MD3PAD 571-573

[Toby G Levy]

        Mason notes that the songs being sung already sound American
rather than European. A song of revolutionary freedom nearly fills page
571, concluding with the line "Slaves ne'er again."

        Mason is invited to the College of William and Mary in
Williamsburg, and while he is there he meets a group of Tuscarora chiefs
who are working to remove the last of their people from the Carolinas
and reunite them with the rest of the Six Nations up north.  They are
nervous about crossing through Pennsylvania because of the Paxton Boys.
Mason assures them that there is safety in numbers, implying that the
Paxton Boys are bullying cowards.

        George Washington sends a note to Mason asking him to join him
in a game of billiards. Mason goes to the Raleigh Tavern and finds
Washington in the midst of revolutionary counsels with people passing
through the billiard room.

        Someone uses the word "Nigger" and Mason is greatly offended.
Through the smoke a voice says that in the smoke and poor light everyone
could be negroes.  Mason begins to get offended again but Washington
says that it is only his "Tithable" Gershom.  Gershom cracks a few
standup jokes and the crowd calls out for more.

        Another voice pipes up with a joke and it's Nathe McClean, back
attending classes at William and Mary. Nathe tells Mason that he left
the crew just in time to keep his sanity.  He said the craziness of Col
Zhang and the bad vibes from creating a straight line "into the Lands of
Others" was giving everyone in the crew bad feelings.

        Mason asks Nathe if Mason and Dixon should have turned down the
commission and refused to create the west line.

Toby