Eric Flint - 1634 - The Ram Rebellion

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.”

“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.