Birdie started to say something, then thought better of it. It was kind of hard to make Mary Lee mad, but it could be done. Right now, after discovering that both daughters-in-law and all five grandchildren were going to have to move in, Mary Lee was a bit short-tempered herself. Love all the grandkids or not, it would make for a crowded household. Birdie knew it would be an adjustment, but rents in Grantville had skyrocketed. The boys, Heather, and Karin needed their help.
“I’m sorry, Mary Lee. I’m just … well; I don’t know what I am, anymore. What a mess this is.”
Mary Lee’s face softened a bit at his apology. “I know. I really do,” she said. “But tearing the cabinets off the walls isn’t going to help. Go outside and kick something if you have to, go build something, anything. Just get out of the house and quit driving me crazy, will you?”
As Birdie complied with her “request,” Mary Lee heard a soft snicker. McTavish had shown up again this morning, looking like a lost pup. You almost had to invite someone who looked that sad to breakfast, didn’t you?
“It’s a hard thing, Missus, a hard thing, to want something so bad and not be able to do it.”
“True, Mr. McTavish, very true. And, it’s just about time to see if something can be done. I’m going to need your help. Are you free tomorrow?” Mary Lee asked.
“Might be. For a small consideration.”
“And just what kind of ‘small consideration’ did you have in mind, Mr. McTavish?”
“It’s a bit fond I am, of your cooking, Missus. There’s a plan you have, and I’m thinking I know what it is. We’ll be going to Badenburg, will we not? I’ll be helping you and I’ll be keeping my mouth shut about it, if you like. That is, I’ll do it in exchange for an open invitation to your table, whenever it is that I’m here.”
* * *
Mary Lee decided it was time to take matters into her own hands. Men had a tendency to get, well, masculine. They stood on their pride and kept things from getting done. The next day, she told Birdie that she had some shopping to do. This was literally true, since she was shopping. She just didn’t mention that she was shopping for land and doing it in Badenburg. She took Danny with her to translate, and caught the bus into Grantville. There she hired transport to Badenburg, and went to see Mrs. Junker.
“You’ll be wanting to act the lady with this one, Missus,” McTavish suggested. “You’ll be needing to treat me as they treat their own servants.”
When he explained what that meant, Mary just shrugged and went along with his suggestion. She wasn’t going to the Junkers to convert them to civilized behavior, after all. She was going to see them to get the best price she could on land. Mary Lee had no particular objection to painting her belly button blue, if that’s what it took.
She wore a calf length paisley skirt, along with high top boots, and a faux silk blouse which was actually made of irreplaceable Dacron. The Dacron probably made the blouse cost more than silk. In the time since the Ring of Fire, Mary Lee had learned that patterned cloth was either not to be had, or expensive as all get out. She had picked her outfit carefully. She also wore her fanciest wrist watch. In short, her outfit screamed status.
Mary Lee and Danny waited in the front room for about fifteen minutes before Mrs. Junker arrived, obviously wearing her best outfit. She introduced herself as “Clara Kunze, Frau Junker.” Danny translated. Conversation was slow and stilted at first, especially with the delays for translation.
“It is a lovely fabric you are wearing, Frau Newhouse,” Clara remarked. “Very colorful.”
“This old thing?” Mary responded. “I’m afraid I’ve had it for ages. It’s just so practical to wear here. I find that some of the up-time clothing causes comments here in Badenburg. I don’t care for public notice.”
“Do you come to Badenburg often? I understood that you have a house to keep. Perhaps you have servants who take care of these things for you?”
“Oh, servants aren’t really necessary. The machines we have, many of them make housekeeping much simpler.”
The women continued to speak of clothing and furnishings, of servants and laborsaving devices. Each woman was getting a feel for the other, and gradually getting used to the translation time. Eventually, Clara said “I understand that it’s not your fault, but the event that you call the Ring of Fire took much of our lands. Isn’t it reasonable for us to expect some compensation?”
“Perhaps that is true. But, suppose we were to claim the part of our property that extended out beyond the Ring of Fire? I can show you on a map just how far our land extended. Would that be reasonable? Do you think we should have a claim to your land? Before the Ring of Fire I could step out my door and walk onto land that was mine, but now that land is yours.
“We’ve lost a whole world. All our friends and relations that were beyond the Ring of Fire are gone, along with all our properties outside the Ring of Fire. I sympathize with your loss. I really do. But I think the best compromise, the fairest thing, is to leave it the way God set it.”
Mary could see that Clara didn’t much care for her counter claim.
“God?”
“I think so. I know we couldn’t have done it. I guess it could be a natural thing that we don’t understand, but to my mind, that still means God did it, or at least allowed it.”
The conversation shifted back to safer topics for a while. “I have heard of a thing I do not understand. Perhaps you could enlighten me,” Clara said. “What is this thing called a microwave oven?”
“It’s another of those labor saving devices, like the washing machine. You can use a microwave to quickly warm food, even to cook it, if you wish. I never really use mine much. I use it to heat cups of water for tea, mostly. They are very convenient, though, for a lot of people.”
“And this ice cream I hear of, it is made how?”
“It’s a mixture of cream, milk, eggs, sugar and flavorings, perhaps chocolate or strawberries. They are mixed together and frozen. It’s quite delicious. My favorite was always butter pecan. Perhaps I’ll be able to introduce you to ice cream, someday.”
After a time Mary brought up the leasing of farms in Sundremda, or possibly not in Sundremda. Clara suggested that Grantville and its new dollars might cause inflation. “It’s new money, how are we to know if it will be worth anything next year?”
Mary had no better answer for that than Clara had had for Mary’s point. “I’m not saying you have to take payment in US money. It’s what we have, but we can go to the bank and change it.”
By the end of their chat, the women had the basics of an agreement worked out. Now, the only trouble would be selling that agreement to their respective husbands.
* * *
Neither husband was thrilled with the compromise worked out by their wives.
“I do not trust them, Clara,” Claus said, in a worried tone. “They tried to take advantage of you. It is not proper for married women to be involved in matters of business. That is what you have husbands for.”
Claus knew Clara was familiar with business, but there was a proper way of doing things. The up-timers didn’t seem to respect tradition or custom at all. They seemed to have no standards or morals. It would have been different if Clara had been a widow. Widows had to manage their business affairs. Somehow that thought didn’t make him one bit more comfortable with the situation.
“We merely spoke, Claus,” Clara answered calmly. “It is true, is it not, that the rents will be welcome? When Frau Newhouse suggested this, I agreed to speak to you, but I did not make an agreement further than that.”
* * *
“You offered him how much?” Birdie grumped. “Are you out of your mind?” Birdie didn’t like the compromise because he felt Mary Lee had been taken to the cleaners. In a way, she had been, but, on the other hand, by up-time standards the rent was actually low.
“Not yet, but I’m going to be. Between you stomping around, grumbling and griping, and having seven more people in this house,” Mary grumped back, “I’ll be out of my mind within the month. Do it or don’t do it, whichever you want. But I warn you, something has to change, or I’m going to go screaming off into the sunset someday.”
* * *
In any case the ladies had put a deal on the table. It was a deal that their husbands could live with. Of course, the husbands had to stir the pot a bit. They almost managed to dump the deal a couple of times before they had everything worked out to their satisfaction.
Rent would be paid in local down-time currency at Claus’ insistence. There was a provision to adjust the rent based on the average price of half a dozen products. Birdie Newhouse would gain the right to farm two hundred and eighty acres. Fifty of those acres lay fallow this year. He would also have the right to build a house and was allowed to cut sufficient wood to build a two-story farmhouse, a barn and a silo. In addition, he had rights to a certain number of cords of firewood each year. He had the rights to a certain number of animals of varying types, so many fish from the pond each year, and so on. It was all very detailed and specific.
The first year’s rent and proof that he had the wherewithal to plow the fields and so on would be required. It had taken a demonstration to convince Junker to count his tractor. His tractor could plow all of the village’s fields in less than a week. That was part of the problem. The whole darn village of Sundremda was a single smallish farm by up-time standards. In fact, it was a smallish farm with quite a bit too much pasture in place of crop producing fields. There was also a lot of forest, to produce the firewood the village needed. It wasn’t like West Virginia, where the trees were holding the hillside in place and you couldn’t plow anyway with your tractor riding forty five degrees off plumb. That sort of plowing was plumb dangerous.
If you judged the deal by the contracts of the other Sundremda farmers, the rent Birdie paid should have been worth three hundred and thirty acres, six houses, four times as much firewood as allowed, as well as pasturage for twice as many animals, and twice as many fish.
If Birdie had been a down-time farmer, working with down-time tools, he would have had to hire so many people to help get the crop in that there would be no way he could have paid the rent. If he had been a down-time farmer with refurbished nineteenth century gear, it would still have been a tough go. As it was, he had a working tractor with several attachments. Birdie’s biggest problem was that he would have preferred to have more cropland. He would still be supplementing his income by renting out his tractor to the other farmers in Sundremda, as well as to other local villages.
* * *
“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.