Timecachers (19 page)

She began by saying that at one time, everything in this world was covered with water. But there were two other worlds, one above and one below the water. The one above was the sky-vault, made of rock, where all the creatures on this earth once lived. Below the water was another world where the seasons were backwards and everything was chaotic. Because so many creatures lived on the sky-vault above the water, it became crowded, so the creatures sent
Dayunisi
, a water beetle, down to the water to see if there was any place down there to live. He dove under the water, and was down a long time, but he finally came up with some mud. He spread the mud around so it could form land, but it took a long time to dry. The animals were anxious, so they sent some bird out to keep checking on the mud to see if it was dry enough yet for them to use. They finally sent the Great Buzzard who flew all around checking the mud to make sure it was dry. In the places where the mud was still soft, the Great Buzzard’s wings hit the ground and that is what formed the mountains and valleys in Georgia that the Cherokee call home and love so much.

When Catherine asked the visitors if they had a story they wanted to share, Adam offered to tell them a different story of creation, of Adam and Eve, but the two children said they had heard that story many times in school. They liked that story, and didn’t mind hearing it again, but didn’t they know a new story, being from the future and all?

Alice said that she knew a story that they probably hadn’t heard before. It was sort of a silly story, one that her father used to tell her. She heard it so often that she thought she could remember it still. It was a story about a beaver, she said, and it was called
Basil, The Builder Beaver
. Sal just rolled his eyes, but the Rogers family all said they would like to hear a story about a beaver. She began:

By the banks of the Pinchynose, if one cared to look,
Lived a beaver named Basil, who made his home in that brook.
For in the Pinchynose River, right out in the flow,
Basil, the builder beaver had built his chateau.

It was made with great logs, piled high and real sturdy,
But even better than that-- it looked kind of purdy!
That’s how he had earned the last name of builder,
For the house he had built was a thing to bewilder.

One day he was making some repairs to the house,
When next to the shore he spied Milton the mouse.
“Hello there,” said Milton, as Basil tapped on his wall,
Can I come for a visit?
I won’t take much room, I’m really quite small.

“Why, sure,” answered Basil, without stopping his work,
He bade him come on, and gave him a shirk.
Milton jumped at the offer, and ran in the house,
“You’ll like me a lot, and I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.

It wasn’t long after, Basil noticed a squirrel,
Who stood on the bank, crying, “Hi, there, I’m Earl.
“That place you have built seems a great place to live,
“I just hope it doesn’t leak like a sieve.”

The squirrel that was Earl dashed straight in the house,
Not even asking, like Milton the mouse.
Basil just shrugged, he was way too busy,
To let one little squirrel put him into a tizzy.

In less than an hour, along came Will Weasel,
Who ploughed through the door like he was running on diesel.
“I like having company,” the builder beaver said.
“Make yourselves right at home, just stay out of my bed.”

At first, the Rogers looked bewildered by Alice’s story, never having heard anything quite like it. She continued the tale of more and more animals coming to live in Basil the Beaver’s home. She told the story animatedly, using a different voice for each animal, and soon both children were laughing every time she mentioned Milton the Mouse or Earl the Squirrel. By the time she got to Fonzie the Fox, Catherine, Benjamin, and even Adam, Tom, and Sal where laughing as hysterically as the children.

Alice’s voice became somber as she described Basil’s growing anxiety from the overload of freeloaders taking up residency in his house:

There were so many critters, and so much room they were taking,
All the walls started bulging, and creaking, and shaking!
No one seemed to notice, when poor Basil did say,
“I could use a little help,” but they all answered, “No way!”

Basil kept right on working, dragging trees from the land,
But he was starting to think things were getting out of hand.
The faster he worked, the more shaky things got,
With so many creatures, his home was going to pot.

Her expression turned even more intense and her voice became grave as Basil’s house began to collapse. She narrated the story perfectly; everyone was on the edge of their seat when it looked as if all the animals might drown:

When all of a sudden, and as quick as a flash,
Basil’s home flew apart, with a great watery splash.
All the creatures went tumbling, every one of them wet,
And Basil was tempted to say, “That’s what you get!”

Finally she came to the part where the animals learned their lesson and offered to help Basil rebuild:

They gathered ‘round Basil to say they were sorry,
But Basil just smiled and said, “Hey, not to worry.”
“I’ll build me another, it’s what I do best,
Then you can visit in pairs, and leave out the rest!”

They offered to help him rebuild his abode,
But he told them, “No, thank you” ‘cause he already knowed
He’d teach them to build using wood, dirt, and stone,
So that they could all have a place of their own.

Everyone cheered and clapped, relieved that the beaver was okay and the squatters got what they deserved. They were impressed that Basil would now set limits on his visitors, yet be gracious enough to teach them how to build their own houses. They all clapped again at the end and thanked Alice for telling such a wonderful story.

“Good job,” Adam whispered to her. “Was that Dr. Seuss?”

“No, I’m sure it was just something my dad made up,” she said. “He was good at making up stories and I always enjoyed it when he told them to me.”

Benjamin thanked her again for the great story. He suggested that they should all be getting to bed, as the day would start early tomorrow, before sunrise, and they should get plenty of rest while they could.

Chapter seventeen

I
n the morning, Alice, who so far was going along with the role of a nineteenth century female, was wakened by the other women earlier than the men to help with the preparation of breakfast. Her storytelling from the previous night had elevated her to the clear favorite of the visitors, and all through breakfast Sally and Billy performed impressions of Basil the Beaver and the other animals. After the men headed off to the fields, Alice and Sally continued the impersonations as they did kitchen chores, to the amusement of both Catherine and Silvey.

The morning dew on the ankle-high grass soaked their pant legs as the men cut across the fields. Benjamin teamed Adam and Sal with Isaac and Billy, instructing them to go to the fields and continue the corn planting. He explained that although corn wasn’t one of his major crops, he planted twenty acres of it for livestock feed. He asked Tom to come with him to the barn to help with a few chores.

Tom gaped at the cavernous barn as the huge doors creaked open. During this time of year the barn stood mostly empty. Benjamin assured him it would be filled to capacity at harvest time, when piles of cotton bales would occupy every empty corner, waiting to be transported to market. The attached silos, he said, would be filled with the corn from the field that Isaac and the others were planting.

One section of the barn was loaded with farm equipment. Tom recognized most of the farm implements, antique versions of machines that had long since been automated. The bulk of the space was taken up by equipment used for processing cotton. A smaller, separate section of the barn was allocated to the peach crop. Benjamin explained that while it was more costly and a lot more work to have both cotton and peaches, he believed that it gave his family some insurance against having a particularly bad year with a single crop. He said that at the time he made that decision, slave labor was much easier to come by, and mentioned the Vann Plantation at one time had over 100 slaves. This year he wasn’t sure how they would handle the harvest. “Rich Joe” Vann had been forced out of his house three years ago when Georgia held the land lottery, and many of the other more prosperous farms had gone the same route, heading west to get a jump on claiming land there.

Tom hesitated to tell Benjamin that he wasn’t going to have to worry about a harvest this year. History taught him that by fall, there would be no Cherokees left in Georgia. The crops would be harvested, but not by the Roger family. He wished he could tell Benjamin to forget about the crop and put his efforts into preparing to move his family to the western territory, but he knew he would sound like another white person trying to convince him to leave. Another white man telling him his situation was hopeless and his only choice was to pack up and leave. No; better to help with the farm chores and keep his suggestions to himself for now. He didn’t think Benjamin would listen to him anyway.

“I can read your thoughts in your eyes, Tom Woody,” said Benjamin as he continued to show him around the barn. “You believe it is foolishness to continue with planting if we are to be run off our land.”

“It’s not that I think it’s foolish, Benjamin. I can understand your strong feelings for wanting to continue to work your farm as long as you can. I’ve known families who continued to work their farms even though they were facing inevitable foreclosure because they were not able to make mortgage payments. They continued to hope they could find a way to make it work. It’s just that I know what’s going to happen. Your future is my history, and I would like to be able to give you the benefit of the things I know will happen.”

Benjamin considered this for a moment. “I believe that you only know of one possible future. It is my opinion that there are endless possibilities, so it would be wrong for me to adjust my actions to fit only your version of the future.”

“But if I know something bad is going to happen, wouldn’t it be unwise not to take precautions to prevent it?”

“That would imply that there can only be one possible future, wouldn’t it? Suppose you knew that that wooden beam,” Benjamin said, pointing to one of the barn supports overhead, “was going to fall on my head and kill me. If you warned me and I avoided the falling beam and was not killed, then your version of the future would no longer be true.”

“That’s what we call a time paradox. The classic example being that if you traveled back in time and murdered yourself as a baby, you would have never existed, and therefore could not have traveled back to murder yourself in the first place.”

“Which supports my opinion that there is more than one possible future,” Benjamin said, convinced his logic was flawless.

Tom was amazed that Benjamin had grasped the concept so easily. “That’s pretty clever thinking for a farmer, Benjamin,” he said with a grin.

“Just logical. But logic also tells me that I must also prepare for your version of the future. Perhaps I will have my family begin to prepare some items in case we have to move. It will be difficult to find the time, with all the other chores this time of year. We will not be able to pack the things we need for everyday use, but there are some things we could set aside.”

“Just keep in mind, sir,” Tom warned, “if it is my version of the future that is played out, you won’t be given an opportunity to take much with you.”

Benjamin responded with a shrug of his shoulders. He led Tom to the storage place of a wagon type farm implement, hoisted the tongue, and began to pull the wagon toward the barn door. Tom lent a hand getting the wagon into a position where Benjamin could hitch up a horse to it. He threw two shovels into the wagon, and led the horse toward the stables. “We need to get this filled and spread on the last field before Isaac can begin plowing.”

The back of the wagon was fitted with a cylindrical set of tines running from one side of the wagon to the other, which rotated as the back wheels turned. If Tom hadn’t recognized the wagon as a manure spreader, the odor would have given it away. When they reached the stables, Benjamin grabbed the two shovels, handed one to Tom, and began shoveling manure into the wagon. “Pile it toward the front,” he instructed, “and when we get to the field, all you have to do is stand in the wagon and use your shovel to push the manure against the tines to spread it on the field.” Tom tried not to think of what would happen if he lost his balance and fell against the tines. He supposed that niceties like a tilting wagon bed or an emergency release to disengage the spreader were yet to be considered.

Out in the fields, Isaac handed Adam and Sal each a seed planter and a cloth bag full of corn seed to carry over their shoulder. The seed planters were about four feet long and not much more than a stick with a wedge-shaped foot piece. Isaac showed Adam and Sal the process of corn planting, using the planter and pressing down with his foot to make a hole, dropping in a single kernel from the cloth sack and covering it with dirt using his foot, then repeating the process about a foot further down the row. The procedure was simple enough, but looking out across a field of about twenty acres, they could see it would be a long, tedious chore.