Tesla's Time Travelers Read Online Free PDF Page B

calculating for the open space across the street from what we now call Independence Hall,” Greene said, as the students knew that before the Declaration the building was known as the Pennsylvania State House. “I don’t want to drop the trailer on the Liberty Bell. According to Thomas Jefferson’s weather journal, the temperature in Philadelphia will be 78 degrees Fahrenheit. It rained the previous night, and we may have intermittent showers today as well…”
    Has Mr. Greene lost his marbles? Minerva wondered.
    “That’s all great, Mr. Greene,” Victor said. “What are you using as our talisman for this trip?”
    Greene smiled. “Yes, remember everyone, we used the theater poster from Our American Cousin to effect the transport last spring. Well…Charles and Mary, are you here?”
    The ghosts of deceased early American historians Charles and Mary Beard appeared in a transparent glow in the classroom. Charles handed Mr. Greene a riding crop. Mr. Greene handed Victor his cane for Victor to hold.
    Minerva’s eyes widened in fright. What was going on?
    “Students, say hello to Mary Ritter Beard and Charles Austin Beard. We will be reading their work later on in the semester,” Mr. Greene said. The Beards, who resembled extras from the movie The Great Gatsby in their 1920s fashions, smiled but did not speak. Charles Beard did, however, float over to Mr. Greene and appear to whisper something in the teacher’s ear.
    “Hello,” the students said politely.
    Mr. Greene continued with his introduction of the Beards. “Mr. Beard’s seminal work was, of course, An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution publishedin 1913. Mrs. Beard collaborated with her husband on their 1927 book The Rise of the American Civilization. ”
    Charles Beard bowed politely, revealing the part in the center of his hair, and Mary managed a curtsey in her “flapper” dress without floating out of place. Mr. Greene directed his students’ eyes to the riding crop that he swirled in a mesmerizing swoosh like a fencer twirling his epee.
    “This is Caesar Rodney’s riding crop,” Greene explained. “Mr. Rodney was a delegate from Delaware who suffered from a debilitating facial cancer, but made the ride from Delaware to Philadelphia to cast a deciding vote for independence. The Delaware delegation was split with one vote for independence and one against it. British Admiral Howe had already landed his seven hundred ships at Staten Island in New York and troops were planning to march the one hundred miles to Philadelphia to hang the rebels. Only if our Founding Fathers could establish that the colonies were an independent nation could the delegates to the Continental Congress shelter themselves in the rules of war. Benjamin Franklin, the wisest man in America, knew that the king of France, hungry for revenge for the loss of his American lands in the French and Indian War, wasn’t going to help the colonies unless they broke with England. Rodney, who was ill, hadn’t expected Delaware delegate George Read to vote against independence. So he wound up riding eighty miles overnight in the rain and mud of the lousy colonial roads from Dover to Philadelphia. Heck, he even survived his cancer, living until 1784. He was a tough old bird, and his riding crop is going to help us get to Philadelphia.” Greene pointed the riding crop to the overhead projection of the colonial Philadelphia map, a bit north of Chestnut Street between 5 th and 6 th streets on the Dury map. He went to his students and handed them each a 1999 quarter-dollar. “This is Delaware’s commemorative quarter. Victor, what is on the back of the coin?”
    “A rider in a tri-corner hat on a horse.”
    “Yes,” Mr. Greene said. “What else?”
    “Delaware 1787, the first state and good old E Pluribus Unum.”
    “Yes, ‘out of many one’ in Latin, anything else?”
    “Caesar Rodney?”
    “Yes, Caesar Rodney. Delaware revered Caesar’s ride even more than Massachusetts