The plucking business annoyed Benito. What that man was paying—wasn't paying was more like it—the ladies he had plucking fowl for him half the night was criminal. But they could come to work after the children were put to bed and be home by breakfast. When they slept was their problem.
By the time he had the birds checked in, all the stock left over from the day before was out on the ice and the butcher would start filling in the empty spaces behind the glass in the meat case.
By seven, the meat counter was full. By eight, Elisa, Benito's wife, arrived to handle morning sales. She was a great hand with customers. She had picked up German in nothing flat.
Elisa's working was another thing Benito didn't like about this "Brave New World." She took the job during the first frantic year. It was her only job since they married. He always insisted she had a full-time job as a mother and wife. When she announced she was going to volunteer, he objected. She told him to can it. "Everybody else is helping out. I can too." So he got her a job down at the store. The idea of some other man bossing his wife around just did not sit well with him.
Official store hours began at eight. Their wholesale customers, three eateries which served breakfast, and others, had been stopping by for doughnuts and muffins since six. There would be more commercial customers when they started preparing for lunch.
Some people who bought muffins also bought a cup of coffee after beans started arriving in Grantville. If you wanted coffee or milk or something else to go, then you brought a container. No more Styrofoam cups. No more banana muffins, either. Benito missed those.
At eight, the housewives and cooks or their helpers would start arriving, some with small children in tow. Everybody was off to work or school and the day's provisions needed to be purchased. One cook for an up-time family bought seven eggs on one day and eight on the next. She brought an old egg carton with her each day to get them home safely, except on Saturday. Then she brought two because she would be buying seventeen eggs. Benito knew the family had insisted they would buy a week's supply of food at a time, so she would not have to walk to the store each day and tote everything home in a canvas bag. It never worked out. She always forgot something or ran out or, or, or—. She was there every day and would walk each and every aisle chattering away in some strange dialect with three other ladies. Elisa told him, "It's her way of getting out of the house to socialize. Women and shopping, Benny, some things are always the same."
Elisa worked from eight to twelve each day, chatting with the customers while they picked up a quarter pound of bacon, and "How is Tomas' gout this morning." A half pound of ground sausage, "Is your cough any better?" A roast for dinner, "I see you got down to the beauty shop for a hair cut." After the mad rush to survive was over Elisa kept working.
Benito told her, "I think you ought to quit."
"Forget it," she told him. "I like working."
Friday was fish day. There was more ice and less meat on the wagon on Fridays.
"Mr. Genucci, why do we not stock more fish? We sell out every Friday around noon, it is not like other days when there is fish to closing that we have to sell cheap the next day," the butcher's helper asked.
"Kid, we put out all the fresh fish we can get. The customers prefer it. Salted, dried, smoked or pickled fish will do, but they want fresh fish if they can get it. There's only so much available and we split it up even with the other grocers. At first the catfish only sold when there was nothing else. Now it's the first to go."
Along with carp, catfish did very well in the fish ponds that sprang up during the first frantic year. They were the bulk of the Friday fish. The rest of the week got whatever the fishermen brought in. The preserved fish arrived in barrels and were sold with the bulk food, so they weren't Benito's worry.
The birds arrived, so Benito checked them in. Then he told the deliveryman, "You tell that cheapskate boss of yours I only want a half order on Fridays. We've been through this before. He keeps trying to creep the Friday count back up. If I've got more than half a dozen birds left over in the morning, you'll be taking some back with you."
"The boss won't like that."
"So tell him to quit oversupplying me."
By then the fish were out on the ice along with a selection of red meat and the fowl. Benito looked the counter over and then wandered over to the barrel aisle to have the same conversation with the bulk food manager he had every Friday.
As the shelves emptied out, half of them were taken down and put in storage. Now there was a row of barrels and crocks and bags behind a counter. You told a clerk what you wanted and the clerk scooped it out, weighed, measured or counted it, then poured it into your container and a tab was taken to the cashier. Milk, cream, butter, cheeses, beer, wine, whiskey, cabbage and turnip sauerkraut, a variety of flours, along with Grantville Extra Fine Flour that the up-timers wanted, expensive sugar and spices, rolled oats (a novelty that quickly became a favorite), fish, anything pickled, anything dried including various beans and several types of whole grains were all to be had in bulk. Prepackaged lots were uncommon, as were prepared foods, for the most part. Oddly, ice cream, which was mostly sold by the scoop, was attached to the bakery.
"Well, are you ready for the run on fish? We've bought everything we can get and it will be gone by ten," Benito said.
"Not to worry. We've got plenty. Actually, that new barrel of New England cod is really looking good. I hope the next one we open measures up. The pickled herring is pickled, the anchovies are salted and I'm not sure what that smoked fish from Finland is, but I want another barrel of it."
"Well, if you run out, you've always got beans."
"I don't know, Benito. We're down to only eight different kinds right now."
"Did you get me that peanut butter I asked for?"
"I keep putting in the order, but it never seems to come in."
"That's too bad," Benito said. Then he wandered over to chat with the produce man.
Fresh produce hardly changed at all. What was available was completely seasonal. Not to mention, produce that would have been thrown out up-time was being sold and for a good price. There was nothing better to be had. By this time of the year, all he had were potatoes, apples, pears, onions and some winter squash. The last of the carrots were looking pretty sad. All of it came from the cold room at Ice and Slaughter.
Benito and the produce man walked the aisles just to see what was there. The shelves had a growing variety of products. Benito pointed to an oddity.
"Look at the price. I bet all three bottles go to the same buyer." Anything in an up-time package disappeared in short order at high prices. Out-of-towners would buy them either as souvenirs or for resale.
More and more new things were being sold off the shelf. Surplus from kitchen gardens could be frozen, dried or pickled and sold to the store or, just as likely, left for credit. Benito always grumped at the pickled vegetables when Elisa served them at home. They put his teeth on edge.
Delbert and Benito walked past all kinds of odds and ends on the shelves. Most of it was related to food. The store's buyer drew the line at clothes and such. There was a whole aisle of pots, pans, dishes and flatware. It used to be all used stuff. It now included new paper plates and napkins at an outrageous price which did not stop out-of-towners from buying them. A restaurant in town had them made up and the paper-maker sold what the eatery wouldn't buy to the grocery store.
Delbert said, "Mrs. Freeman's old ceramics hobby really took off." He was looking at her line of china.
"Are we still selling the tinker's wares to the other stores?"
A tinker was happy to sell them his wares, as long as they would take everything he made so he didn't have to hawk them at the market down at the fair grounds. The store's buyer had to sell some of it to other stores at first.
"Not since he started putting a Grantville trademark on his product. And even after they raised the price, we can't keep it on the shelves. The soap-maker ought to try that."
"Why not? It's working for the tinker and the broom-maker."
The "Made in Grantville" trademark sold almost as well as things from up-time, even if they didn't bring quite as much.
"I don't know how much longer we'll carry the pots and pans, though. I think the Wish Book is going to start cutting into our sales."
"Well, I guess the tinker can still make a living by making repairs. But I bet the catalog runs him out of business one of these days."
It crossed Benito's mind that Johnson's Grocery had a lot in common with the old general store he could barely remember from his childhood. It had a way of making him feel young and old at the same time. He knew he should be thankful to have a job he could handle at his age. But, when he thought of it, the quote from Eeyore the Donkey always seemed to come to mind: "The Good Lord gave us tails to keep off the flies. I'd just as soon have no tail and no flies."
Thanksgiving was past. Benito knew he had a lot to be thankful for. Still, the truth be told, he'd swap it all for a can of cranberry sauce and a bowl game on TV.
Breakthroughs
Written by Jack Carroll
General Electronics laboratories
March 1634
Something didn't fit, and it looked important.
Else Berding had gone to the break room for a cup of coffee. She came out to see Jennifer Hanson in the hallway, carrying on a conversation through a ham walkie-talkie. It was a little bit of a thing, no more than four inches high, with an eight-inch flex antenna sticking out the top.
"Far as I could tell from the phone message slip, it sounded like he was talking about some old CW transmitter that he hasn't used in years. Nothing high powered, but for sure a way to get on the air."
The other station came back. "That sounds pretty good, Jennifer. You think we could afford it for the club station?"
"Good chance of it. I'll be seeing him tonight, and we'll find out one way or the other."
"Okay, and if it don't work out, maybe we can build something up from junk box parts. Well, I've got a class in a few minutes, so I'll sign off with you now. W1PK, W8AAG."
"See you later. W8AAG, W1PK."
Else stopped dead. "A class? I've heard you talk to him before, but I thought he was someone here in the plant. Where is he?"
"Oh, that's Rolf Kreuzer. He's a junior at the high school. We've been scrounging around for some gear to put together a club station over there. The kids need it, if they're going to actually do anything with ham radio."
Else looked confused. "He's at the high school? What band were you using?"
"Two meters."
"I thought everybody said all those high frequency bands are line-of-sight, until the sky wave skip finally comes back."
"Well, it pretty much is."
"But, there's a hill between here and the high school! There isn't a line of sight between here and there."
"It's pretty close to one, though."
"Pretty close isn't the same thing at all. There has to be some other physical effect involved. Does Professor Müller know about this?"
Without waiting for an answer, Else charged off to her boss's office.
John Grover was just getting up to leave. Müller waved her in.
"Conrad, you asked us all to report any unexpected observations that have anything to do with the project . . ." Grover turned back, listening alertly.
Else described what she'd just seen. " . . . so you see, line-of-sight can't explain that. There must be another physical effect, to make that happen. It might be something we can use." Else stopped. She saw how Grover was standing. He was no longer poised like some prospector looking at gold dust on the bottom of a creek. Now he was leaning back against the door frame, and smiling slightly, like—a teacher listening to a favorite student? "You know about this." It was a statement, not a question.
"Uh, yeah, we do. There are several effects that can make a radio wave go around terrain obstructions. The army is making good use of them, too. Thing is, we don't think the Ostenders and the Austrians have figured it out yet, and we want to keep it that way as long as we can. So keep it quiet outside our group, okay?"
"Oh. All right. Well, I'd better go back to my desk, then."
By this time Jennifer had caught up, and they walked down the hall together. Else asked, "Did I do something foolish?"
"No, you did what they asked you to. I was about to tell you, but I didn't get my mouth open fast enough. I'm sooorrry. Forgive me?"
Else burst out laughing at the sight of a thirty-four-year-old wife and mother, pouting like a penitent little girl.
After they left, Grover stayed a moment longer. He shook his head. "Damn, that was brilliant."
Müller looked up at him. "Oh, yes. If we had two or three more like her, this project would move faster."
"You know why she spotted that so quick? Chuck Fielder and the rest of them teach their students to think like scientists."
* * *
The invitation to an interview at General Electronics had come as a complete surprise. John Grover had been honest, and so had Else.
"You understand, Mr. Grover, I've finished only about half the courses I planned. And even that is from study groups, not school courses."
"Yes, I do understand that, Fraulein Berding. But Conrad and I think the ones you've finished are the ones you need to do this job. Your last study group adviser thinks you have what it takes to learn the material.
"Of course, it would be better for you and us if you had the rest of the courses, and an experienced electronics engineer to work with on the job. But not much about the Ring of Fire was fair. There isn't anybody like that. What we have is a really good collection of books on vacuum tube theory in Gayle Mason's library. What we don't have is somebody who can put them to work. You're the first person to come in here who has the math and physics to really understand the electrical insides of a tube."
"Wouldn't it work better if I went further with physics before taking up something like this?"
"Probably. But let me lay out the situation. VOA runs on tubes, and they don't last forever. We only have a few. When the last ones burn out, we're off the air unless we figure out how to repair them by then. Most of the long-range transmitters for military and diplomatic radio are in the same situation, and some of them don't have any spares at all. And then there's a lot of transistor gear the army is using. They don't need tubes, but when something breaks, we don't have parts to fix them with. Before too many of them wear out or break down, we need to be building replacements. And once we run out of up-time parts we can salvage, that takes tubes. We're already behind schedule. You can imagine what could happen if we let too much more time slip away. Battles can be won or lost in seconds. Better something they can use in time than a perfect solution too late."
"I see. I'm still not sure. Could I look at these books, and see how well I can understand them?"
"Sure. I can't let them out of the building, but I'll take you up to the library. And there's one other thing. You won't be stuck completely on your own. You know Charnock Fielder? He has a lot of other demands on his time, but he does some consulting for us. He can help you figure things out if something doesn't make sense."
"That might make a great difference. I had one of his physics classes. He explains things very well."
The next day Else was back.
"Mr. Grover, I've thought very hard about what you said. I probably wouldn't be alive if the Emergency Committee hadn't taken me in three years ago. They offered me citizenship and school. Now, it seems, it's time to pay back. I believe I can learn what is in those books. I will join you and do my best." She reached her hand across the desk to shake. She looked very serious and very young at that moment.
That night she prayed. Lord, help me do what they ask of me. Research engineer . . .
She lay down to sleep, wondering whether she'd ever hear anything of her family again.
* * *
Else had studied hard before, but not lik
e this. But the principles were starting to make sense. The vacuum wasn't quite good enough yet, and it would be a while before the materials people could give her group what they'd need to build a test model, but they had some idea of what they'd be able to get within the next few months. Meanwhile, she was working out a couple of trial designs on paper.
Late in the morning Else went out to the lab. She called across the room to Heinz Bennemann, "I need to study the pieces of that dead tube you took apart some more. Where do you keep them?"
"Third shelf in the cabinet, in the little red felt-lined box."
"Felt-lined, is it? Still the fine jeweler?"
"I was only a jeweler's apprentice. Now they call me a general technician. It means I'll never be done learning things. There's no such thing as mastering this trade."
"No? What do you think a research engineer is?" Else took the box over to a bench where there was a microscope and a precision mechanical stage, and settled down on a tall wooden stool. A flapping belt drive under another bench caught her eye.
"Heinz, shouldn't there be a guard over that belt?"
"We'll put it on when we're done. You know Marius Fleischer, here? No? He's a mechanic from the vacuum group. He just brought over a better roughing pump, and we're trying it out."
Fleischer put in, "It seems to need a few adjustments yet."
He and Heinz turned back to the assembly drawing.
* * *
Marieke Kettering was a good-natured woman in her mid-forties, with the gift of maintaining her good nature regardless of what kind of deadline pressure and turmoil were erupting around her. Being in charge of personnel and purchasing for both VOA and GE, she needed it. She heard the front door close, and then footsteps coming to her office.