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.Jane was eager to give it a try.Ethel had made plans months before to take a bus trip to Longwood Gardens and she would be gone most of the day.A few minutes later, their German guest appeared.Jane called to her from the computer.“Clothilda, over here.”The older woman waved a folder.“I have brought my records down, as you asked.”“It occurred to me,” said Jane, “that we know your ancestors booked passage on a ship bound for the Port of Philadelphia.But have you ever checked to be sure that they actually were on that ship?”Clothilda’s eyebrows rose.“No, Jane, I have not tried to see this.You can help?”“I can help.I think,” said Jane.She swiveled her chair around to face the computer monitor.With a little navigating, she was able to find her way to the records from the Port of Philadelphia.They were listed by ship.Jane perused the dates, page by page.“When does your information say they sailed and on what ship?”Clothilda pointed to her paper.“There.I have only days, not name of ship.”Jane stabbed at the screen.“Look! I believe this is the ship.It’s the only one that lists that date as the ‘sailed from’ that matches yours.“It looks like it arrived in Philadelphia… two months later.Good heavens.Could that be? I suppose in 1749 it certainly could have been.” Rapidly, she scanned the list of the ship’s passengers’ names.“Oh, rats.I don’t see it on here.There’s Marckert, Matthey, Maurer, Mayer, Meer, Mehler, Meltzer, Mohr and Muller.”“No Moeller?” Clothilda’s shoulders sagged.“No Moeller.” Jane wished she had better news.“What do these little marks after some of the names mean? Oh… the ones with no marks were copied from the original German signature.The ones with asterisks—this little snowflake thing here—were names written by a clerk.I never thought about it but I imagine some of the immigrants were illiterate.”“Ill-lit… ill…?”“They could not read or write.They would have signed their name with a mark like an ‘X’ and told the clerk their name.So the clerk would have written it down.” A growing excitement filled Jane.“Clothilda, is it possible your ancestors might not have been able to write their name? Maybe a clerk wrote it down wrong!”But Clothilda shook her head.“I have the letters.Letters my family write.”“I forgot,” Jane said, disappointed.“What is this mark? This question mark?”“I didn’t see that one.Hold on.” Jane scanned the information key at the bottom of the page.“The ones with question marks mean the original German name was difficult to decipher.”“So maybe my family man was bad writer?”“I never thought of that.” Jane’s natural optimism returned.“A clerk could have copied it wrong if he found it hard to read.” She looked up, eyes alight.“Let’s compare the first names of your ancestors to the names of the people on this list to see if any are close.”“Yes.” Clothilda consulted her notes.“There are three boys—brothers.First is Georg Christian, twenty-nine years.Second is Hans Jacob, twenty-two years.No good.Many, many Hans and Jacob in Germany.Third is Conrad Maximilian, eighteen years.”“So the first and third brother have somewhat distinctive names.How about their wives?”“Georg married to Karolina.Hans married to Gertrud.Conrad not married.Georg have three children, names— Johanna, Mattheis, Ulrike.Hans have no children.”“Okay.” Jane rubbed her hands together.“Now we’re cooking with gas.”Clothilda looked toward the back of the house, toward the kitchen.“You must cook?”Jane laughed.“No, it’s just an expression.It means we are making progress.”“Ah.This I understand now.”“I’m going to print out the pages from the passenger manifest we found,” Jane told her guest, “and then we can compare the names to names that are similar.I saw at least two that are very close: Mehler, M-e-h-l-e-r, and Muller, M-u-l-l-e-r.”“Yes.” Clothilda nodded eagerly.“Let us go cook with gas.”Chapter ThirteenSaturday afternoon, Louise asked three of her beginning piano students to come to the house for a special preparatory session before the National Piano Guild auditions.Each of the three was a first-year student and had never been through the adjudicating process.Louise wanted to be sure they understood how the auditions would work.The first child did well, but the second child fumbled his way through his music badly enough that Louise felt the need to give him additional instruction.Unfortunately, that put her nearly ten minutes behind the time she had asked Patsy Ravin, the third child, to arrive.Patsy was a nervous girl to begin with, and Louise was dreading the session.The second-grader’s mother was determined that Patsy should become a concert pianist, and evidently she expected her to reach that goal within the first two years.Louise had rarely seen a parent pester a child so much about practicing.Poor Patsy already was so upset about the Guild auditions that Louise feared that the girl might make herself ill.When Louise approached the living room where the little girl was waiting, she expected to hear sobbing.Instead, a raspy masculine voice was saying something in a soothing tone.She stopped in the doorway, but the occupants of the living room did not see her.She saw that the man speaking was Maxwell.“… so when you go in there to play your pieces, don’t forget that I’ll be right there with you.” He was speaking earnestly to Patsy.This alarmed Louise.“Oh no,” she said.“Maxwell, no one but the judge goes in with the student.I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that.”“Ah, but I will.” Maxwell turned and winked at her, then turned back to the seven-year-old, holding her gaze even though he still spoke to Louise [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]