The Grantville Gazette - Volume 1 Part 12

Not so much as Mr. Marcantonio had, nor so much as the down-time smiths had. These were finis.h.i.+ng machines that took a blank provided by a down-time smith or foundry, and fined them up. Trent and Brent would be using them first, and for the moment they would stay in a corner of Mr. Marcantonio's shop.

August 25, 1631: After the initial burst of activity, things slowed to a snail's pace as more urgent jobs claimed more and more of Dave Marcantonio's time. He was fitting in parts of their machines wherever he could, but he didn't have a lot of slack time. They were doing a lot better with the down-time contractors, in spite of the fact that they had to watch every cent, and bargain prices generally don't go with fast delivery.

Still, money-wise they were doing better than expected. Mr. Marcantonio had the blanks he needed to make the next four of the production machines, and at about two-thirds of what they had expected to pay. They also had a small but respectable stock of down-timer made sewing machine parts, at better prices than expected. Partly this was due to Johan's bargaining skills, but mostly it was because the down-time shops had been losing a lot of their normal business to the up-time shops, and they badly needed the work.

Sarah, and especially her parents, were worried about the situation. One of the dangers of introducing a lot of new products into an economy is that it can cause deflation that leads to a depression. Some of the merchants and many of the farming villages around the Ring of Fire were accepting American money, but not all of them. Without the American money, the sudden influx of goods and services could end up ruining everyone within fifty miles of the Ring of Fire.

Which was why they were getting their parts for such low prices. The craft shops in the area were desperate for business, any business. The HSMC's money was buying more than it should have been.

August 27, 1631: Delia Higgins' Garage "It's still good," said Brent, as they fiddled with one of the five partially completed sewing machines, "it's only about an eighth of an inch shallow."

"I don't know," said Trent. "If the catcher is an eighth of an inch off the other way it'll jam." The catcher was the twins' term for a device that hooked the thread and pulled it around the bobbin every other st.i.tch. Unfortunately, several of the parts to the bobbin a.s.sembly were still waiting on finis.h.i.+ng machines to come out of Mr. Marcantonio's shop. So, while the needles went up and down, and the "thread puller"

pulled the thread at the right time as far as the boys could tell, they were still some distance from actually sewing a single st.i.tch.

September 1, 1631: Grantville High School "Hey, Brent. Do you really own a company?"

"What are you taking this year?"

"What's this s.h.i.+t about you owning a company?"

"Yea, they make sewing machines so they can have cloths for their dollies."

"Except, they ain't actually made no sewing machines yet, and I hear they never will."

"I don't know. I heard that Mr. Marcantonio said that they designed good machines, and that some of them are going to be used in shop cla.s.s." Which was the first Brent had heard about that.

The first day as a soph.o.m.ore in high school is supposed to be different from the first day as a freshman.

Well, this was certainly different. People who would not talk to lowly freshmen when they were soph.o.m.ores and juniors, now as juniors and seniors, seemed quite willing to talk to lowly soph.o.m.ores, at least if those soph.o.m.ores owned a company. Others seemed to resent them for not staying in their place.

Then there were their cla.s.smates.

A significant percentage thought the whole thing was ridiculous. That Delia and the kids were wasting valuable resources that Grantville needed for other things. That they would never build a working sewing machine, and even if they did, why weren't they using the money for something that mattered? Like weapons or reapers?

"I'll tell you why," said one would-be wit. "Because no one would let the Bill Gates wannabes mess with something that mattered."

Sarah almost got in a fight over that one. "Baby Gates" was the first, but not the most popular of the nicknames the four got. The "sewing circle" was the favorite. Then there was the rather convoluted "Barbershop quartet," based on the notion that they were four would-be "singers."

They found a similar range of att.i.tudes, mostly without the name calling, among the teachers. Some were enthusiastic, some concerned, and some sarcastic.

All in all, the change in status made it a difficult and confusing first day, to be followed by a difficult and confusing first week. All of the "Sewing Circle" had some heavy-duty adjustments to make. Over the summer they had been less involved in high school stuff than most of the kids in Grantville. They had after all, been rather busy.

"This too shall pa.s.s," and it did. There was altogether too much going on for any but the most obsessive to keep up the teasing for long. It rapidly became just one more thing among many that the soph.o.m.ores in Grantville High concerned themselves with. There were discussions about the army, about the future of Grantville, and about the German immigrants. Then there were the German students. Who had their own att.i.tudes and beliefs.

The German students were, for the first few weeks, reluctant to put themselves forward. Partly this was because of the language barrier, but not entirely. They also felt a status difference. The up-timers were rich, with rich parents, and the down-timers were refugees.Don't give offense, study hard, and make friends. These instructions, often contradictory in practice, were impressed on the down-timer kids by their parents, all too often using a belt or a rod to reinforce the point.

Their att.i.tude toward the "Sewing Circle" was somewhat different. To them, the important point was not whether the sewing machine company would actually succeed. That wasn't unimportant, but the really important point was that the "Sewing Circle" had parents who could afford to start them in a business.

Granted, all the up-timers were rich, but there's rich, and then there'srich .

Since Delia Higgins was the backer of the enterprise, this att.i.tude focused on David.

Short and skinny for his age, David Bartley had never been one of the popular kids among the up-timers. Mostly, he still wasn't. But among the down-timers he was very popular-especially with the down-timer girls.

The down-time girls took a pragmatic view of romance. David, Brent and Trent-but especially David-looked like they might be wealthy enough to marry years before most other boys in school. Not that the girls were looking to marry right away, but the period between p.u.b.erty and satisfaction was uncomfortably long for a tailor's daughter.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, David didn't really know how to handle the situation.

September 10, 1631: Delia Higgins' House There were extra guests for dinner at Delia Higgins' house the night of the first TV broadcast. Ramona had invited Karl Schmidt and his family. They had been seeing each other since mid-August. Not every day, but once a week or so, Karl would bring in a load of parts and Ramona would take the afternoon off.

Delia was slightly concerned. David wasn't, not anymore. Acculturation works both ways and it works faster on kids. Johan had been acculturating David right along. Besides, it wasn't that much of a jump really, just putting it in terms appropriate to the time. David had had a conversation with Master Schmidt.

Ramona Higgins was a lady of high station, with a family that would take it very badly if she were treated with a lack of respect. Normally such comments from a boy just turned fifteen might be ignored. In this case, however, Johan was sitting a few feet away cleaning a double-barreled shotgun and adding translation and mistranslation as needed. Besides, in the discussions about the sewing machine parts, David had gotten to know Karl a little bit. He was bigoted, but no more than most, and he wasn't a user, unlike some of his mom's previous men.

Karl had not been insulted, or particularly frightened. Just cautioned. After all, Young Master Bartley had not told him to stop seeing Ramona, simply to treat her with respect. It reaffirmed her status, without closing the door in his face. To Karl, the surprising thing was that the door was not closed. David had managed to come off like a young baron allowing a commoner to court his mother because that's what his mother wanted.

Karl knew that David was not t.i.tled. He also knew that the President of Grantville was not t.i.tled. t.i.tles didn't matter here, power mattered. If Karl played his cards right, he might well be accepted into this new informal n.o.bility, and his family with him.

He had treated her with respect. Perhaps a bit more respect than Ramona really wanted. Certainly enough respect that he had swept her off her feet. Hence the dinner invitation. She wanted to meet his family. She wanted her family to meet his family, and she wanted everything to go well. She had fussed all day.

Normally dinner at the Higgins house was informal. The "servants" ate with the family. Not this time.

Liesel would have none of it, and neither would Johan. There would be guests. Liesel would serve, Johan would get the door. Liesel was quite fond of Ramona, in a subservient materialistic sort of way. They would make a good impression.

They did, actually. The servants provided the comfort of familiarity. The food was rich, and excitingly varied. Something called "Orange Jello" for desert. The house was a glory of technological innovation.

These days, lamps were used in the Higgins house and light bulbs were h.o.a.rded; but for tonight, the lights were switched on. The ca.s.sette recorder provided a large selection of music in various styles. The doll collection managed to surpa.s.s its reputation. Not an easy thing to do, for it had grown in the telling.

Finally, there was the welcoming att.i.tude. The Schmidt family found them quite condescending, in the old meaning of the word. They had clearly stepped down from their position of rank to make their guests comfortable. They hadn't, of course, but it seemed that way to the Schmidt family.

Dinner discussion started on the sewing machine company, but wandered far afield, to technology, customs, economics, schooling, fas.h.i.+on and culture. Ramona was somewhat successful in including the Schmidt girls in the conversation. Adolph was particularly interested in the electric lights, and as he learned of them, in the other electronic devices.

Dinner ended, as all things must, and it was time for the show. The television was turned on in time to see the hostess sitting down, but they missed the kiss. It didn't matter much, since of his family only Karl had ever seen TV before.

Becky was a wow! For the Schmidt family, it was suddenly like they knew her. Beautiful and gracious, looking them right in the eye, explaining the circ.u.mstances within the Ring of Fire, speaking of rationing, but that no one would go hungry. Her comments about Americans needing lots of meat to cook brought an extra delight; tonight's dinner had been rich in meat.

The Buster Keaton movie was a marvel. Made more marvelous for the Higgins clan by the Schmidt clan's wonder. Then Rebecca came back on. She discussed briefly the production projects, not mentioning the sewing machine project. It had for the most part fallen below adult radar. Then she began to discuss the military situation.

"I am Jewish, as you know," she said. But the Schmidt family hadn't known, except for Karl, and not even he had really thought about it. This Royal Lady, with the steady eye, and commanding presence, was a Jew. Well, no wonder she was engaged to the leader of the Americans, Jew or not. This was Uriel Abrabanel's niece, and there was a family resemblance now that he looked for it. Karl's prejudice took another hit that night. It was a fairly big hit, but prejudice takes a lot of chipping away.

Rebecca was still talking, still looking them in the eye. That same sense of involvement that had made Marie Schmidt warn Buster Keaton of impending doom now held Delia and her family silent. Rebecca Abrabanel was not a lady you challenged to her face. By the time the show was over the Jewish princess had more converts to her cause. Tentative converts true, uncertain of what the cause was. Even more uncertain of their place in this new world of magic and miracles, but converts none the less.

September 16, 1631: Schmidt Household They had talked around it after they got back from the Higgins house. In fact the visit had dominated conversation for several days. They called so much into question, these Americans. They offered so much, but at a price. It was a strange price, and the Schmidt family wasn't sure they could pay it.

Almost, it was a devil's bargain: wealth, power, even glory of a kind, for giving up some certainties.

Beliefs are a bit like the soul. They aren't material, they can't be pointed to, but they are part of what makes us what we are. You can't just decide to give them up either, they stick around even when you know better. The Schmidt family didn't think it through like that. Certainly not in those terms. Instead they had an uneasy feeling, like they were about to step off a precipice. Scared and excited. What they talked about by turns, were the marvels and the outrages.

"Music coming out of a box."

"A Jewish woman talking publicly of politics."

"Light at the flick of a switch."

"Dresses above the knee."

"Becky, seemed honest?"

"I've spent my life learning the trade of a smith. I know the making of tools, and little boys are to tell me how to make things."

"No, Adolph, not how to make things-just what things they will buy."

"To be paid for with pieces of paper?"

It went on, but the Schmidts were pragmatic people. So much to be gained.

September 25, 1631: Partow House "The ceramic cases are deforming," said Trent. "We should have thought of it before. When you make ceramics, you're heating them to the edge of melting and keeping them there for hours. They become plastic at that heat and deform from their own weight."

"Are we going to have to go to wood or cast iron then?" asked Brent.

"That will add a bunch of money per machine. Cast iron is more expensive than clay, and we've already spent a bundle on the ceramic casings. That's money down the drain. Are you sure we can't make them work? Sarah is not going to be happy."

"I don't know enough about ceramics to be sure of anything, that's the problem," Brent admitted. "How much vibration can they take? Will the wood separators really work? Can we redesign the molds so as to compensate for the deformation?"

October 7, 1631: Grantville High School On the upside of the ledger, they were only one part away from having finished sewing machines. Mr.

Marcantonio said he would have the machine to produce that part ready in a couple of days. On the downside, they were going to have to find somewhere for a factory and they were perilously close to broke-past broke if you included the money that Mr. Marcantonio had said they could wait a while to pay.

The Higgins Sewing Machine Company had been using three storage containers to store parts and blanks. The production machines made by Dave Marcantonio's shop were still in his shop, so to make and finish parts using them, they went there. Final a.s.sembly had been moved to the Higgins' garage. This had saved quite a bit in rent, but was far from convenient. Now that would have to change. For one thing, Mr. Marcantonio was being crowded out of his shop. He really didn't have room for all their production machines.

So, with regret, he had insisted that they find somewhere else to set up. He was feeling a bit guilty over throwing them out, and as he was very busy and not at all short of cash, he was willing to wait on payment for the last of the machines.

Which had led to this meeting of the "Sewing Circle." (The kids had adopted the nickname as their own.) "Grantville is out, till we've sold some sewing machines or gotten more capital from somewhere," Sarah p.r.o.nounced. "The rents are too high."

"We may be able to use a couple of the storage containers for a while," said David.

"Maybe so, but what we really need is a factory," said Trent. "Over seventy-five percent of our parts are still hand-made. There are a lot of machines that we could make that would decrease the cost of production if we had the money and the room."

"Some of the subcontractors have been asking about buying into the company lately," said David. "It seems some of the other business have started offering profit-sharing and stock options. We don't have any profits to share yet, but some of our suppliers figure we will."

David was thinking mainly of Karl Schmidt. Other suppliers had shown interest, but Mr. Schmidt seemed a bit obsessive. At first he had thought that Mr. Schmidt was cultivating him for his mother's sake; there was probably some of that in it, but that wasn't all of it.

"So have some of the guys from the shop cla.s.s," added Brent.

"I think we should consider incorporation." Sarah picked up her book bag and removed a notebook.

Then handed David, who was closest, a typewritten sheet. "Read it and pa.s.s it on. What it is," she said to the others, "is an outline of how I think we could incorporate. We set it up with a couple of hundred thousand shares. The first hundred thousand would be for the original owners. So we would each have ten thousand except for money bags here."

She pointed to David, who buffed his fingernails on his coat and tried to look important. He managed to look silly, which was probably better for all concerned. "Who would have twelve thousand, and Mrs.

Higgins would have thirty thousand and so on."

"The other hundred thousand would be owned by the corporation. Which could sell it to raise extra money. Even at a dollar a share, even if we only sell a third of the shares, that's a lot of money."

"What about control?" asked Trent.

"We would probably keep it," said Sarah. "Probably. Let me ask you something though. Why is control important?"

"So the grownups won't take it away from us," said Trent automatically.

"No. What are the grownups going to do? Buy up control so they can stop making sewing machines?"

"Tell us 'Thanks, but we're running things now. Go play with your toys.'"

"Right, and pay us each five percent of the profit," Sarah answered. "David six percent and Mrs. Higgins fifteen percent. Altogether, with everybody, it's fifty percent. It might be worth it to someone, but it's not real likely. I figure we'll probably sell half the hundred thousand shares. Which would still leave us and Mrs. Higgins with more of the stock than any other group, but even if we do lose control, we'll probably get rich from it. So, if they want to tell us to go play with our toys, they are gonna have to buy us some really nice toys.

"There's another reason we should incorporate, or at least, change it to a limited liability company." She continued. "The way we set it up at first we are liable for any debts or damages. What if we get sued? It wouldn't be so bad for us, we don't have much many a.s.sets, but what about Mrs. Higgins? One of the things a corporation does, is limit the debt to corporate a.s.sets. That would mean they couldn't take the storage lot, or Mrs. Higgins' dolls as payment for the company's debts."

They spent the rest of the lunch hour talking about corporate structure.

October 9, 1631: Delia's Garage They had removed some of the production machines to the storage lot as a stopgap measure. Mr.

Marcantonio had finished the last production machine they absolutely had to have, and they now had parts for several sewing machines. They had spent the entire time from when school let out trying to a.s.semble one. Now it was dinner time, and they still didn't have a working sewing machine.

It was the same trouble they had been having from the beginning. Tolerances. The machined parts were acting as a centerline and the handmade parts could only vary from it so far. Mostly they fell within the limits, but if one part was off a little one way and another part was off in another way the combination meant that the sewing machine didn't work. So they had to go through the parts, find ones that were off in complementary ways and fit them together. It was a painstaking and occasionally painful process.

Replete with skinned knuckles, banged fingers and frustration.

October 11, 1631: Delia's Garage It worked. Five months of hard work, two afternoons, and about fifteen minutes of final a.s.sembly, and they had a sewing machine. The important thing was, in another couple of days they would have another; sewing machine production had finally started.

It was time to celebrate. There was a six pack of Coca-Cola that had been sitting in the Higgins pantry since the Ring of Fire and their icebox for the last week. It was about to get drunk.

Trent took over from Brent, and sewed another line of st.i.tches down the folded rag. He then carefully removed it from the machine. From the garage they danced through the kitchen, startling Liesel, and into the living room. They danced around Delia, waving the sewn rag like the flag of a defeated foe, and in a way it was.

David and Johan were in Rudolstadt talking with a supplier, and Sarah was watching Judy the Younger again. Sarah's work could be done at home, and Judy the Younger was proving to be more of a help than the expected hindrance. Which surprised Sarah no end.

A phone call informed Sarah of the good news. She would call her parents. Other phone calls followed, to Mr. Marcantonio and Mr. Partow, to Mrs. Partow, to anyone in any way involved that could be reached by phone. Brent took the sewn cloth to show Ramona and the guards. By now there were ways to fairly rapidly get messages to people in Badenburg, Rudolstadt, and other nearby towns. It cost a few dollars and you had to know precisely where the person was. If you had a phone you could have the message which started with the local phone company charged to your phone bill. Which is precisely what Ramona did. She had realized that Karl was interested in the sewing machine project, and Karl was a responsible business man. He would know what to do.

David would have to wait until he got back from Rudolstadt to learn about the completed sewing machine.

By the time David got home, the party was in full swing. Most of the Grantville residents that were in any way involved with the sewing machine project were there. So was Karl Schmidt and his family, and a couple of other suppliers from Badenburg. They had come to see what their parts had made.

The guests circulated between the house proper and the garage. Delia had been the first to actually make something with the sewing machine. She professed to like her Singer better, hiding her pride in the accomplishment. She wasn't really fooling anyone, but the hillbilly version of the stiff upper lip had its rules. Liesel didn't make any such attempt. Liesel was not completely sure she trusted electricity. This could be used anywhere. All the guests had tried it, with Brent and Trent hovering nervously over them.