,’ a listing of the reasons that we find ourselves at war with Great Britain.”

“War, sir?” Harrison asked. “Would you call our rebellion ‘war,’ Mr. Paine?”