“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 similar 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.
* * *
Liz Carstairs looked at the petition with a sort of bemused incomprehension. The first line read, “A petition to be annexed by Marion County, New United States". The document went on to give the reasoning behind the request. Sundremda wasn’t an independent town but rather a village that was part of a county that no longer existed. Since the death of count Gleichen, who died without heirs, his county had ceased to exist. Legal authority over the territory had gone back to Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor. Actual ownership of the land was, in this case, a function of legal authority over it. If Ferdinand II continued as the government then he owned the land. If he didn’t then who ever was the government owned the land. In effect the village of Sundremda was public land with a permanent Lehen on it.
Ferdinand II’s claim was impractical since Ferdinand II didn’t actually control this part of the Germanies. Accepting the emperor’s authority wouldn’t really be in the best interests of the New US, either. For the emperor to own land butting up against the Ring of Fire was a bad idea. The document also pointed out that six of the signers were already citizens of Marion County. Even though the signers didn’t actually live in Sundremda, they were still legal renters since they were members of Birdie’s family.
The document also pointed out that Marion County was the closest county to Sundremda. It gave assurance that the people of Sundremda would abide by the laws of Marion county and the New US. Then, the document went on to provide the dimensions of the territory and even included a map. Finally it was signed by every person living in the village of Sundremda, not just all the adult males or even just all the adults. Apparently every person in the village signed the petition, including one three year old, who signed with a hand print. The signers gave their name, age, and gender. The signers included, of course, Birdie and Mary Newhouse, their two sons and two daughters-in-law. Apparently, the Newhouse babies hadn’t signed on the dotted line.
This petition was going to have to go to Mike. While attitudes toward the Holy Roman Empire were not favorable inside the Ring of Fire, the fact remained that Grantville wasn’t actually at war with the Empire, officially. True, Grantville had protected a town from Tilly’s mercenaries. Grantville had also protected another town from mercenaries who no longer worked for anyone but themselves. Grantville had cooperated with troops employed by the king of Sweden in doing that protecting, but there wasn’t a state of war between the still forming New United States and the Holy Roman Empire.
If the New US approved this petition, a state of war with the Holy Roman Empire would exist. Annexing another country’s territory is pretty much universally a casus belli, even when the folks who actually live there ask to be annexed.
On the other hand, there might be two or three mental defectives who actually thought Grantville wouldn’t be at war with the HRE before long, but not more than that. Besides, Grantville had already offered to admit several cities to the New US. As soon as one of those cities accepted admission, it would mean the effective annexation of that city.
* * *
As it turned out the people of Sundremda didn’t get to vote in that first election. President Stearns had tabled the matter till after the first elections, and then had presented the petition to Congress. Congress had accepted the petition and several others like it. This set at least one precedent of acquisition of territory by the New US. So, the people of Sundremda would be able to vote in the next election.
* * *
Egidius “Eddie” Junker shook his head, but only after he left his father’s office. Eddie liked the up-timers. It was a point of considerable tension between him and his father. They didn’t talk about it much. Neither one wanted a breach in their relationship.
“Michel, please have Shadow saddled. Father wants me to visit Sundremda again.”
Eddie had picked up the up-time habit of being polite to servants, but not where his father could hear. Eddie was a charming young man, and an excellent rider. He had been a student at Jena when the Ring of Fire happened. He had first encountered Grantville on one of his monthly trips home. The battle of Jena had strengthened his admiration for the up-timers. Eddie was rather less concerned over his ancestry than his father. Nor did he see any reason to be constantly checking on Herr Newhouse.
The ride to Sundremda was pleasant and easy, even if the road from Badenburg wasn’t improved all the way. Eddie had known the villagers of Sundremda all his life. He remembered well what the village had looked like before the raid and after. This new village looked like it was going to be a much more prosperous place, when it was finished. The villagers seemed to be leaving quite a bit unfinished till they had everything ready. They had carted, or rather “trucked,” a lot of stone from the gap to the village and had a mason finishing stone for floors and the bottom half of walls. Most of the houses had places where the stone floors weren’t installed yet. The snows had slowed the work, mostly limiting it to what could be done from inside.
Herr Newhouse was friendly enough, considering the circumstances. “How’s school?”
“Confusing, Herr Newhouse. Everyone is trying to figure out what the Ring of Fire means. Especially in the college of theology, but all of us do the same, really. Every time I go back I get questioned on everything. My father wishes to know what this petition for annexation is about.”
“You can tell your . . .” Herr Newhouse visibly caught himself. “Never mind, boy, it’s not your fault. The petition is just what it sounds like. The village wants to be part of the New US. We didn’t ask your father about it because we know he’s opposed to Badenburg joining the New US. Besides, he doesn’t live here. We didn’t ask Ferdy Hapsburg to sign either.”
Ferdy Hapsburg? Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor? Sometimes up-timers made Eddie nervous. He changed the subject. “How are things here?”
“We’re doing all right. Got most of the stone up from the slot and the mason is cutting and finishing it. Everything is a bit crowded this winter but we’ll have plenty of stone for our needs come spring. I understand the kids at the high school have some sort of concrete project going so it looks like there will be mortar too. Talked to Mrs. O’Keefe and she figures she can fit us in once the ground thaws. So we should be putting in a bunch of septic systems come spring.”