The Cave of Time Page 5

  “What President?” you reply.

  Then, to your amazement, you get the answer to your question, for the very tall bearded man walking down the aisle could be no one else but Abraham Lincoln.

  “That’s all right,” the President tells the soldiers, “I could use some company right now. You may stay until we reach Gettysburg,” he says to you. “But maybe you should get off at Parkersville. I know of some good people there who will help you out.”

  Stay on until Gettysburg

  Get off at Parkersville

  “I’d like to stay on till Gettysburg,” you say.

  “Well, that’s fine,” the President replies. “Why don’t you sit across from me? I have to write out a little talk I’m giving there, and, while I’m doing that, you think about what you’re going to make of your life, because you can’t spend all your time riding on trains, after all.”

  You nod in agreement and sit quietly watching the President scribbling some lines on an envelope. After awhile he looks up from his writing and you look each other in the eyes.

  “You have a great future,” he says abruptly. “How can you tell,” you ask.

  “By looking at your face.”

  “Just by that?”

  “Just so.”

  As you are talking, you notice two elaborately dressed men approaching from the end of the car. They whisper a few words to the President. He excuses himself, shakes hands with you, and tells one of his soldiers to see that you are provided for in Gettysburg.

  When you arrive at Gettysburg, one of the soldiers takes you to a family who welcomes you warmly and agrees to put you up for awhile, if you will help them out with their farm.

  You find it amazing to be living in a time with no cars, radios, television, record players, or even telephones. It’s peaceful—at least when there is not a war going on—but you feel homesick. You feel the great future the President predicted for you lies in your own time, and you resolve to find your way back to the Cave of Time.

  The End

  If you take the train, it may ruin your chance to return to the Cave of Time. It seems best to stay close to the tunnel. At any rate, you decide you will be able to think better after getting something to eat, so you walk over to the farmhouse.

  The farmer’s wife gives you a bowl of soup, but she won’t believe the story you make up to explain your presence there. You soon get the idea you are not welcome, so you trudge on into town, where the innkeeper lets you have a room for the night.

  The next morning you get a ride on a coach to Philadelphia. A Quaker family takes you in and helps you get work as a carpenter’s apprentice. You don’t like the job, and soon you leave Philadelphia to go to New York, where you are able to find a job working for a newspaper. Eventually you travel all over the world. You live a long and wonderful life, dying just a few years before you are born.

  The End

  It’s less than a mile to Parkersville, and the President shakes your hand and wishes you luck. One of the soldiers arranges with the station agent for a carriage to take you to a farm owned by an old friend of his.

  You soon become a member of the family. They are good people and make you feel very much at home. You are surprised to learn, however, that they plan to sell their farm and move to California. The new life in the West they describe is so appealing that you decide to go with them.

  You never regret it, except, sometimes, you wish you could see your own time again.

  The End

  With considerable trepidation you slide down the tunnel. You mean to turn off at one of the side passageways that might take you back to your own time, but you are too exhausted to search for the entrance. You half slide, half climb down the tunnel—further back into time—then you lose your balance. You fall a great distance, land in deep water, and sink a long ways.

  You are barely able to surface and, when you do, you find that the air is filled with dense fog. The water is warm, but the fog is so thick you can hardly breathe. The air smells slightly of sulphur. Gasping for breath, you realize you must be several billion years in the past and that oxygen has not yet been released into the atmosphere.

  The End

  The next day you call the Department of Zoology at a nearby university, where you are referred to Dr. Henry Kam, a specialist in large reptiles. Dr. Karn is skeptical about the egg but agrees to drive to Red Creek Ranch immediately to see it.

  By the time he arrives, you are feeling very nervous. Suppose the egg is just made of plastic? Your concern is heightened by his stern appearance. He shakes hands brusquely with you and your uncle and immediately asks to see the egg.

  When you hand it to him, he says nothing while he stares intently at it, holds it up to the light, taps it and scratches it with a pen knife. Then he holds it to his ear.

  Finally he smiles at you and gently puts the egg down. “It’s quite possible this is the egg of a Plesiosaurus, an aquatic dinosaur of the late Jurassic period. It is highly unlikely it will ever hatch. Even so, I would want to keep it in an incubator at the University for at least a year before breaking it open. I’ll let you know, of course, if anything develops.”

  A few weeks have passed since then and whenever the phone rings you wonder if Dr. Karn is calling.

  The End

  When you tell him you come from theTwentieth Century through the Cave of Time, Nick smiles. Then you tell him a little about life in your own time—about cars and planes, telephones and television. He listens intently, with a big grin on his face, as if you are telling th funniest story ever told.

  “I’m so glad to meet you,” Nick says. “I’ve always wanted to know about life in the Twentieth Century.” He tries to look serious, but begins to laugh, thinking it’s all a joke.

  “Seriously,” you say (since you know he will never believe you), “I have no home. Do you know of a place where I can stay?”

  “I’m sure you can stay at our house,” he says warmly. “We have such a big family, one more won’t matter, but you must be willing to work in the shop with the rest of us.”

  Since you feel you hardly have any other choice, you accept his offer and feel grateful when his parents give you a good dinner and a comfortable bed. Nick tells you, with much seriousness, that you are living in the year 1718 in Boston, the principal town in the British colony of Massachusetts.

  You soon become one of the family. They are good people and treat you well. But each day you have to work long hours boiling soap and pouring it into molds, waiting on customers and doing errands for Nick’s father, whom you have come to know as Uncle Ted.

  Your neighbor, Mr. Nelson, is a printer. He recently returned from England with a printing press and letter type he bought there. The business interests you, and you consider working as his apprentice, but to do so you would have to sign papers indenturing yourself to work faithfully for him for six full years.

  Stay at home and continue to work for Uncle Ted

  Be indentured to be an apprentice in Mr. Nelson’s printing business

  You do your best to make up a story about how you ran away from home, but Nick sees that you are not telling him the truth. While you’re talking, he packs up his fishing gear, says goodbye, and walks off.

  Once he is out of sight, you start down the road and, after a mile or so, reach a settled area. While you are standing near
a church, wondering what to do next, a constable approaches and asks where you’re from. This time you try to explain what really happened. After listening awhile, he arrests you for disorderly conduct and locks you up in the local jail.

  Later in the day, a big, stupid-looking guard comes to bring you a ration of soup and bread. He is fascinated by your strange clothes and by the rumors he has heard about you. After opening the door to your cell, he hands you your food and stands back and looks at you curiously.

  “They say you’re in league with the devil,” he says. “Is it so?”

  Try to run past the guard and escape

  Tell him you are innocent

  Although you feel you would probably enjoy the printing business more than a career as a soap maker, you wish to remain free to take advantage of some other opportunity.

  The work with Uncle Ted is tedious. You feel you could not bear life devoted to making candles and soap. You spend most of your spare time reading what books you can lay hold of, but you are anxious to travel and see the world.

  Not long afterwards, you sign up on the brigantine, Nina, as a deck hand. The ship is owned by a rich merchant, and it is bound for Barbados in the West Indies with a load of lumber and then on to England.

  You find life at sea much harder than you expected, especially when you are required to climb the rigging in a howling gale, but eventually you become captain of your own ship. In every place you visit you ask the people you meet whether they have ever heard of the Cave of Time.

  The End

  You go to work in Mr. Nelson’s shop and soon become proficient in the art of printing. But after awhile, you become increasingly unhappy. Mr. Nelson refuses to raise your wages or give you a chance to own part of the business. There are no jobs available for you in Boston, so you decide to move to Philadelphia, where you have heard there is a greater demand for printing.

  Happily, Mr. Nelson agrees to release you from your indenture, and by selling almost all your possessions, you are able to raise enough money to engage passage on a coastal schooner. After a long and stormy voyage down the coast, your ship docks early on a Sunday morning at the Market Street wharf in Philadelphia.

  You are tired and hungry and you use some of your last money to buy a loaf of bread. Out of curiosity, you follow some well-dressed people into the Quaker meeting house. The people seat themselves, but, following custom, no one speaks. It is so peaceful you fall sound asleep. When you awaken, the Quakers welcome you. One family gives you lodging and, fortunately, you are able to get a job with one of the two printers in the town.

  You work hard to improve your skills as a printer. Within a few years, with the help of some friends, you are able to raise enough money to go into business on your own.

  Your printing business thrives, and after awhile you start your own newspaper. It begins to look as if the Eighteenth Century is a pretty good time for you to be alive.

  The End

  The guard is too startled, and maybe even too afraid, to stop you as you dart past him and out of the jail house. You run down the street as fast as you can. As you stop to catch your breath, a thin, bearded man driving a coach pulls up next to you.

  “You seem to be in some trouble,” he calls out. “Can I be of help?”

  Too tired to make up any story, you begin to tell him everything that has happened to you. He is very excited by your story and invites you to a nearby tavern, where you have your first good meal since you left Red Creek ranch. Your host hardly eats anything. He looks pale and seems to have a bad cough.

  Go on to the next page.

  When you finish recounting your tale, he says, “It is strange that we have met. I have tuberculosis, and no doctor in Boston can help me. My only hope is to reach a future time.”

  “I think it’s my only hope too,” you say.

  “If we help each other, I think we can find our way back to your time—my new time,” he replies.

  The two of you shake hands on it and set out on your quest the next day at sunrise.

  Together, you are successful in finding your way to the present time. Your friend from the past is cured with the help of modem medicines and later becomes a history teacher who is known throughout the country for his amazing knowledge of life in colonial America.

  The End

  When you tell the guard you are innocent, he scowls and slams shut the door of the cell. “You’ll not take me to the devil with you!” he calls back as he walks away.

  The next day you are brought into a courtroom before a stem looking judge. After hearing the charges against you and listening to what you have to say, he shakes his head and scowls angrily. Then he looks at the prosecutor and pounds his fist on the bench.

  “Your charge against this person is for disorderly conduct, but the specifications you give are `strange clothes and telling stories invented by the devil.’ What you really are charging is witchcraft! There will be no such madness in my court and let me have none of it again from you! Case dismissed.”

  The judge not only sets you free, but afterwards gives you a home to live in and helps you on your way to a good and happy life in the Eighteenth Century.

  The End

  There is a certain tone in the knight’s laughter that does not inspire your trust, so you thank him graciously and tell him you have other business to attend to.

  “Then go to it,” the knight replies. “Take care to keep your business drier than yourself!”

  He gallops off in a rush. You are glad to be rid of him.

  Eager to find the entrance to the Cave of Time, you climb up behind the rock wall that slopes into the pond. After searching for an hour, you find a tunnel leading underground.

  Continue

  You jump aboard and find yourself in a sealed chamber. The walls surrounding you remind you of the inside of a bathtub. It occurs to you that the beings who control this spaceship have some means of manipulating time. Could it be that the Cave of Time is their creation? As you are thinking these thoughts, you become increasingly drowsy. In a moment you are asleep.

  You awaken in darkness, wondering if you may be traveling through space in the alien ship. There is light coming toward you from one direction and you get up and walk toward it. Then you realize you are looking through the opening of your cave. You hurry out and, to your joy, find Snake Canyon just as you remembered it. You are back in your own time.

  It’s a long while before you feel like visiting Snake Canyon again. When you do, you find the opening to the Cave of Time has been covered over by a massive rock slide, and, you think to yourself that may be just as well.

  The End