Eric Flint - Grantville Gazette.Volume IX

Menig suddenly realized one horrible thing. Now that the stencils had arrived, he would have to figure out how to use the duplicating machine.

At least, his son Emrich had already put the machine together. Emrich was just barely fourteen. He was only starting to learn the art of making paper. But with these new devices that were appearing all over the place, all the time it seemed, he was better than his father.

Emrich had figured out how to put the machine together.

Maybe Emrich could figure out how to use it.

Jodocus certainly hoped Emrich could figure out how to use the stencils. He was expected to produce several hundred placards and pamphlets within the next two weeks.

He was not a printer. He had never planned to be a printer. He had never asked for a duplicating machine. He had never asked to be involved in his lord's politics.

"Put not your trust in princes." He should have known that when the Ritter offered to invest in expanding the business, he would be calling in favors.

If the Ritter wanted pamphlets and placards, he would get them. Jodocus and Bonifacius agreed on this principle solemnly. They sat in the front Stube of the paper mill, drinking beer and discussing eligible widows. They solemnly assured one another that they were much too old dogs to be expected to learn new tricks, either of them.

"There has to be something that I just don't understand," Emrich Menig complained. "Every single time I run the tray through the rollers, to transfer the ink through the stencil to the paper, I get some ink coming through onto the top roller. Not a lot, but enough to make smears on the back of the next copy."

"You didn't complain when we were running off the placards." Liesel Bodamer, just two months older than Emrich, stopped cranking the rollers and came round to the other side of the duplicating machine.

"It didn't make any difference when we were doing the placards. They are just one-sided, to be tacked up to doors and posts and things. It doesn't matter if they have some ink smears on the back. But for the pamphlets, we're supposed to run the paper through on one side, let the ink dry, and then run it through on the other side. So if there are smears on the back of the first run, people won't be able to read the printing we put there during the second run."

"Let me look at the manual."

"If I have to release the top roller and clean it for every single sheet of paper we run, we'll never get these done on time."

"Give me the manual, Emrich!" Liesel swatted his arm. "Hand it over. Now."

"It doesn't say anything."

"Something has to be wrong with the instructions. They must have left something out."

Emrich stared at her, shocked to the core of his faith. "The manual for putting together the duplicating machine was exactly right."

"Maybe two different people wrote them. Maybe the printer just left a line out when he was setting type. There's all sorts of things that could go wrong. We just have to think."

"All right. I'll clean the top roller again while you're looking."

"While you're cleaning, think. If they really haven't told us how to fix this problem, you're going to have to figure out a way to fix it yourself."

"In this illustration, the picture of the duplicating machine doesn't match the text." Liesel handed the manual back to Emrich.

"Yeah." Emrich sat there for a while, staring at the duplicating machine.

"Are you expecting it to talk to you?"

"Sort of. Did we take everything out of the envelope that the stencils came in?"

"No. I've been taking them out one at a time, so we don't mix them up."

"Take a look, will you. Are there any extra sheets of the waxed paper, without any stencil holes in them?"

"No."

"I think we need a solid waxed sheet, on top of the paper we're printing, to protect the roller."

Liesel looked. "I don't know if that's what the picture was supposed to show, but I think it would work. It's not as if you have a paper shortage around here. Do you have any wax?"

"Some candle stubs, probably. Wherever Vati puts them to give back to the candlemaker when we buy more."

"Let's look in the kitchen."

Emrich didn't know his way around the kitchen very well. It took quite a while to find a flat baking pan with edges high enough to melt a layer of wax in it. They never did find one large enough to lay a whole piece of paper flat.

"We'll have to do it part at a time," Liesel said. "Where's your fire-starter? I need to melt the candle stubs."

Two hours later, they determined that putting the extra sheet of waxed paper on top of the tray did keep the roller clean.

They were also getting hungry.

Their fathers were getting drunk. More precisely, had already gotten there.

"Do you have anything to eat, here?" Liesel asked.

"Bread, but it's a little moldy. Sausage, kind of dried out. And Papa won't like it if we eat it up and don't leave any for him."

"Well, ratzen-fratzen-snatzen-matzen to him. Here." Liesel dug into her pocket. "I have a couple of Heller. Run over to Barracktown and ask Sergeant Hartke's wife if we can have some eggs. She has three laying hens as well as the pullets, I know, because she bought them from Bachmann's widow. We already started the fire to melt the candle wax. I'll cut up the sausage and soften it in boiling water while you're gone and try to scrape the mold off the bread and toast it over the fire. I can make an omelet with sausage and toast cubes in it."

"What do you suppose those children are doing?" Dagmar asked a few evenings later. "Emrich Menig has been over here every noon for the past four days asking to buy something to eat. Doesn't Menig feed him? And why is Liesel there?"

"Bodamer is there, too," Jeffie Garand answered. "I've seen him around. Menig must have a big order on hand. They're probably too busy to pay any attention to the kids."

He looked at Gertrud and winked.

"Perhaps we should go outside and take a stroll up in the direction of the paper mill, just to check that they are okay."

They got all the way up there, knocked on the door, and were admitted by Liesel, who said that everything was all right, thank you. She seemed to be telling the truth, so they went back at a leisurely pace that included a couple of detours.

"I think," Liesel said, "that it would be better to stamp the woodcuts into the squares before we fold the pages of the pamphlets and sew them together."

"Sew them together?"

"Just in and out with the needle and then knot the thread on the outside. It doesn't have to be fancy. That's what keeps pamphlets from falling apart."

"How do you know?"

"Lorenz Mangold, the councilman from Fulda, gave my Papa another pamphlet while he was in Fulda yesterday. He brought it back and was showing it to your Papa. Mangold got it from somewhere else. It's printed, I think, but he wants your Papa to make stencils and make more copies of it for him. It's sewed together like that. I can't think of any other way to keep the pages from falling apart. Mangold is coming out here tomorrow, Papa said."

"No," Emrich groaned. "No. Papa isn't going to make stencils. Papa isn't going to make pamphlets for Mangold. Liesel, we-you and me-are going to be cranking this duplicating machine until the day we die."

"Well, clean it up now. We can stop cranking until we finish stamping this batch. And pull the tray out. We'll have to use the ink pad in it for stamping the woodcuts, because they didn't think to send us a separate one."

"Emrich?" Liesel sounded a little doubtful. She was a country girl and quite familiar with the way that animals mated.