Migrating to Michigan Page 2

  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.

  Digging into Immigrant History

  The Professor’s Office—Today

  When 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, M
ister 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.

  “We shall see,” said the professor, “we shall see.”

  Immigrant’s Path

  The Erie Canal near Buffalo, New York—June 1826

  Professor Tuesday hooked up the teleporter with its shiny globe to his laptop and typed in some information on the keyboard. Then, he snapped his fingers twice.

  “Turn off the lights,” the professor said.

  Owen ran over to the wall and flipped the switch. In the darkened room we could see the professor raise two fingers in the air. “I’ve made some changes to my teleporter,” he said. “Watch this.”

  Professor Tuesday came down on the enter key on his laptop. The Tuesday Teleporter lit up like a pinball machine and made strange zapping sounds. Different colored lights slowly circled the room. Then they started moving faster and faster. The sounds got louder and louder.

  “AH-H-H-H-CHOO,” Owen sneezed into his elbow. “I think I’m allergic to your teleporter, Professor.”

  “Ah, yes,” said the professor, “now I remember you, Owen. You almost got us in trouble with your sneezing when we visited a Native American village in Ohio.”

  POW! ZING! went the machine. Then a green cloud appeared in the middle of the professor’s office.

  “Did it break?” Rachel asked. “I don’t remember that noise. And, the teleporter I remember looked more like a green gob than a cloud.”

  “Everything’s fine,” said the professor. “Those are the improvements I made. I figured out a way to make the teleporter appear in the form of a cloud rather than a gob of jelly. People didn’t like walking through jelly. They like the cloud much better.”

  After he made a few more keystrokes on his laptop, the professor turned to us. “Please watch Mister Adams for a moment while I make sure everything is perfectly safe.”

  The professor turned and walked into the green cloud. Mister Adams pointed his fingers in the air, then made a quick movement forward.

  “Oh,” I said, “Mister Adams wants to go. That’s what that sign means.”

  Mister Adams shook his head excitedly.

  “Yes,” I said to him, “we’ll all go with the professor when he returns.”

  Then Mister Adams nodded his head and went back to his history book. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad watching Mister Adams for the professor. Besides, sign language can be fun.

  The professor walked out of the green cloud after a few moments. “It’s a lovely day in 1826,” said the professor. “Let’s go.”

  We all held hands. Professor Tuesday was in the lead. Then it was me, Rachel, Owen, and Mister Adams.

  Once inside the cloud, we started tumbling end-over-end. Lights flashed by us and Owen sneezed again. Mister Adams tried to let go of Owen’s hand, but Owen held on tightly.

  We landed softly in the middle of a thick forest. There were trees, bushes, and grass for as far as we could see. “I thought we were going to see the Erie Canal?” I asked.

  The professor turned to me. “Now is the time for watching and taking notes. There will be time for asking questions later.”

  The professor reached into his white coat and pulled out a compass. Then he started walking south. The forest was so thick that it was hard to walk. We stepped around fallen trees and through thickets of prickly bushes.

  As we walked, Owen stepped in a muddy creek bed. When he tried to get his foot out, he got stuck. We all had to wait patiently while he pulled his shoe from the mud and put it back on his foot. From then on, his shoe made squishy sounds with every step.

  “Owen,” Rachel said, “can’t you do anything right?”

  “It’s not my fault,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to get my foot stuck.”

  Mister Adams held up his finger to his lips.

  “Mister Adams is right,” said the professor. “We should be quiet.”

  When we came to the top of a high hill, the professor stopped and pointed down to the valley below. There it was, the Erie Canal. The canal was a long and narrow strip of water. It was so long we couldn’t see either end of it. Owen and Rachel started scribbling in their journals. They wanted to record everything they were seeing.

  The professor was right, it was a beautiful day. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The water in the canal sparkled in the sunlight. All was quiet except for the sound coming from the small town on the other side of the Erie Canal.

  Boats and barges were moving along the waterway in both directions. They were being pulled by teams of horses that walked along the banks. Just below us, a boat entered something that looked like a long box with stone sides. As we watched, the boat seemed to rise. Then the young man who was driving the horses snapped the reins. Next, the horses pulled the boat to another big box where it rose again and continued up the canal.

  Professor Tuesday reached into his coat pocket and took out some binoculars. We all took turns looking at the waterway and the town below. Some boats were carrying people, others carried barrels and boxes.

  “Look around carefully,” said the professor. “There is much to see and learn here, but we can’t stay long.”

  Off in the distance, a wagon made its way along a dirt road on the other side of the waterway. Clouds of dust were coming from its wheels as it bumped along. It looked like the wagon was heading for the town by the canal. When I looked through the binoculars, I could pick out the white steeple of a church, some stores, and a few homes along the hillside.

  Even though there were only a few buildings down by the canal, the small town was a beehive of activity. Men were hauling carts toward the dock that ran alongside the bank. It also looked like some adults and children were waiting nearby.

  Mister Adams Wanders

  Near Buffalo, New York—June 1826

  “This is a beautiful place,” Owen said as he looked around.

  “Indeed it is,” answered the professor. “In the future, there will be homes, villages, and roads dotting this countryside. In 1826, it is very primitive.

  We watched the canal and quietly listened to the sounds of nature for several minutes.

  “It’s time to go back now,” said the professor. “Where’s Mister Adams?” The professor looked upset. “Now, where is that pesky nephew of mine?”

  Owen swallowed with a loud gulp. “It’s not my fault. He was here just a minute ago.”

  “It’s never your fault,” Rachel said. “Can’t you do anything right?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Owen, “but you don’t have to yell at me every time I make a mistake. Nobody’s perfect, you know.”

  “Back off, Rachel,” I said, “Owen said he was sorry. Besides, we need to work together to find Mister Adams.”

  “He’s got to be somewhere nearby, he hasn’t been gone all that long,” the professor said. We started searching for him. “We should all be careful not to get lost while we’re looking for Mister Adams.”

  We walked in a big circle looking for the professor’s nephew. The brush was thick, making it hard to see very far. We were all getting a little scared.

  As we walked, we called out Mister Adams’s name, but there was no answer. I was hoping that he would speak up when he was called. If he was in trouble and using sign language, we wouldn’t know. Owen got all scratched up as he made his way through some picky bushes.

  Rachel was upset. This trip wasn’t turning out the way she planned. Mister Adams was nowhere to be found. And, she was afraid that the professor’s nephew might just ruin her chances of getting a good grade on her report.

  We completed a big circle without finding Mister Adams. It was easy to see that the professor was getting worried. When we returned to the place where we started, the professor looked up as he scratched his bald head. “Oh, there he is,” the
professor said, with relief, as he pointed to a nearby tree. “Thank goodness we found you. Now, get down here this minute.”

  Mister Adams was sitting on a branch in the tree. The professor’s nephew made a sign that I didn’t understand. It was like an ‘okay’ sign that he made by his face. Then he moved it toward the back of his head and pointed to the horizon. Then he spelled out a word.

  “What is he saying, Professor?” Rachel asked.

  “Mister Adams sees a group of Native Americans,” said the professor. “It looks like they are coming this way.”

  “What tribe are they from?” I asked.

  “Mister Adams says he doesn’t know for sure,” said the professor, “but he thinks they may be a hunting party from a nearby Seneca tribe.”

  “Are we in danger?” I asked.

  Professor Tuesday shook his head. “I don’t think we are in any danger, but I want to take you somewhere else. We need to be getting back to my office.”

  Mister Adams climbed down from the tree. When he got to the lowest branch, he swung back and forth a few times before jumping to the ground.

  The professor took a long look at his compass. Then we started back through the deep woods to the place we started this adventure. Owen’s one shoe squished with every step he took. When we got back to the creek he had stepped in, he was careful to jump over it this time.

  I could tell that the professor wasn’t happy with his nephew. I hoped he would let Owen and Rachel finish their research, but I wasn’t sure.

  Journey to the Melting Pot of Michigan

  Detroit—July 1837

  Once we stepped through the green cloud and back into Professor Tuesday’s office, the professor turned to his nephew. “Mister Adams, you gave us quite a scare back there. What if you had wandered off and gotten lost? I want you to promise that you’ll stay with us, or I’ll have to find a babysitter to stay here with you for the rest of the day.”