“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 sense 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.”