The Grantville Gazette - Vol 3 Part 11

Ha! That was his job. To use his best judgment and determine if a project could do what it claimed it could. He's just been trying to do what was right.

In the weeks since Sarah had broken the news, Delia had made her displeasure known, but she and David had never actually talked about it. Delia had done the right thing. She had called the bank and put a temporary freeze on David using his shares as collateral for a loan, so he couldn't invest his own future in her hotel project. But she had done it for all the wrong reasons. She hadn't done it to protect David.

She had done it to show that it wasn't the money that she was upset about, but David's lack of understanding of what she was trying to do. Now, with the Croats raiding the school, she wondered if she would ever have a chance to heal the breach.

Lauer Traugott was living and working inKa.s.sel . He had been a tailor in Badenburg before the Ring of Fire, of moderate skill but good business sense. Now he ran a sewing machine shop and hardware store inKa.s.sel , where he had relatives. Over all, he was fairly pleased with his situation. Among the attractions of his shop was the only radio in town. It had been pulled from a 1984 Ford that hadn't run for years before the Ring of Fire. It had a twelve-volt car battery and a pedal-cranked generator that provided power for it. It picked up the one and only radio station in the world, the Voice of America, or, as it was also known the "VOA." From a bit before dawn to a few hours after and again in the evenings around sunset, it reported the news and provided entertainment and education to anyone with a radio. Most radios were crystal sets, but his was a real up-time "transistor" radio. This morning the program was music and he was mostly enjoying this alone. Later this evening there would be a cla.s.s in sewer systems, and his shop would be full of kids and some adult parents picking up some up-time knowledge.

"There is an attack!" the radio blared. Lauer sat entranced and frightened as the events and instructions unfolded. There was a vivid description of Chief of Police Dan Frost standing in the middle of the street and bringing the Croat charge to a crashing halt. There was less information about what was happening at the school. It was horribly frustrating. There would be a few minutes of what was going on in one place, then a delay while the announcer described and discussed what they knew of the overall situation, then a vivid description of what was going on somewhere else. The Spanish attacks onEisenach andSuhl were proclaimed to be no more than diversions. By the time the radio cut off for the morning the attack had been repelled, but the number of casualties and amount of damage that Grantville had suffered was not clear yet. What was clear was that the attack would have been worse if a contingent of the king ofSweden 's army hadn't shown up to save the day. That evening, Lauer and a considerable contingent ofKa.s.sel 's elite were sitting by the radio when VOA came on the air. "Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report that there were very few casualties from this morning's attack." The announcer went on to name every person killed or injured in the attack. It was a short list. One American woman and a few Finns killed in the actual attack, some wood-cutters killed as the Croats snuck in, some injuries, not quite twenty names all told. "Two hundred and thirty-four Croat bodies have been found so far, and more than twice that number of injured have been captured." It was a terrifying thing. Three armies sent, two as a distraction, three armies destroyed, and Grantville not even hurt, just angered. The battle was discussed in some detail, and the anger at Wallenstein's Croats'

focus on the high school was clear. Then things got vague. It was clear that something politically important had happened, but not exactly what.

The real news came the next day. Gustav Adolf, the king ofSweden , had led the Finnish rescuers himself. He and the President of the New United States had negotiated an alliance forming the Confederated Princ.i.p.alities of Europe. More, the New U.S. was to receive the administration of additional lands.Ka.s.sel would not be part of the New U.S., but it was part of the CPE. While all the details hadn't been worked out, the outline of the agreement said one thing clearly to anyone that would listen. The New United States now had a protector and the king ofSweden had a new ally, both militarily and economically. It would take the news a bit longer to reachAmsterdam , but it had traveled better than a third of the way instantly.

David Heesters was sitting his office and fretting. Kaspar was worried as well, he could tell. It had been almost a week since the news of the Spanish army had hit town. When the message from Lauer Traugott arrived it was a surprise. David had never heard of the man. Well, the message was to Kaspar. Kaspar it turned out had met the man a total of once. Kaspar had received the message with apparent trepidation, read it, and pa.s.sed it on. G.o.d, it seemed, would not allow Grantville to be destroyed or even badly damaged. It read like one of the westerns Kaspar had told him of, with the cavalry riding to rescue at the last moment.

"You need to do something nice for Herr Traugott, son. He is a man who can think quickly and well."

Hiring the messenger to make the trip was not cheap. Now, at least a few hours ahead of most of Amsterdam, they had the news that the expected attack had been thwarted, that future attacks were unlikely, and were even less likely to succeed and that the ease with which Grantville could reach new markets was greatly increased. All in all, the New U.S. had come out of the attack rather better off than it had been before.

Now for the important question, what to do about it? David Heesters had no doubt. He could get backing, based on this letter, to buy commodities whose value had fallen when the rumors of attack had started. When Kaspar had started buying things in theAmsterdam markets, the price of the commodities that Grantville needed had increased. When the rumors of an attack on Grantville and the up-timers had surfaced, the price of those commodities had fallen bellow what they had originally been. When this got out, prices would shoot through the roof. Herr Traugott's messenger was standing tiredly in the corner.

"Herr?"David Heesters asked, looking at the messenger.

"Fiedler, sir."

"I understand from the message you carry that you were promised a bonus of five guilders if the message reached us in good time and its contents were not discussed with anyone?" "Yes, sir.That's what Herr Traugott told me. I haven't said a word about what the radio told us to anyone." Clearly Herr Fielder was a bit concerned about his bonus.

"Good man," David Heesters continued. "If you will consent to be our guest for the next two days and fill your mouth with the best food we can manage instead of gossip, I'm minded to make the bonus a full ten guilders."

Herr Fiedler grinned, showing some missing teeth. "I never was one for gossip, sir, and do enjoy a good meal now and again. Not but what the news we heard over the radio doesn't make a good story, but I'll be content enough to let others tell it for the next few days."

"Very well then.I may want to talk to you some more later. But for now..." He rang for a servant."Show Herr Fiedler to the blue room, and see if you can come up with something especially nice for his dinner."

"So, Father, who do we ask?" Kaspar had clearly realized the situation.

"Not, I think, the tulip fund." David Heesters grinned at his son. "And we must move quickly."

They spent a few minutes discussing who to contact. They would need to tell some potential investors.

Show them the message, and then find through them an agent who was not a.s.sociated with OPM, and arrange for them to do the buying. Messages were sent quietly.

Herr Fiedler spent some of the next morning "gossiping" to selected friends of the Heesters. They had most of that day before another messenger arrived with a somewhat garbled account of the Battle of Grantville. By then they had most of the goods Kaspar was supposed to get. Then the merchants ofAmsterdam started putting it all together and the orders for OPM shares started pouring in. It was all very exciting, and seemed, to many, proof of divine favor.

"I'd like to see Mr. Walker."

"What is this in regard to?" Jackie Lowry asked. Sarah Wendell had had run-ins with Coleman Walker before. Indirectly, when he had refused the loan to start HSMC, and later on directly, when she was negotiating to sell the paper onrent with the option to buy purchases of sewing machines.

"A deposit."

"I can take care of that for you." Jackie didn't want another fight.

"Not this one." Sarah opened a briefcase and showed letters on parchment. Parchment was not a good sign. It was expensive and tended to be used only for very large transactions. The number of letters was not a good sign either. Jackie yielded to the inevitable and called Mr. Walker.

Sarah was suffering the financial version of buck fever as she strode into Mr. Walker's office. OPM was in danger of failing from its success. She needed Mr. Walker's help. At the same time it was a vindication.

* * * Coleman Walker was a small-town banker who had been faced with a very sudden change of circ.u.mstance a bit over a year ago. He was also a stubborn man. The combination had had a few negative repercussions. In general he had done pretty well, first in setting the initial exchange rate, then in making a lot of very good loans. Coleman had a wife and two sons. He was a firm believer in the bunghole theory of child rearing: "put them in a barrel and feed them through a bung hole." The standard bunghole theory says to drive in the bung when they turn eighteen. Coleman's version suggested the bung should be driven in about twelve and they should be let out to go into the army at eighteen. When they came back they would be people. Probably to everyone's advantage most of the family's child rearing was done by his wife. He had never been comfortable around children. He didn't have much faith in their judgment. Hadn't when he was a child, hadn't when he was raising his boys, and didn't now.

There was a grand total of one exception to that rule. Making that exception had taken most of the last year, and had not been a comfortable process. The exception was walking into his office. The fact that he had come to respect Sarah Wendell didn't make him fond of her. In fact she was an affront to many of his most deeply held beliefs. His explanation of Sarah Wendell was that she was a freak of nature, like a two-headed goat. But from what Jackie had said, she was a two-headed goat with money. And the Bank of Grantville needed money. The Bank of Grantville now had two sections, the Reserve and the Bank. The Reserve determined how much money the Bank could loan out. The Bank part was getting close to the limit. Coleman didn't want to raise the limit because he was afraid people would lose confidence in the dollar. He was, however; fully aware of the need for more money. They needed money to finance the industrial revolution, especially the roads. Getting the products of Grantville industry to the surrounding towns and villages was expensive. "Miss Wendell, I understand you have some deposits."

"Yes sir." Sarah smiled. "Herr Heesters' trip toAmsterdam produced rather larger investments in OPM than we had hoped for." She started pulling out the doc.u.ments. Most of them were certificates confirming ownership of this or that product: lacquer, silk, chocolate, and other goods, each with an estimated value in guilders. Then she got to the one directly from Bank of Amsterdam, all properly set out, a.s.signing ownership of a large amount of silver to OPM. The silver itself was still sitting comfortably inAmsterdam .

But this wasn't the first such note the bank had received, just the largest.By far the largest.

Kaspar's trip toAmsterdam had brought a tremendous addition of funds to OPM, making it possible to invest in larger projects. In light of that and Delia's willingness to accept the aid of a financial manager, the hotel project with modifications was finally agreed on in late 1632. Brent and Trent never actually got to start their respective companies, not exactly. They ended up handing them off to friends from school and managers provided by OPM. The Partow Washing Machine Corporation, PWMC, usedTrent 's designs and the Home Power Plant Corporation, HPPC, used Brent's, but though they did own stock they never actually ran either company. PWMC started putting out usable human-powered washing machines in the spring of 1633, about the time that Johan Kipper met Darlene Braun. But that's another story.

If the Demons Will Sleep

By Eva Musch

There were still two hours until his appointment at the city hall. Istvan Janoszi was walking around Grantville at a rapid pace, watching it wake up on a Sat.u.r.day morning. He had been thoroughly briefed before he came, so he knew that the pace of a Sat.u.r.day should be somewhat different than the pace of Monday through Friday. Still, to some extent, the place bemused him. How could a city function without a marketplace? But it seemed to be that the market just spread throughout the town. Instead of gathering in one convenient, designated, and duly licensed spot, women were setting up their tables on the gra.s.sy spots around the houses-just on some of them, but not on all of them-and putting out their wares.

Other women were gathering around them, prepared to bargain.

How did they find out who is selling what and where the vendor will set up?he wondered. From near one of the tables, a young child ran toward the paved street. A woman, heavy with late pregnancy, turned from the piles of second-hand clothing and said a few sharp words, calling her back. Istvan thought, almost, that he recognized the words. But no woman from his home village was likely to be here, among these Americans. It had been nearly twenty years since he'd been there himself.

He had never wanted to go back to that village inSlovakia . He walked on, deciding to take in the Sat.u.r.day sermon at the Calvinist church before his meeting.

Two men came into theLeahyMedicalCenter . The receptionist knew the first man. He taught physical education at the grade school her two sons attended. Since she knew he was a Scot, she said, "Good morning" instead of "Guten Morgen." Then she asked, "May I help you?" And she beamed with pride.

"Wonderful, Maria, wonderful!" Guy Russell said with approval. "Your English is very good now. Just keep coming to the adult education cla.s.ses." From the confusion on her face, he concluded that this was not one of the answers that she had been taught to expect when she memorized her dialogues.

She repeated her question. "May I help you?" Then she tried the rest of her repertoire. "What do you want? Is someone sick? Is someone hurt? Do you have an appointment?" To her obviously great relief, the last question was the correct one.

"We have an appointment. We are here to talk to Nurse DeVries."

Several simple declarative sentences later, they were sitting in a small office that Guy Russell was sure was a cubbyhole, but which he had learned that the up-timers called a "cubicle," waiting until the nursecame in.Mrs. DeVries was not,he thought, perhaps the right specialist for his companion's problem, but she had an inestimable advantage over any other of the nurses in the hospital. The man accompanying him was originally fromCleves , and Nurse DeVries spoke Dutch. Indeed, she was Dutch. There might be some hope of mutual understanding.

The man with Guy was named Endres Elstener.Or maybe Andreas Aelstener.Or possibly Anders van Aelsten. It had depended on the mood of the company clerk: all three appeared on the records of the mercenary unit to which he had formerly belonged and he answered to them all, although he preferred the last one. The Grantville Bureau of Vital Statistics found this very annoying. One apprentice clerk sat there all day and did little else than cut pieces of paper into rectangular slips, all the same size to go in drawers, and write down the different ways to spell the same person's name on them. Guy didn't know how what official or bureaucratic alchemy they used to decide which one was the "right" way. It would be too complicated to ask.

Anders knew the teacher because his son, also, attended the school. Nurse DeVries came in. Anders explained. At first, his problem seemed simple enough. His woman was within a month, he was sure, of delivering a baby. He wanted to have an up-time midwife when the time came. This would be the last baby, he expected. His Barbara wasn't young any more. They had been together a dozen years, and she was no young girl a dozen years ago. Between the ten-year-old in school and this day there had been four babies, born in camps and along roadsides. Only one still lived- a three-year-old girl.

"Just bring her to the hospital when labor starts," was Henny DeVries' first answer. "We always have a nurse midwife on call. Even better, bring her in for one or two prenatal checkups, first."

That was when things got complicated. "There can't be four walls," Anders said. "Barbara screams a lot when there are four walls around her." He looked at the nurse's expression and said defensively, "I didn't do it. I don't beat my woman. She doesn't need beating. Walls made her scream when I found her."

Up-time, Henny DeVries had been a psychiatric nurse. She didn't really want to contemplate the events in the unknown Barbara's past that might have brought her to the point of screaming if there were four walls around her and a roof over her head. "Where did you, ah, 'find her'?'

"InBohemia.When I was fighting in the Crazy Halberstadter's men.She was by a roadside, with a shovel, trying to bury an old man. She wasn't strong enough to dig. I took the shovel and buried the man. Then I took her back to camp with me. She is my only woman. I am her only man."

"Full name?"

"Barbara Hartzi.Or Barbola Harczy?Maybe Harssy?Near that. I can't spell Bohemian. Anyway, I don't think she was born inBohemia .Farther east.Maybe-Ungarn?"

"Hungary."

"Or maybeTransylvania.Perhaps.c.r.o.a.tia.She knows what the village name was, but she doesn't know where it was. But she was not very small when her family fled intoBohemia . She was almost grown to a young woman."

Henny sighed,then asked, "Does she speak any German?" It was far too much to hope that she would speak English. "She has learned some of mine-the Platt fromCleves . But she does not speak the German from around here," Anders replied.

Henny contemplated the problem of delivering a baby, outside of the hospital, to a possibly Hungarian woman who had, over the past ten years, learned to speak a little Low German, but would almost certainly forget it in the stress of hard labor.We do not have problems, she reminded herself.We have challenges and opportunities. Although, most of the time, she admitted that the Mormon women who volunteered at the hospital were worth their weight in gold, there were times that she wanted to strangle them. Those times were mostly when they recited that "challenges and opportunities" jargon!

Then something occurred to her. "If she can't stand walls, then your family can't be in the refugee housing. Where do you live?"

"In a camp.Up in one of the 'hollows.'"Anders smiled proudly. "I made it myself. I invite you to come and see. We have made a good home, my woman and I."

Henny looked at Guy. Guy looked at Henny. She asked, "Your woman?Or your wife?"

Anders frowned."My woman. Who would authorize a marriage for such as us?"

Guy looked at Henny. Henny looked at Guy. "It's Sat.u.r.day morning," he said. "I'm not doing this because I work for the school. I'm on my own time." Thinking, he added, "Clevesis Calvinist."

"Let's go, then." Henny stood up, the men following her. As she led them through the entrance, she stopped. "Maria. I am on call. I am not on duty. Clock me out for two hours, please." She looked at her wrist.w.a.tch. "It isnine o'clock . I will come back in two hours." She checked as Maria recorded this on the chalkboard; then said, "Thanks."

Henny had been at the hospital, if not on duty, for three hours already. When she stepped outside, she said, "I do not believe this." The sun was shining. The sky was blue. The only clouds were tiny, white and puffy. The breeze was warm. It was May. It might not last for long, but for this one day, it was spring.

She whirled around in her white sneakers, clapping her hands. Then she remembered to go back inside, take off the sneakers, and replace them with heavy walking shoes. She cast a wistful glance at the bicycle rack, but there was no point in outdistancing the others. They walked.

Earlier that morning, the driver of the freight wagon that stopped in front of St. Mary Magdalene's Catholic Church had also been happy for the good weather. It was not fun to unload wagons in the rain.

The crates that he brought were very heavy. It took four men to unload each one of them. Father Augustus Heinzerling, who signed for the delivery, had run back to the rectory for a crowbar and pried one of them open, right there on the sidewalk. His prayers had been answered:Auserlesene, Catholische, Geistliche Kirchengesaeng (Cologne, 1623). They had arrived safely, even though the press was outside the borders of the CPE, in enemy territory. Now he had enough copies of the most modern, up-to-date, and popular hymnal that the German Catholic church published to supply every member of the choir and scatter them out among the congregation as well. He could have danced for joy.

He did jump around a little and give a few shouts. After all, it was spring.

Once the crates were all open, the freight wagon was long gone. Father Heinzerling didn't have four men to carry them the rest of the way, so he intended to leave the containers outdoors and carry the books afew at a time with the help of his sons. Unfortunately, Heinzerling discovered that while he was going for the crowbar, the teamsters had become too efficient. Two of the crates did not have hymnals for St.

Mary's but books that clearly belonged to someone else and had been removed from the wagon by mistake. He thought about what to do with the others. The crates were very heavy. He called four men who were just walking past and had them lift them onto the pushcart that the parish used for moving tables and chairs. He pushed the cart down the street and out onto the highway. The Presbyterianchurch was on the outskirts of town.

Everybody arrived at their goal at once. Since the entrance was temporarily blocked by Father Heinzerling and his pushcart, Guy paused to take a good look.

The scene was very strange. The old church, covered with tar-paper shingles and with a peeling tar-paper roof, still stood where it had been for years, unchanged. Around it and over it, a new brick church was being built. Guy remembered that last Sunday, the outer sh.e.l.l of walls had been about as high as a man's waist. This morning, they were twice as high as a man's head and the bricklayers were up on scaffolds. The window openings had been carefully measured to match those in the existing church.

Eventually, the windows with their precious uptime gla.s.s would be moved to the new walls and inserted, with the remaining openings in the larger building simply shuttered until the congregation could afford the elaborate finishing touches. After the roof was put on, the men in the congregation would carefully dismantle the existing church building, piece by piece, so that as much of the woodwork and flooring as possible could be reused in finishing the interior of the new one. The unusable bits would be carried out the front door, beam by beam, and made available to other people who needed building material.

Instead of a dying congregation of mostly quite elderly Free Independent Presbyterians, the Reverend Enoch Wiley now ministered to an extraordinarily mixed collection of parishioners that included nearly every variety of Calvinist in Europe. Henny DeVries, although she had lived in theUnited States for many years before the Ring of Fire, was Dutch by birth and Dutch Reformed. The Scots in Mackay's company had almost all been Church of Scotland and most of them did attend church when there was one available. There was an occasional German Calvinist, who, like Anders van Aelsten, came from one of the former mercenary companies. Occasionally, there were SwissReformed , of both the Zwinglian and Calvinist varieties (although Guy was not sure what most of them were doing in town, he had his suspicions). Now and then there was a French Huguenot, or a pa.s.sing Calvinist exile from the Spanish Netherlands, or someone from the Calvinist churches...o...b..hemia or farther to the southeast inEurope .

There were even, of all wonders, a few of the sn.o.bbish PCUSA type American Presbyterians, although those mostly held themselves back or, worse, in the Reverend Wiley's opinion, went to the prayer services that had been organized by the Episcopalians.

After the Ring of Fire, the Presbyterians and their miscellaneous Calvinist adjuncts had outgrown the "yahoo shack" of Tom and Rita Simpson's wedding very fast. The Reverend Enoch found it glorious, at first. First, he had added a Sunday afternoon service that catered to those with ingrained objections to instrumental music and hymns not found in the psalter.Then a Sunday evening service. He had added a Wednesday evening service. He had added a Thursday morning service, with an after-school catechism cla.s.s for the children. As the 24/7 industries got up and running, he had added the Sat.u.r.day morning service, aimed at shift workers who could not both earn a living and keep the Sunday version of the sabbath holy, as well, which was followed by an afternoon catechism cla.s.s. He was now, in May 1633, preaching or teaching eight times a week.At the age of sixty-two. And he wasn't getting any younger.

By January of 1632, the deacons and elders had approached the bank. By the spring of 1632, they had located an architect. By the fall of 1632, they had found a building contractor, although he had said thathe had so many jobs that he could not start until the next spring. They had started digging for the new foundations in March. There was to be a new, much finer, church. There was to be a separate wing with cla.s.srooms and church offices. There was to be a "fellowship hall" that would lessen the temptation of Presbyterians to have wedding receptions and other functions in places that permitted the serving of liquor.

Guy Russell found that last provision very, very, odd. The temperance movement was not something that had influenced seventeenth century Scots Presbyterians. But he donated to the project, nevertheless.

Guy had also suffered through fund-raisers.Yard sales. Bake sales.White elephant sales.Needlework sales.Ham and beans suppers. Pancake breakfasts. Guy did not care for this aspect of the separation of church and state. Overall, he thought, it ought to be done by a system of church finance. Certainly the Swiss and Germans who were serving on the Board of Presbyters insisted that it was much simpler just to let the tax collectors gather the t.i.thes as part of their job and turn the proper portion over to the kirk.

But the Americans didn't do it that way.Nor did the Scots.

And they needed the money. As Deacon Silas McIntire had said, in a rousing and inspirational speech to the congregation, "Folks, we've got two choices here. We can put our noses to the grindstone and do it all now in one fell swoop. Or we can track construction mud into church on our shoes for ten years while we work on it one little niggling bit after another. It's 'root hog or die' time folks, and I hereby officially move that weroot ." Even Guy had voted to root after that harangue. Well... He had to admit that in an uncommon burst of enthusiasm, he had seconded the motion.

Gus Heinzerling was just as uncommonly happy to find that the Reverend Wiley was busy getting ready for the morning service, so that he only had to deal with Mrs. Wiley. He found her much more approachable.Much friendlier. Far less likely, in general, to start denouncing the pope as the anti-Christ in the middle of a conversation about where to put two crates of metrical psalters that had come FOB from Edinburgh via Amsterdam. Completing the delivery, he waved cheerfully at the others and headed back to St. Mary's with his pushcart, looking like a man who had been delivered from dire peril.

Guy had been present at a few of the dialogues between Wiley and Heinzerling, so could make a good guess about why the priest looked so relieved.Guy actually rather enjoyed Reverend Wiley's denunciations of papistry. Some of them were so familiar that they actually made him homesick.Though not for long. Why go back to Killecrankie to listen to the minister denounce popery when there was a minister who could and did denounce popery quite adequately right here in Grantville, where Guy himself had a secure, well-paid, job?

For the first time, Guy realized that he was not a resident alien-he was an immigrant.I should see about those citizenship papers, he thought.

Inez Wiley turned her attention to the other visitors. "In plenty of time, I see, Guy," she said cheerfully.

"The reverend should be right here any minute and we'll get the service started." Reaching into her tote bag, she pulled out a large, old- fashioned,bra.s.s school bell and rang it loudly. The church lacked a steeple and the down-time parishioners expected church bells. "The family hasn't come yet."

Henny raised one eyebrow. "Ah, weel," Guy said. "I have another little task at the service here this morning. But," he said, turning to Mrs. Wiley, "first things first. This is Anders van Aelsten. He was brought up Calvinist. He works at the mine. He has a woman named Barbara. They have two children. They are expecting a third very soon.