The Later Journeys - 7. Set Changes

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While Ben and Trevor resumed their discussion (with Ben drawn irresistibly to that big map), Warren and I moved ahead with changing a small piece of our 18th-century stage set. In the kitchen, we undid a few screws and removed a large wooden cabinet-sideboard type structure, which looked like a substantial piece of furniture, but was actually just a disguise for the large sink. My heart warmed to the sight of it. No, the cabin was not equipped with a dishwasher, electric or otherwise, but the simple presence of running hot water was certainly a start. I would continue to clean the cast iron and pewter utensils with salt, but the job would take so much less time now. More so, once I could get out the rubber gloves... But it was still a bonus to produce the folding wooden dish rack. I knew Ben had never seen anything quite like it, but it made more sense than using plastic and trying to explain that to him.

We quietly went out with the bulky plywood prop and maneuvered it down the drive to the main road, which was out of sight of the house. Later that night, it would be picked up by Gerry or one of his friends, in an electric truck that made no sound. This was how we managed those large quantities of food being delivered, as well as anything we needed to dispose of.

So yes, we cheated. We cheated our little heads off. We knew the rudiments of everyday life, such as cooking on a wood stove and using a privy; we’d studied all the YouTube videos, paid numerous visits to Colonial Williamsburg and more museums and libraries than we could count, and attended plenty of history lectures at Harvard, Yale, Princeton and more obscure places like Roanoke College. We were steeped in the culture -- but occasionally reminded ourselves that we were not the time travelers here. This was a temporary masquerade, the means to an end. The main objective was to ease Ben Franklin out of his own time, and by increments, into ours. Without some common ground, we’d fail. For now, the common ground was balanced toward Ben. Eventually, we hoped, our culture and customs would be his as well.

Returning to the house, we passed within sight of the outhouse. “Well, I won’t be using that again,” I commented to Warren with no small amount of glee.

“Ha!” he replied. “Never say never. Remember, sweetheart, we’ve only got one bathroom.”

“Fine,” I said with a grin. “You three guys can use the outhouse if the bathroom is occupied. Or one of those handy chamberpots,”

“Or a handy bush,” said Warren. “I don’t do chamber pots.”

"No?"

"Not just no -- hell no," was Warren's emphatic reply.

I mused on Ben’s introduction to indoor plumbing. “Do you think he’ll really want to use it?’

“Hard to say. Either he’ll decide the outhouse is just more familiar, or, he’ll run into some kind of snag, like a toilet clog or something, and it’ll scare him away.”

I had already thought of that. We’d decided to leave a plain wooden plunger with a rubber cup next to the toilet. Let him get used to the sight of it. The materials were more or less common to his century, it was only the design and function that would be novel. “You can’t teach someone how to use a plunger unless there’s something to plunge. Sounds like we’ll have to just wait for something like that to happen. Unless he grabs the plunger and figures it out for himself, someone’s gonna have to go in there and show him how to take care of the problem. And that will be embarrassing.”

“Well,” Warren said, “We can assure him that some people make damn good money doing just that all day long.”

When we got back to the kitchen, Trevor was sitting there waiting for us.

“Ben decided to take another break. This map thing is just wearing him out. He’s overwhelmed. We’re gonna start history from 1800 on. No need to tell him about his death in 1790. All we have to do is let him assume, logically, that he’s not likely to live to 90. He’ll ask about the Constitution eventually. There’s so much he doesn’t know.”

“He’ll ask about everything, eventually,” I said. “We all know that.”

“Yeah,” replied Trevor. “But in the meantime, just before he excused himself, he asked me something I didn’t have an answer for.”

“What was that?”

Trevor sighed. “He asked me if we could go for a ride in the coach. He’s getting cabin fever.”

“A ride? Where did he want to go?”

“Anywhere. He wants to ‘see the countryside.’”

Warren and I just looked at each other. We could be in serious trouble here.

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