by Eric Flint
* * *
“I can’t believe the rents they’re getting,” Edgar Zanewicz commented, with a shake of his head.
“Are the evil landlords ripping off the peasants again?” Marlon Pridmore was sipping a cup of the thin soup that had inadequately replaced coffee, while the two loan officers took a break.
“Nope, just the opposite. Birdie Newhouse was just in here wondering about how he was gonna pay the rent on that farming village he’s trying to rent from some fella in Badenburg. Turns out he’ll be paying less than half of what renting the same sort of farm would cost up-time. And that’s with us low balling the dollar to get it accepted.”
“Maybe it’s the difference in labor costs? Or productivity?”
“I don’t know. It must be something.”
They hadn’t heard Mr. Walker come in, but they heard him close the door to the break room.
“Quietly, gentlemen.” He held a finger to his lips “Shhh! And yes, it is because of differences in labor costs and productivity. Mostly the labor costs, I’ll admit. When someone rents a piece of land, the rent has to come out of what’s left over after the people working the land have produced enough for their living expenses. Even if those people wear rags and live on the edge of starvation, they still have living expenses. If ten or twenty acres have to provide for a family of four, there’s going to be less left to pay the rent than there is if two hundred acres are providing for the same four people.
“You can only get so many bushels of wheat from an acre of land, no matter how many people are working it. After the wheat is sold, and the expenses are paid, including the living expenses, any money that’s left over is profit for either the farmer or the landlord. The farming villages are really just farms that need a whole village to farm them, so those farms need to support a whole village rather than a family. When that many people are being supported by one farm, it means that there’s less money available to pay the rent.”
“Fine, but what’s the big secret?” Edgar asked.
“Mostly, the secret is how high up-time rents were. Also, to an extent, just how much less labor is needed by up-time farming methods. All that extra profit can go to several places. It can go to the local landlords to make them richer, it can go to our farmers, or it can go towards bringing down the price of a loaf of bread. I would prefer that those profits go toward bringing down the price of bread. After that I’d like to see them in the pockets of farmers. Making a bunch of down-time landlords rich is right at the bottom of my priority list. I’d be really happy if those landlords didn’t realize just how much more the land is worth when it needs fewer people to work it. At the very least, I’d rather they didn’t realize it until after they’ve signed some of these three generation or ninety nine year contracts. So would Willie Ray, the Mayor, Huddy Colburn, and Thurman Jennings. So, don’t go mouthing off about what I’ve just told you, understand?”
* * *
“So, dear, what’s the verdict?” Mary Lee asked, with hope in her voice.
“Good news and bad news, just like always,” Birdie answered. “Good news is we can pay down the bank loan and get caught up on that. We’ll have enough to live on, and pay his damned rent, too, the duckfucker.”
“Larkin,” Mary Lee responded, this time with a warning in her voice. She never had cared for that particular use of the language.
“Sorry, ma’am.” Birdie grinned. He just loved to set her off. “Problem is we’ve got to cut the slot in that cliff. It’s going to cost a bundle. Between that and a few other things that just have to be done, there’s not going to be enough left to build a house this winter. Sorry, hon. I know you really wanted it.”
Mary Lee’s face fell for a moment, but then she shrugged and put the best face on it that she could. “Oh, well, I guess I’m starting to get used to it. I do kind of miss the days when it was just you and me around the place, though. We’ll build another house when we can.”
Between the sale of the newer tractor and his pay for helping to bring in this year’s crop from Sundremda, Birdie would have enough money to pay down the bank loan, pay the first year’s rent, have enough to live on, and still be able to make some improvements. Building a house where the mercenaries had burned an old one down would have to wait.
* * *
“Fire in the hole!” screamed Johan Jorgen. There was a boom and a bit more of the rock that made up the ring wall was loosened. The explosion didn’t cause the ring wall to blow out, or send rocks flying around, at least not much. The wall was fractured into smaller pieces which made it easier to move.
“How long are we going to have to look at that pile of rocks?” Mary Lee asked.
“It’s gonna take a good long while to get it all moved to Sundremda, even if it’s only a couple of miles away,” Birdie answered. “There’s a mason who’s going to come to the village, just because of all this rock. He’ll do all the work of making the stone ready for floors and half walls.”
“There’s an awful lot of it, isn’t there?”
“Yep,” Birdie agreed, “It ought to make good building material. It’s here, it’s free, and it’s ours. Might as well use it.”
Most of those pieces would be shifted to Sundremda. The shifting would happen over the next several months, by means of Birdie’s truck, and later the pieces would be used as construction material. The wall had to be removed, anyway, since they had to make a gap for the tractor. Birdie felt that they might as well use the remnants of the wall for something.
There was months of hard labor ahead of them, but Birdie was in a good mood. He was finally getting something done, and he had a real farm to look forward to.
Scrambled Eggs
Eric Flint
“Mike Stearns, how in the world did you manage to attend college?” Melissa demanded.
“I didn’t graduate,” he pointed out, defensively.
“You didn’t flunk out the first semester, either. God knows how.” Accusingly, her long, elegant forefinger tapped the tome lying on Mike’s desk. “You still haven’t finished it?”
“It’s boring,” he whined. “Why can’t this guy write like Barracuda? That book was pretty good.”
“Barra-clough. And ‘this guy’ is actually a pretty good writer himself, for an historian. But Cipolla edited this volume, he didn’t write it.” In a slightly milder tone of voice, she added: “Academic anthologies are heavier going than single-author books, I’ll admit. There’s still no excuse for not having finished it.”
Mike slouched in his chair, feeling like a seventeen-year-old again. Which meant, under the circumstances, resentful.
“You’re not my schoolmarm any more,” he pouted. “And I’m not a kid.”
“Yes, that’s true. On both counts.” Ignoring the lack of an invitation, she sat in the chair facing him in his office. “What you are is the leader of a beleaguered new tiny little nation, which is depending on you for its salvation. And I’m one of your advisers. Which means you don’t even have the excuse of being a seventeen-year-old twit.”
Mike seized the armrests of his chair in a firm grip – he was a very strong man – and glared fiercely out the window.
Then . . .
Said nothing.
“Well, that’s good,” Melissa continued. “At least you’ve stopped whimpering. For a moment there, I thought I was going to have to wipe your chin.”
A scowl was added to the glare. “Do you know what your students used to call you?”
“Used to call me? Don’t be insulting. They’re still calling me those things, unless I’m slipping. Lessee . . .”
She began counting off on her fingers. “’Schoolmarm from Hell’ and ‘Melissa the Hun’ have usually been the terms used by the better-brought-up students. From there, manners fly south for the winter. ‘The Bitch from Below’ has always been popular, of course. The alliteration’s pretty irresistible. But I think my personal favorite is ‘She-Creature from the Black Lagoon,’ although it never made a lot of s
ense to me. Is there a lagoon anywhere in West Virginia?”
A wince got added to the glare and the scowl. “Well . . . that one’s pretty low. A couple of guys in school – never mind who – came up with it one night when they were sneaking some drinks out by the water treatment plant.”
Melissa burst into laughter.
Mike couldn’t help but grin. “Like I said, low. All right, Melissa. I’ll finish the damn thing. But – !” He levered himself upright in the chair. “I will also tell you this. We’re not going to find any answers in those books.”
“Well, of course not. But they do help frame the questions.”
A grunt was as much as Mike would allow, in the way of acknowledgement. Not because he disagreed with Melissa, but simply because he really, really, really detested that damn book. Reading a collection of scholarly articles on the economic history of Europe made watching paint dry seem like a form of wild entertainment.
“We’ll get our answers in practice, by getting our hands dirty,” he stated firmly. Feeling a bit pompous, as he did so.
“Oh, how charmingly pompous,” said Melissa.
Mike winced again. “Well, yeah. But it’s still true.”
“Of course it is. I’ve learned a lot just watching the merry-go-round Birdie Newhouse is on. I’d be laughing my head off, except I feel sorry for Mary Lee.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” he chuckled. “I like Birdie well enough, but he can be a real pain the butt when he decides to be a pain in the butt. Fortunately, it all seems to be working out okay.”
“For the moment,” Melissa cautioned. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Do you ever order eggs sunny-side up?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Eggs are scrambled, Mike. Eggs are always scrambled.”
Birdie’s Village
Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett
December, 1631
Things had changed in the last half a year. “The Slot,” a cut in the Ring Wall twenty five feet wide, had been made with some expensive explosives and a lot of back breaking work. Ernst had turned out what was left of the village to help. The summer harvest was in and the winter crop planted. Birdie and his tractor had done most of that work. There were changes Birdie wanted to make in crop choices and rotation. Most of the changes would have to wait till spring.
This winter, Birdie and the villagers were rebuilding Sundremda. The use of the tractor and truck had sped construction phenomenally. Most of the increase in speed was due to getting the building materials where they were needed faster. The equipment let Sundremda recover much more quickly than it would have otherwise. Birdie’s involvement also meant that the village could support some extra non-farming families.
Sundremda had been on the small side of average for a farming village. This meant that Sundremda had less than a larger village would have had in the way of support industries. With Birdie around, though, the village could afford a few more people who were not devoted to farming. Now, there was a new smith. A cooper, a brewer and a mason were moving in and setting up shop. Mostly these people selected Sundremda because rents were cheaper than they were inside the Ring of Fire. The various inhabitants were a pretty standard village complement, except for the mason.
Most villages this size wouldn’t be able to attract a mason, because there wouldn’t usually be enough work to keep him busy. The mason was finishing stone from the Slot to use in half walls and flooring for buildings and paving for the village square. Later, when work in Sundremda dried up, he would be able to continue his trade, thanks to the transportation available to him in Grantville. His products could be easily transported by Birdie’s truck.
Mary Lee’s new house kept getting pushed back on the list of things that needed building, mostly at Birdie’s insistence. The Newhouse clan had a house, crowded though it was. Birdie wanted to wait till everything was ready before building the new house in Sundremda. He took the heat from Mary Lee because when he built the house he wanted to do it right.
Birdie’s hogs had been moved to the village and were under the care of Ernst’s son. Birdie was convinced that the darned pigs were learning German faster than he was. The chickens were still at the old place. It seemed as though the Newhouse clan lived with one foot inside the Ring of Fire and the other outside. For that matter, so did the people of Sundremda.
Sundremda wasn’t really flat until you compared it with the chunk of West Virginia delivered by the Ring of Fire. The village itself sat on a rise that the villagers called a hill. Well, Birdie would call it a hill, too, if he had never seen a West Virginia hill. Every day Birdie took his tractor to Sundremda, and every day he waved at Greta, Ernst’s wife, who was headed in the other direction. Greta drove his truck and carried most of the village kids and a few of the women to Birdie’s place inside the Ring of Fire.
The village kids loved TV, children’s movies, and videotaped cartoons. The cartoons were teaching them such important English phrases as What’s up, doc?, Let’s get dangerous, and Th-Th-Th-That’s all, Folks! Barney, the disgusting dinosaur, was as popular in this universe as the last, much to Birdie’s annoyance. Sesame Street tapes were hard to come by, but the few that were found were copied and passed around.
While the kids watched TV, and did lessons, the village women used the food processor, gas range, microwave, and other up-time kitchen gear to cook dinner for the village. It was an assembly line process. There were almost a hundred people in Sundremda now. Using the up-time appliances bought time and freed up extra labor for the village as it got ready for winter.
Birdie had started taking his paper and heading out early to avoid the noise. All those women and children in one place could make quite a racket. Once he got to Sundremda, he joined Ernst and the other farmers sitting around Ernst’s new kitchen table. There, they would read the morning papers and plan the day’s work.
This morning’s paper had a synopsis of an article written for the “Street.” The article dealt with how the Federal Reserve System worked, and how it had been implemented in Grantville. It touched on how debased many down-time currencies were. The article also discussed the relationship of goods and services, and money supply, and the effect of not having enough of either.
The article had focused on how conservative the bank of Grantville was. It read like a complaint, but in truth, the article was a sales pitch for up-timer money. It was a good sales pitch, and very persuasive. Birdie was persuaded that Claus Junker just might have fooled himself by insisting on getting the rent in down-time currency. The thought made a good start to the day.
Relations with his down-time landlord had not started well and they had gone downhill ever since. Claus didn’t like most of Birdie’s improvements and didn’t like the influence Birdie was gaining with the other tenants. Birdie didn’t like the way Claus treated some tenants better than he treated others. Claus seemed to prefer the tenants that were good at sucking up. Their relations were particularly headed downhill since Birdie had learned that Herr Junker was giving the other new renters, down-timers only, a break on the rent.
* * *
Oddly enough, elections were just finished and were still coming up. The elections for delegates to the Constitutional Convention had ended and the Fourth of July Party had won. The Convention was in the process of editing the Fourth of July Party’s platform into an actual Constitution. Most of the editing was just so the Convention could say that they had actually had a hand in writing the constitution. Meanwhile, elections for the first congress and president had already been scheduled.
“This means that we can vote in the next election?” Greta asked Ernst. Ernst was a bit unsure and looked to Birdie for an answer.
“Don’t know.” Birdie shook his head. “If people have lived inside the Ring of Fire for three months they just have to register, then they can vote. Sundremda ain’t inside the Ring of Fire, though.”
It was a Saturday afternoon and they were gathered in Ernst’s new house. This house was simila
r to his previous home but still different. This house didn’t have indoor plumbing but it was designed to accommodate it. Before the indoor plumbing could be added, Ernst would need to install a septic tank and leach field.
The delay of the installation was partly a matter of expense and partly a matter of timing. Ernst wanted to put the leach field under the garden plot. He was waiting till spring when the ground thawed. The plumbing still needed to be installed before planting, but he needed to see if they had enough money to install it. This left the house with a bathroom but no bath tub or toilet. At the moment, there was just a covered hole in the floor that had a buried clay pipe leading outside. Birdie and Ernst had also worked out how electricity would be added when it became available.
All this gave the house an odd, half finished look. That half finished look was common to the new buildings in Sundremda.
“I have been following the election discussions. This is an important right. To vote is also a responsibility of proper citizens. We should vote,” Greta insisted pedantically. Greta could do pedantic better than just about anyone Birdie knew.
Birdie looked at Greta for a moment. He knew that the outcome of this election was pretty much a forgone conclusion. On the other hand, Greta was right. Voting was even more important now than it had been up-time.
“Yes. Yes, it is, but I don’t know how we’d go about it.” Birdie had sort of fallen into the role of village leader. Partly it was because he was an up-timer and partly because he owned his own land even if he rented land in the village.
“Well, don’t you think we ought to find out?” Mary Lee asked, utterly unimpressed by Birdie’s new found status.
“We have discussed this in the village. We all agreed that we wish to be citizens of the New United States. We approve of the Bill of Rights,” Greta concluded with certainty.
* * *
