“I’m going to get on the boat first. I’ll buy some snacks if you want.”
“When it comes to food, it’s Max. I’ll reserve a seat for you, so go ahead.”
Holiday boarded a steamer with his family.
Max was wandering around the docks looking for something to eat. Then he saw the back of a man, selecting some bread from a stall.
Max slowly approached her.
“Is this a good restaurant?”
The startled man turns his head and looks at Max.
A subtle ripple appeared in his eyes.
Although his face was hidden by the scarf, he could not see it, but it was an unforgettable sight. He recognized Max and burst into laughter.
“It’s a coincidence.”
“I was surprised too.”
“Are you arriving today or are you on your way back?”
“On the way back to Lawrence.”
“That’s good. I’ll buy the bread.”
Ulysses Grant. He put down his large suitcase and tried to do the math.
“You have a lot to say.”
“…… how much?”
“Three adults, two children. I’ll buy it this time.”
Ulysses stepped back, and Max picked up whatever bread he could find.
After finishing the calculations, I naturally headed to the ship with Ulysses.
“Have you made up your mind? I thought spring would come.”
“I hurried because I wanted to see it with my own eyes. I left what I was doing and went, but wouldn’t it be a disaster if there was nothing?”
“That’s right. Good idea.”
Once on board, I introduced Ulysses to Holiday. They were four years apart in age, Ulysses being older. Perhaps because they had families and children in common, they quickly became close.
“It’s been two years and six months since the family was reunited.”
“I thought I would die if I were left alone. But I can’t bring you to a village that has just been developed.”
“I know how you feel. Until two years ago, I was a soldier. Being away from my family, I felt lonely and ended up drinking every day.”
‘So I guess you weren’t drinking.’
Ulysses suffered successive business failures and became addicted to alcohol. History clearly records this.
While they were wondering, the conversation turned to business.
Ulysses stared at the river with a vain face.
“Business isn’t something that just anyone can do. You have to be thoroughly prepared and take risks.”
“That’s true. I had plans, but today I almost got into trouble.”
Holiday looked at Max and asked.
“Max. Do you know what that document was?”
“I only know that it is a railway plan.”
“It took me two whole years to make. I wrote a lot of notes in it. Anyway, it got stolen, but Max found it for me.”
“Are you thinking of doing business with that?”
“Of course. The railroad is my dream.”
Ulysses shook his head at Holiday’s words.
“We have ships and carriages, but will the railroad succeed? I think it would be wisest to just live without working, and think about your family too.”
A business idiot giving advice to a business genius.
‘He’s the kind of guy who shouldn’t be doing business.’
Max nodded at Ulysses.
He had no vision for business.
While the two talked, Holiday’s wife Mary looked after Charles King, and Max played with the bored Lily.
It’s still cold in February.
Max’s baggage on his way back to Lawrence contained $7,000 worth of gold and cash, taken from the dead John Crenshaw.
The funds were raised to purchase land in Colorado.
*
The blacksmith shop inside Max Base.
Ulysses stuck out his tongue as he looked at the blacksmith shop, which was larger than he had expected. Not only was its size impressive, but the strange items piled up in the warehouse also caught his eye.
There are trash cans with lids, kettles with holes in them, and even a hammer that could remove nails, something that only appeared in the 20th century. There are also a variety of tools and other unidentifiable items, most of which were made as samples.
“Hey, did you come up with all this?”
“These are items for which patent applications are in progress.”
Ulysses was shocked and couldn’t speak for a while. At this moment, James Harris approached from inside the forge. His eyes grew wide and he looked surprised.
“Huh, Assistant Quartermaster Lieutenant Ulysses Grant?”
‘That guy is good at acting.’
Max had asked James to act as if he had met a benefactor when he met Ulysses.
But I didn’t know he would show off this kind of method acting.
“Huh? Oh, you···!”
Ulysses Grant stared at James, then suddenly remembered something and shook his hand, exclaiming, “Oh!”
“I remember now. That one that was assembled from a disassembled howitzer in San Cosme, Mexico City…”
“James Harris! He was one of the five men who took the howitzer up to the church steeple and reassembled it.”
“Oh! That day, we blew up the enemies with that howitzer!”
And for this victory, Ulysses S. Grant was promoted one rank.
‘What, we really knew each other?’
Even if Max didn’t link them together, the two had served together at a quartermaster base under General Winfield Scott, who led the Mexican War to victory.
Although we only vaguely remembered each other’s names, we knew each other’s faces.
“James, I don’t know how to thank you enough for not forgetting me and coming to see me.”
“What about gratitude? If it weren’t for you, Lieutenant, I would have been surrounded by Mexican soldiers and killed.”
“Isn’t it all thanks to us all getting through it together?”
A reunion with a comrade who crossed the line together.
Max also knew the overwhelming emotion because he had experienced it in his past life. There was much to talk about and many shared memories.
“So you run this blacksmith shop?”
“Well, I just do what Max tells me to do.”
“I saw the thing too, and it was huge.”
At this point Max spoke to James.
“We’ll be working together in the future, so James, please introduce me to your staff.”
“Okay! Let’s go together.”
James took Ulysses into the blacksmith shop.
Max watched the backs of the two with a satisfied expression.
‘So far, everything is going smoothly.’
February 1957.
Civil War commander and future president Ulysses S. Grant joined Marx’s camp, this time as a factory logistics worker.
*
“The cost of applying for a patent is currently a thousand dollars. As I said before, if you add in the time it takes to obtain it, it will be difficult to afford it this way.”
Wilson Shannon, who had been to Washington, returned.
As soon as he arrived, he started talking about the money that goes into patent acquisition costs.
“Money is important. So, have you checked with the salesperson who can sell the patent I asked you to sell to the company? The person that Holiday hired is supposed to arrive in a few months.”
Holiday was supposed to find a representative in the East Coast and Shannon was supposed to find a representative in the West Coast. However, California was too far away and the travel was difficult, so they put it on hold and decided to hire employees in the East Coast.
“David Russell. He was an employee of a bank that went bankrupt in Ohio a while ago. He’s capable, but the company he works for keeps failing wherever he goes.”
“….. Then aren’t we going to perish soon too?”
An awkward silence flowed between them.
“Do you believe in such superstitious things? And… I already brought him here. It’s not your luck, he’s a smart guy.”
After a while.
David Russell came into the office looking a bit squeamish. He was standing stiffly, probably listening to what Wilson Shannon had to say.
“Please sit down. Are you surprised that I am an Asian?”
“No, I saw it a lot in California.”
“That’s why I brought him here. He had experience in California. Of course, the company he worked for there also went bankrupt.”
Wilson Shannon intervened.
Max asked, swallowing a laugh.
“Do you know what you are doing?”
“I understand that they sell it to companies interested in patents.”
“That’s right. It won’t be difficult. I’ll set a reasonable floor price, and David just has to find a company that will pay that amount.”
Max handed over a list he had prepared in advance.
“First, I have selected only three items. You can write a report with a list of companies you visited, your impressions, and the contents of the meeting and report it periodically.”
“But, did I get hired?”
“That’s right. Congratulations on your hiring. Ability is one thing, but what I consider most important is trust. When a lot of money is involved, people’s hearts can waver. You might have other thoughts in the middle. Just don’t do that.”
“I absolutely do not intend to do so!”
“Shannon trusted me and brought me here, so I have to trust her too.”
Max finished the interview quickly.
Wilson came out and patted David on the shoulder.
“If you have other thoughts, you and I will both die. Your family may be in danger too. Didn’t I tell you? You are a scary person.”
“It didn’t look like that.”
“That’s why it’s even scarier, Inma. So, get your mind straight and work. I’m the one who will reward you for the work you do.”
They both lived in Ohio, and David’s parents and Wilson were quite close. He seemed capable, but he was brought in because he was sad to see his company fail over and over again, leaving him unemployed.
Max, who had hired permanent staff in the East, concentrated on the blacksmith business for a while. Since bulky items were less efficient, he decided to focus on small items. Among them, a set of nails and a hammer to remove them was suitable. Ulysses Grant was in charge of securing the necessary funds to make them and loading the finished products into the warehouse.
Meanwhile, Alfredo was working in a corner room of the blacksmith’s shop, making a small metal mold.
This is a centerfire bullet, the perfect form of full metal jacket.
With or without Smith’s permission, Max set about building the frame.
“Alfredo, this is an absolute secret. You’ll know if it gets out, right?”
“Of course! No one knows except James.”
When the cold winter passes and the warm spring comes.
The Jayhawks that had left like migratory birds began to return one by one.
“Captain! I’m back from vacation!”
“I never gave you a vacation. Anyway, I’m back safely.”
Among them, Haines and Jamie, who we saw in St. Louis, returned. They even shed tears when they saw Max.
“I missed you so much. Here, this.”
Haines and his party tilted their heads as they accepted what Max had given them.
“It’s called Thor’s Hammer, a revolutionary hammer set. You can take this and go around the hardware store.”
“yes?”
“Let’s just go around for a month.”
Max wanted to recruit 50 Jayhawkers as salesmen to sell Thor’s hammer sets.
At first there was some commotion, but when they offered a 20% sales incentive, the place quickly became full of people.
That’s how the blacksmith’s first product, Thor, was introduced to the world. It was a revolutionary hammer that could remove nails, 40 years ahead of its time.
Meanwhile, at the Port of St. Louis, a black family boarded a ship bound for Lawrence.
It was the Dred Scott family, a week before the Supreme Court’s ruling on March 6.
As the verdict approached, Scott felt increasingly anxious and decided to move to Lawrence, the safest place to live.
Also on board was a 20-year-old man named Charles Hart, who would become the new teacher at Lawrence School.
Degurrurur.
A rubber ball that children were playing with on the deck stopped between Charles Hart’s legs. Charles Hart picked it up with his hand, checked his surroundings, and then threw the ball overboard.
And then he read the newspaper as if nothing had happened.
< Did you know each other? > End
< Worst Verdict >
With the warm spring days, the Jayhawks who had left and the townspeople who had gone home returned to town one after another. And among them was the Dred Scott family, a week before the historic verdict.
Max and Peach greeted Scott, his wife, and their two daughters at the Kansas River dock.
“Sorry I’m late. I have some things to take care of.”
“I’m sorry. It’s not an easy decision to pack up and move out.”
Scott had the help of several sponsors.
Since I was receiving support for not only the attorney’s fees but also my job and living expenses, it was not something I could have done by just leaving on my own.
“But fortunately, when I said my name was Lawrence, everyone cheered me on.”
But Scott’s wife and two daughters still looked anxious. Peach tried to ease their anxiety by talking to them and approaching them in a friendly manner.
As Peach loads the Scott family’s luggage onto the wagon, a woman approaches and pretends to know him.
The third teacher to take up the post after Peach was Lucy Wilder.
“It’s been hard to see your face lately, but here I am.”
“It’s been a while, Lucy. I heard you’re transferring to a new high school?”
“The opening ceremony is next Monday. Are you coming?”
“Of course I should go.”
“Oh, right.”
Lucy Wilder pointed to the man next to her.
“This is the new teacher, Charles Hart. Um… teacher?”
Charles Hart, a 20-year-old with curly hair that exposed his forehead. He didn’t even hear Lucy’s words, and his eyes were drawn to an Asian of the same age.
Peach smirked and dabbed Charles Hart’s eyes with her palm.
“Is it because you find Asian men strange?”
“Oh, sorry. My name is Charles Hart.”
“This is Emily Pawn Peach. You’re new here, huh?”
“Yes, that’s what happened.”
“Please take good care of the children. Although there are some troublemakers, they are all good-natured.”
Charles Hart said with a smile.
“Isn’t causing trouble a sign that you’re growing up healthy? I want to see you soon.”
“Wow, you say that. The kids will follow along well.”
As Peach smiled, Max approached.
“You have to pitch up to the loading speed, Peach. I’ve already loaded everything.”
“Oh my, our Sheriff Max has a sense of humor!”
“Wow, if you laugh, I’ll know it’s real.”
Peach opened her eyes wide and Max smiled as he greeted Lucy.
“It’s been a while, Lucy.”
“It’s been hard to see you since I quit being sheriff.”
While exchanging greetings, Charles Hart was looking at Max absentmindedly. Lucy soon introduced him to Max.
“Nice to meet you. Please take good care of the future dream trees. My name is Max Joe.”
When Max extended his hand to shake, Charles Hart flinched, then quickly took it.
‘I guess you didn’t just grab the pen.’
Max thought Charles’s hands were rougher than he thought. And the grip was quite strong.
“Then let’s meet again next time.”
Max, who had taken an interest in Charles Hart, returned to the base with the Dred Scott family, and Lucy Wilder and Charles Hart headed to the school.
As he walked along, Charles Hart took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands several times.
Lucy asked after seeing this.
“What do you have on your hands?”
‘Then. It got dirty.’
Contrary to his thoughts, Charles opened his mouth calmly.
“Because I sweat a lot. By the way, Mr. Peach, what is your current job?”
“After my contract ended, I worked as a deputy sheriff, and now I’m a member of the militia.”
“If it’s a militia, then it’s Jayhawks?”
“Well, that’s what it is. Mr. Hart, you came to Lawrence because of slavery, right?”
Charles Hart’s application stated that he was an abolitionist and a believer in human rights.
Otherwise, there would be no reason to come to Lawrence.
“Yes, I am wondering what my role is in Lawrence, the heart of the abolitionists.”
“Oh, my. You’re a deep thinker. Then, while teaching children, try being a member of the militia. Peach was like that too.”
Charles Hart’s eyes sparkled as if he had discovered an interesting fact.
Before coming here, he had worked in various jobs in addition to teaching in Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana.
For Charles Hart, being a teacher was just a childhood dream, and now it was just a means to hide his identity.
