Abolition

by Tim Black

  Chapter 2

  While scarfing down a pepperoni pizza in the Reitz Union Building at the University of Florida, Victor Bridges checked his phone, surprised to find an email from Samuel Chandler, a senior class member of the History Channelers at Cassadaga Area High School. In the time he had been at Gainesville, Victor had not even received a text from Samuel, let alone a full-fledged email. Was Samuel regressing? he wondered as he began to read the missive.

  Victor, Mr. Greene told us that you and Bette and Minerva will accompany us on a “field trip” during Christmas vacation. Super! Getting the old gang back together again will be great. Mr. Greene wants us all to dress as Quakers and he needs measurements from everyone as he plans to make a large order from eBay. I am afraid that I will look like the Quaker Oats guy…

  You might have heard about our trip with George across the Delaware. I rowed my butt off that night, let me tell you. Before we crossed the river, the troops gathered around as an aide to General Washington read from Thomas Paine’s Crisis Papers. It was something like a high school pep rally as the officer read “These are the times that try men’s souls: the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” And the soldiers cheered! I felt a shiver run through my body. It was electrifying, Victor. A pregame pep talk before we rowed across the Delaware River to smash the Hessians. Heck, the Hessians had been doing the party hardy bit and were useless in a fight. Most of them were entirely wasted. And then, after the battle, that same aide read another piece from Thomas Paine, which said “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have the consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” Mr. Greene explained to us how you, Bette and Minerva and Mr. Greene had to copy Common Sense when you messed up 1776. Sat on a bench outside Independence Hall for a full day, copying Thomas Paine. What a hoot!

  Victor cringed as he read that line. But he continued to peruse Samuel’s email:

  You might have heard about the painting. Like the girls at Jamestown, Heather and I are now part of United States history I guess, although no one knows our names. But as glorious as Trenton was, Valley Forge was a horror show. The poor soldiers were dropping like flies. Mr. Greene didn’t allow us to stay too long for fear that we might catch typhus. Or smallpox.

  Well, I guess I better go. I am sorry that the Gators lost to Alabama, but then everybody but Clemson loses to Alabama in football. The Crimson Tide should be in the NFL.

  Samuel

  Funny, Victor thought. He had returned to Cassadaga over Thanksgiving, but he hadn’t looked anyone up, not even Mr. Greene, although he had run into Bette at Publix Supermarket and asked her about Minerva who, Bette related, was spending Thanksgiving with her parents in Manhattan, taking in a few shows and some shopping. Victor had resigned himself to thinking Minerva had found an upperclassman at Yale and that was that. And yet, here in Samuel’s email was the comment that Minerva was going to join the group for a Christmas trek to the past. Perhaps she didn’t have a new man at Yale, after all, he hoped. She was too pretty; she would certainly attract other boys, he mused, suddenly becoming melancholy at the thought that his old girlfriend was lost forever. Maybe he should have gone to Yale, too. But his folks couldn’t afford Yale; they had a tough time even with helping Victor at the University of Florida and he had to resort to a student loan to get through the first year. Thankfully, his brother Junior had flunked out of college and was working the oil fields of North Dakota, much to the chagrin of their father, who had finally concluded that his favorite son was a washout and never would make it to the National Football League. But Junior was making big money with the oil boom in North Dakota. Good for him, Victor thought. Maybe Junior would stay in North Dakota and settle down. And freeze his butt off, he smiled.

  He finished the last slice of pizza and checked his phone again. There was a text from Mr. Greene, the first text he had received since the day after he started classes at UF.

  Victor- please send shirt and pants sizes. Need to order Quaker outfits. NG

  *

  Christmas in the Bridges’ household was rather glum as Junior, the prodigal son, had decided to stay in North Dakota rather than return home to Florida. Victor’s father tried to put on his cheeriest face for the holiday, but Victor sensed the old man was depressed because his dream of one of his sons becoming a gridiron great had fizzled when Junior flunked out of college. So, it was something of a relief on Christmas night when Victor received a text from Mr. Greene:

  Meeting at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning at the portable. Campus gate will be unlocked. Park in front of the classroom. I have your outfits. On hanger in the classroom closet. With name tags.

  *

  Victor pulled into the parking lot in front of the classroom portable as Samuel Chandler was walking toward the classroom. Seeing Victor, Samuel hesitated and waited for his friend to emerge from his car.

  “Welcome, Victor, good to see you,” Samuel smiled.

  Was it possible? Victor wondered. Had Samuel gotten taller? He looked nearly as tall as Opechancanough, the warrior chief of the Powhatan tribe of Virginia. “Good to see you, too, Samuel,” Victor said. “Have you grown even taller?”

  Samuel laughed. “Yes, I am six feet seven now. I think I am driving my mother crazy as she can’t believe I am still growing.”

  “Wow, you’re a real leaf eater,” Victor teased. “You are the giraffe of the History Channelers.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. I think we are the first ones here. You want to go in?”

  “Sure. How is the old man?”

  “Mr. Greene?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “He never changes,” Samuel said.

  “Is he still telling those terrible puns?”

  “Does a bear still poop in the woods?” Samuel laughed. “He has some really bad ones for European History A.P.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, Robespierre and the Reign of Terror in the French Revolution…”

  “What about it?”

  “He calls it ‘the head start program.’ You know for the guillotine and all the beheadings?” Samuel said.

  “Groan,” Victor said. “That’s a new one. He didn’t use that when I took European from him. Back when I had him the Robespierre joke was that Robespierre was always trying to get ahead.”

  “I guess he gets tired of his own puns,” Samuel said.

  “I should hope so,” Victor laughed.

  The two boys walked up the handicap ramp and opened the door to the portable classroom. There sat Nathan Greene at his desk, looking like a portly William Penn, dressed in the plain brown coat of a Quaker, a white puffed-up scarf around his neck and a wide-brim black hat atop his head. Mr. Greene’s eyes lit up when he saw Victor.

  “Mr. Bridges, thank you for joining us. You gentlemen will find your attire for our trip on a hanger with your surname in the closet. Please change into your outfits and return to the classroom so we can await the rest of our group. I am afraid we have two late scratches. Jennifer’s grandmother passed away and she is going to Charleston, South Carolina, to attend the funeral. And Michael opted for a ski vacation in Colorado with his father. He only gets to see his dad on school vacations.”

  In the closet, Samuel and Victor examined their black outfits, which were nearly identical to the teacher’s, save for the color. Stockings, a vest and a coat with over a dozen buttons and a white neckerchief. Straight out of the 18th century alright, Victor thought.

  “Are we supposed to be Quakers or Amish?” Samuel asked.

  “Similar dress. I think this is pretty standard early 18th century Quaker,” Victor guessed as he tried on a black wide-brim hat. “Although I am not too sure. Look at the girls’ outfits. They are even plainer than ours.”

  “Well, Mr. Greene did say we were going to masquerade as Quaker abolitionists because they were the ones who got the a
nti-slavery society in Philadelphia going. Did you read that article on Benjamin Lay in Smithsonian Magazine?” Samuel asked.

  “The cave-dwelling dwarf who was also a vegan? Yes, I read it. I had never heard of him before.”

  “Neither had I…apparently Mr. Greene met him over summer vacation when he and Mr. Tesla went back to the 1730s. That way he can introduce us to the guy, I guess…. Hey what are the two sets of kids’ clothes on the hangers?”

  Victor saw one hanger. There were the clothes that Nikola Tesla wore as a seven-year-old in Gettysburg and another set of a smaller child’s clothes.

  “Those belong to Mr. Tesla,” Victor explained. “When Mr. Tesla landed the classroom in 1863, he reanimated as a seven-year-old boy, since he had been born in 1856. If you will excuse the pun, reanimation seems to be a wrinkle in time, so to speak. IF one of our ghosts goes to a year in which they live, they live again. So, we must be going to a period between 1856 and 1863 for our trip.”

  “Mr. Greene didn’t tell us that.”

  “No, it only happened on the Gettysburg trip. Valley Forge was before all of our ghosts were alive, I believe.”

  Samuel began to reply, but he was interrupted by the high-pitched voices of females.

  “The girls are here,” Victor said, stating the obvious.

  “You know that they are going to laugh at us when we get out of the closet?” Samuel said.

  “Of course, but after seeing their outfits, I think we will have the last laugh,” Victor smiled. “Are thee ready, friend?” said Victor in his best mimic of Quaker plain speech.

  “Thou leadeth the way,” Samuel replied.

  As the boys emerged from the closet, Heather Miller, and Bette Cromer began laughing. “Look!” Heather said, pointing at Victor and Samuel. “The Quaker Oats twins!” Thankfully, Mr. Greene did not laugh at the boys.

  “Wait until you see your outfits,” Samuel cautioned. “Before you engage in another round of caterwauling.”

  “Nice word, Samuel,” Bette conceded, impressed at Samuel’s use of caterwauling. “I remember it was on the S. A. T. I took.”

  “Ladies,” Mr. Greene intervened. “Please find your costumes in the closet…where is Minerva?”

  “She said she was coming, Mr. Greene,” Bette Kromer said.

  “Well, we can wait for her, I suppose. Girls, please proceed to the closet.” As Mr. Greene gave his instructions, the ghost of Carl Bridenbaugh floated into the classroom. The students welcomed the colonial historian and he nodded in recognition.

  Professor Bridenbaugh seemed rather reticent, Victor thought. And he had been so chatty when he visited Victor at the University of Florida.

  The closet door opened, and two Quaker maids emerged in floor-length black dresses with white bonnets.

  It was the boys’ turn to laugh and they did, heartily.

  The girls frowned at the boys, although Bette added an Italian salute when Mr. Greene wasn’t looking.

  Finally, Mr. Greene called for his students’ attention. “We are going to pretend to be Quakers, although they generally called themselves Friends. Quakers is a nickname that was given to the group by King Charles II when William Penn refused to doff his hat to the king and suggested that Charles should be “quaking before the Lord,” or so the story goes although some historians believe they acquired the nickname because some of them shook when the spirit moved them. Anyway, they used what they called ‘plain language.’ They dressed plainly because they were opposed to ornamentation and ostentation and they used ‘thee’ and ‘thy’ but rarely ‘thou.’ I guess we could say their speech is something of an anachronism. But not to the 18th century, where we are headed. Plain speech was meant to be inclusive, the irony being that over time its use led to exclusiveness. At least this is what my Quaker relatives have told me…well hello, Minerva,” Mr. Greene said. He smiled as Minerva Messinger entered the classroom.

  “Sorry I am late, Mr. Greene. I had a flat and had to call triple A.” She glanced at Victor and gave him a quick smile, puzzling the boy. The previous night at Heather’s house Minerva had been standoffish. She kept close to Bette and Heather. Women, he mused, he would never understand them. The three girls bonded like a tribe, he thought. But then so did Victor and Samuel. Samuel was a cool guy, Victor mused—for a high school kid, he smiled.

  “Glad you could make it, Minerva. Welcome back to Cassadaga Area High School,” Mr. Greene said. “I trust you know everyone?”

  Minerva nodded.

  “Splendid,” Mr. Greene said. “Please find your costume in the closet, Minerva.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mr. Greene addressed the class. “As soon as Minerva changes her clothes and Mr. Tesla shows up, we will take off.”

  “Any questions? Yes, Samuel?”

  “Where exactly are we headed?”

  “Let me wait for Minerva to join us before I go over the itinerary. I didn’t text it to you because, frankly, I was concerned about hacking.” He walked over to his file cabinet and extracted a manila file folder. “Samuel, please pass out an itinerary sheet to everyone.”

  As Samuel passed out the papers, Mr. Greene added, “These papers are to remain inside the classroom at all times. No one outside the group must ever read them, do you understand?”

  A chorus of “Yes, Mr. Greene,” answered.

  Minerva took a seat across from Victor as Samuel handed her the itinerary sheet. “I am sorry I was so aloof last night,” she whispered to Victor. “I didn’t know what to say to you after all this time.”

  “That’s okay,” Victor said as gallantly as possible. “Let’s just concentrate on the mission at hand.”

  “Alright, Victor,” Minerva said. And then she added with a sweet puppy face. “I missed you.”

  Oh nuts, Victor thought. Now she tells me. Great timing, Minerva. Before he could respond, he was saved by Mr. Greene.

  “You will see our first stop is 1738, September 19, 1738, to be precise, at a Friends’ meetinghouse in Burlington, New Jersey. It is the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. We are going to watch a little man named Benjamin Lay upset the apple cart of convention for the Society of Friends. I trust you all read the link I texted you to the Smithsonian Magazine.”

  “Yes, Mr. Greene,” they replied robotically.

  “Loved the article, Nathan, kudos to the author Marcus Rediker,” Professor Bridenbaugh opined. “Well, well, look who is finally showing up…the mad scientist from Belgrade.”

  Tesla arrived. “Sorry I am late, I got called at a séance down at the Cassadaga Hotel. First time that has ever happened to me. How are you Bridenbaugh, my historical hack?” Tesla teased his old ghostly friend. “Again, I am sorry I am late, Nathan.”

  “No problem, Nikola. We need to go to Burlington, New Jersey, on Sept. 19, 1738, in time for the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.”

  “That is a Friday, Mr. Greene” Tesla said.

  “Not a Sunday?”

  “No, it is a Friday.”

  “Interesting. It is a meeting of Quakers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which were the two colonies with the largest population of Quakers among the original thirteen.”

  “Well then, buckle up, students, we’ll be off.”

  *

  Before Tesla landed the portable in a field across from the Quaker meetinghouse, he applied the cloaking device to the classroom. Victor looked out a classroom window and watched an 18th century scene as a horse and buggy pulled up across the street and a man and a woman emerged from the conveyance. The man tied the horse to a hitching post.

  A white wall, its gate opening in welcome to the assembly of Friends from both colonies, stood before a hexagon building that seemed curiously small for a meeting of Quakers from two colonies. The slanted roof rose to a pinnacle in the otherwise nondescript six-sided building. Other students had joined Victor by the window.

  “What a funny building,” Heather said.

  “Sure is,” Bette agreed.

  “It is a bit dif
ferent, I grant you. But it is larger inside than one would think,” Mr. Greene said.

  “How do you know, Mr. Greene?” Victor asked.

  “Mr. Tesla and I were here over summer vacation, scouting it out in preparation for our Christmas trip,” Mr. Greene said. “Watch carefully…here he comes, the tiny gray-bearded man with the white brimmed hat walking along the street in the great coat. He is a dwarf; although the word ‘dwarf’ is not a politically correct term to use in our time, it was in his. He is barely an inch over four feet in height. He was known as a hunchback, think of Quasimodo in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but our little Quaker suffered from curvature of the spine. His name is Benjamin Lay, and he is about to start a change in history, for the Quakers and for the colonies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Beneath his coat, he carries a book with a secret compartment. The compartment contains an animal bladder filled with red pokeberry juice, the color of blood. We need to go in and see what he does, students. Everyone ready?”

  “Yes, Mr. Greene.”

  “I certainly am,” Professor Bridenbaugh offered.

  “Heather, take the lead,” the teacher said. “Nikola, do you want to float along with us?”

  “I may be along, but I remember floating around the meetinghouse we attended this summer for two hours while no one said a thing, Nathan, so perhaps my time would be better spent in the classroom,” Tesla replied. “I want to make sure everything is working properly with the device.”

  Mr. Greene shrugged at the ghost’s response. Even though Nikola Tesla was dead, he had a tough time sitting still, except at the computer. One wonders, Mr. Greene thought, what Nikola Tesla might have invented had he had access to a computer while he was alive.

  The group assembled outside the classroom, which had been rendered invisible by Tesla’s cloaking device. Before they walked into the meetinghouse, Mr. Greene advised the group: “The Quaker service may seem odd to you. I told you I have Quaker relatives and have attended meetings with them. First off, there is no minister. Everyone is equal. There may be extended periods of silence when no one speaks and then someone will rise from his or her pew and begin to speak as they have been touched by God. Or when the Holy Spirit moves them, if you will. We are going to take seats in the back and not say anything. We are here merely to observe what Benjamin Lay is going to do.