Migrating to Michigan (2 page)

T
he professor turned and started shuffling some papers as Owen, Rachel, and I left to search for Mister Adams. We went down the stairs and took another look at the building directory. There it was—the library was located in room 1A on the first floor of the building.

“Do you think we should have asked Professor Tuesday what Mister Adams looks like?” I asked.

“Nah,” Owen answered as he wiped his nose on his sleeve. “There aren't many people in this building. I'm sure we'll be able to find him without any trouble.”

As we walked down the hallway toward the library, Rachel's shoes made a clopping sound on the shiny black floor. Owen's sneakers made a squishy sound with each step he took. The sounds their shoes made echoed through the empty hallway. Before long, we were standing in front of the library. We pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The library was quiet and musty smelling. Our library at Arrowhead School has a media specialist who helps us with finding books, computer searches, and stuff. There wasn't a media specialist in this library, just rows and rows of high bookshelves and lots and lots of books.

Owen, Rachel, and I walked down the rows of bookshelves. Though there were tons of books, the library looked like it was empty of people. We searched row after row without seeing anyone. When we got to the very last row of shelves, we were surprised by what we saw. A little boy was sitting on top of a big book, scribbling on a piece of paper with a pencil. He looked to be about the same age as my little brother—maybe four years old. The boy had freckles and thick glasses. Little sprigs of hair stuck out all over his head.

“Hi,” Owen said. “Have you seen Mister Adams around here anywhere?”

He didn't say a word. Instead, he stood up, looked at us, made some funny movements with his hands, and turned a page in the book. Then he sat back down again.

“Say,” Owen said, “do you think he's Mister Adams?”

“No,” Rachel said. “That can't be Mister Adams. He's just a little kid.”

“Mister Adams must have left the library,” I said to Owen. “Why don't we look through the rest of the building? Who knows, maybe he went back to the professor's office.”

Owen and Rachel agreed and we left the library to search the building. The old building was almost completely empty. We only found one other person. A student was taking a test in one of the offices. She was definitely not Mister Adams.

We kept looking, searching every floor and every office. We didn't find the professor's nephew anywhere. We were getting worried so we went back to Professor Tuesday's office. We found the professor humming to himself as he fiddled with his laptop. When the professor noticed the three of us standing there, a curious look crossed his face.

“I thought you were going to get Mister Adams,” the professor said.

“We looked through the library,” I said. “In fact, we looked all through the building. We couldn't find him anywhere.”

“What?” said the professor. “Oh my goodness, we've got to find him and find him now! There's no way I can go anywhere until we find him.”

“But we've got a report that's due next Monday,” Rachel said.

The professor stopped and turned to Rachel. “Mister Adams is my first responsibility. I'm sorry, but his safety is more important than your report. If we all work together to find him, we can begin your research. But we have to find him first.”

We followed the professor as he raced out the door and down the hallway. All the while, the professor called out for his nephew. “Mister Adams! Mister Adams! Come here, you rascal.”

The professor climbed up on the hand railing and slid down the staircase all the way to the first floor of the building. He jumped off the railing when he got to the bottom and took off down the hallway toward the library. “We must find him or my sister will be very angry with me,” the professor said. “Mister Adams has a bad habit of wandering off.”

When the professor entered the library, Owen called out to him. “Professor, we already looked in the library. Nobody's in there but a …”

Just then we heard the professor shout with joy. “There you are, Mister Adams. I thought you were lost.” The professor came out of the library with the little boy in his arms.

“That's Mister Adams?” Owen said. “We thought that Mister Adams would be a grown person.”

“Heavens, no,” said the professor. “This is my nephew, Mister Adams.”

“If you don't mind me asking, Professor,” I said, “how did a little kid get a name like ‘Mister Adams'?”

The professor blinked twice and scratched his bald head. “You see, my sister wanted her son to have an important sounding name. She likes history, too. And, her favorite president of the United States was John Adams. Abigail Adams, the wife of President Adams, often referred to him as ‘Mr. Adams.' That's how he got his name. Don't you think that's an important sounding name?”

“Strange,” said Owen as he took off his ball cap and shook his head back and forth. “But I guess that makes sense, kind of.”

“Maybe so,” said the professor, “but when people meet Mister Adams they never forget him. Even though he's just a small child, he can read and write very well. He was in the library helping me on a project. Mister Adams is very smart, but there's one thing you should know about him. He doesn't like to talk.”

“You said that we had to take Mister Adams with us on our adventure today,” Rachel noted. “What are we going to do with a little kid tagging along?”

The professor looked at the three of us. “All of you can help me watch him. He is quite adventurous, so we'll have to keep a close eye on him.”

Rachel rolled her eyes as the professor started back toward his office with Mister Adams. I happen to know that Rachel doesn't like babysitting … not even for her own little brother. Now, we have to watch Mister Adams AND my friends have to do an extra assignment.

This was starting to look like one crummy school break.

W
hen we got back to the professor's office, he gave Mister Adams a thick, heavy Michigan history book to read. Then he took a seat behind his desk and folded his hands and twiddled his thumbs as he spoke. “Mister Adams,” the professor said, “I want you to read about early Michigan history. That should keep you occupied and out of trouble for a while.”

Then, the professor turned to Rachel and Owen. “Now,” he said, “you mentioned that you have to do a report on people who have immigrated to Michigan. Is that correct?”

“Yup,” Owen said. “Can we take your Tuesday Teleporter back in time to visit immigrants?”

The professor stroked his long white beard while he thought. “I suppose we can. But, what immigrant groups would you like to visit?”

“All of them,” Rachel said. “Miss Pepper wants us to do a report on the immigrants who have come to Michigan, so we should visit all of them.”

“That won't be possible, my friends,” the professor began. “Many, many different immigrants have come to Michigan. It has been that way since the first Europeans came here in the 1600s. We couldn't possibly visit them all in one Tuesday. In fact, we probably couldn't visit them all in a month of Tuesdays.”

“Well,” Rachel said, “when we visited you with our class, we learned about the Native Americans, the French, and the British. Maybe we could visit all the other immigrants.”

“That is still too many groups to visit,” he said. The professor cleaned his glasses with his coat sleeves, then snapped his fingers twice before continuing. “Immigrants from foreign nations are still settling in Michigan. One of my students came here from the Sudan ten years ago. He will be coming to my office later today if you want to talk to him.”

“Okay,” Rachel said, “that would be fine. But what do you think we should do about the rest of our report? Shouldn't we get information about other immigrant groups?”

“I've got an idea,” said the professor. “Do you know where your families originally came from?”

Rachel thought for a moment. “My dad's family is German. My grandma lives in Frankenmuth. As for my mother, her parents are Dutch and Irish.”

Owen spoke up, “My mom's Finnish, and my dad is Polish. Can we visit the early Finns and Poles?”

“We'll do our best,” said the professor. “We need to do a little research first. I'll look for information about early settlements of Germans and Dutch in Michigan.” The professor bent down low and spoke to Mister Adams. “While you are reading about early Michigan, please look for information on Finnish and Polish immigrants.”

Mister Adams took a paper and pencil and wrote down some notes. Then he dug into the history book the professor had given him. Professor Tuesday opened a different history book that was on the corner of his desk. Rachel decided to help the professor. Owen and I went to work with Mister Adams.

I was starting to feel better about being here with my friends. They hadn't argued for almost a whole half hour.

Owen and I followed Mister Adams to the table at the far side of the professor's office. The professor's nephew pulled some books from a shelf, and we started doing our own research.

Professor Tuesday put on his reading glasses and paged through the index of his book. “Hm-m-m, let's see,” he said aloud. “It says here that Germans immigrated to the United States as far back as the 1800s. Many came here for work. However, some also came to establish missionary settlements.”

The professor read to himself for a while. Then he noted: “Many Germans in Michigan were experienced miners. Miners tended to settle in the Keweenaw Peninsula where they found work in the copper mines. Several immigrants from Germany were farmers who established communities near Ann Arbor and other areas of Michigan, including in the Saginaw Valley where Rachel's grandmother lives.”

Suddenly, Mister Adams jumped up on his seat and made some strange motions with his hands. Owen and I thought he was freaking out. We didn't know what was going on, so we ran over to the professor for help.

“Professor,”Owen said excitedly, “Mister Adams is acting weird.”

“Weird, like how?” asked the professor.

“Well,” Owen said as he shuffled his feet, “it's kind of hard to explain. He made the letter
c
with his right hand and put it by his throat and moved it down to his chest.”

“Do you think he's using sign language?” Rachel asked.

“He is,” the professor noted. “Mister Adams is trying to tell you that he is hungry.”

“Mister Adams doesn't like to talk, so he uses sign language?” Rachel asked.

“He sure does,” the professor said, “and he's pretty good at it. Sometimes, he signs so fast I can't even understand him.”

Without a word, Professor Tuesday left his office and headed down the hallway. After a few minutes, he returned with a tray of fruit and cheese. He cut and peeled an apple for Mister Adams. Then he gave him a piece of cheese.

Mister Adams put his hands to his lips, then moved it outward. “That's the sign for ‘thank you,'” Owen said.

“Very good,” said the professor. “I think that we'll all get along nicely.”

“Yah, right,” Rachel stared at Owen.

After he gave Mister Adams his snack, the professor turned to Rachel, Owen, and me. “Help yourself.”

Rachel and I both took an orange and Owen had a pear. After our snack, we went back to work.

“Well,” the professor said to me with a smile, “I think we should visit Frankenmuth in the summer of 1846. We've got everything we need to make the trip. Let's see how your friends and Mister Adams are doing with their research.”

“Owen isn't MY friend,” Rachel said. “We argue all the time. That's why Miss Pepper told us to do this assignment together over the school break.”

“I see,” said Professor Tuesday, “it is very interesting that Miss Pepper gave you this assignment.”

“What do you mean?” Owen asked.

The professor chuckled. “Many different people have come to settle the state of Michigan. Sometimes they struggled to get along with each other, just like you and Rachel. But, when they started working together, they made our state a very special place. Maybe this assignment is Miss Pepper's way of helping you get along and learn some history all at the same time.”

“I don't see that happening in my lifetime,” I said with a snicker.

The professor just laughed and shook his head.

Mister Adams had three pages of notes about the early Finns in Michigan. Owen was scanning a book about Finnish immigrants to the state.

“This is pretty cool,” Owen said. “Many Finns moved to the Upper Peninsula to work in the copper mines. Some also worked as lumberjacks during the lumbering era. Do you think we can visit some Finns, Professor?”

“I believe so,” said the professor, “but I'd like to ask for Mister Adams's thoughts.”

Mister Adams turned his head toward us and smiled. Then his hand went into a flurry of motion. He was using the sign language alphabet to spell out his ideas.

“Whoa,” said the professor as he chuckled aloud, “you're signing too fast. Slow down a bit.”

Mister Adams gave the professor a funny look, then started signing all over again. As his hands moved through the air, the professor wrote down each letter.

E_R_I_E C_A_N_A_L

“What a great idea, Mister Adams,” said the professor. “Before we visit any immigrant settlements in Michigan, we should visit the construction of the Erie Canal. I'm even thinking we should make one more stop before we visit the immigrants.”

“What does a canal have to do with immigration?” Owen asked.