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The Common Market

Written by Terry Howard

Grantville January 1635 Genucci's Funeral home

 

Vernon looked over the full house at his wife's funeral. The place was packed. Juliet, his daughter-in-law, sat between him and Zane holding Vernon's left hand in her lap like Melvina so often had. He'd put his hand there out of habit. Juliet was holding onto it tight, like it was a life line. Whether it was for his comfort or hers was an unasked and unanswered question. Melvina had been the family's anchor, the voice of reason, the grand matriarch. Oddly enough, this was as true, or more true, for her daughter-in-law but not for her son or husband. Vernon started to remove his hand once but Juliet didn't let go so he left it even though it didn't feel quite right; the chemistry wasn't there. Not once did Vernon, even once, start to lean over to whisper an aside into her ear, as he had so often and so commonly done with Melvina.

Instead, he was talking freely to his wife of fifty years . . . or at least to her voice, which was still there in his head as lively and insightful as ever.

****

"Even with Fran putting out the extra chairs there are still people standing," Vernon's thoughts said.

"Why's Fran doing that? Where's Freddy?" his wife's voice asked.

"He's a pilot in the air force, remember? Maybe we should have gone to the bigger funeral home."

"No, Vernon, I don't care. This is my funeral and this is where I wanted it," Melvina's voice answered.

"Back before the TV went dead, there would have been plenty of room for the family and friends."

"Vernon McCabe! When the TV died? You mean the Ring of Fire?"

"Well, yeah."

"Vernon, why can't you just say the Ring of Fire, like everybody else?"

"Cause that ain't the way I think of it. Now a big chunk of this here crowd is vendors and folks from down at the farmers' market."

"Vernon, nobody calls it the farmers' market anymore. Mostly the farmers take their wagons to the wholesale market out at the fair grounds."

"Well, back when I could watch ball games on TV they called it the farmers' market."

"Yes, Vernon," her voice drawled out in exasperation. She usually started anything she wanted to say to him with his name. The way she said it was most of what she wanted to communicate. The rest was usually commentary. "The town council wanted the farmers and gardeners to use the picnic shelter in the park next to the swimming pool to sell their produce on Saturday mornings.

"They called it a farmers' market even if it was mostly garden stuff. Back then, it was just a little extra money. Nobody was counting on the market to make a living. That first summer the Thuringen Gardens took the site over for a beer hall. No one much cared. There wasn't a whole lot extra. A lot of folks still had lids for their canning jars and the refugee center needed anything anyone could spare. The second year people started showing up selling produce and yard sale junk on Saturday and then Friday and Sunday too, and before long it was all week long. If you had stuff out of your garden you could take it down to the market early and someone from the grocery stores would be along to see if you had anything they wanted. After that you could leave it on consignment with one of the regulars or open your own table."

"Melvina, why are you telling me things I already know?"

"Because, Vernon McCabe, you're a forgetful old coot."

"But you were doing it even before we got married."

"Well, Vernon, back then you were still wet behind the ears. Someone had to look after you, make sure you remembered things."

"Right! You weren't but a year older. Shoot, for the month of December we were the same age."

"Hey, you were seventeen at the time. A year makes a lot of difference at that age. Besides, girls mature sooner than boys. That was back then. Now you're a forgetful old coot."

"Well, at least I'm not dead yet."

"Don't count on that taking very long. Besides when people catch on that you're talking to me after I'm dead and gone they'll lock you up in the loony bin."

"We ain't got one."

"So? They'll put a ten foot fence around the house, hire a keeper and make one."

"Look," Vernon said, "is that Adam Himmler? Ain't he the kid you almost had to throw out of the park to get him to clean up? Yeah, that's him. Remember, you told me all about it when you came home that first afternoon after Edith sent you down there to check on things back before they sent her off to Prague."

****

Adam Himmler looked at the old lady in the casket and his mind went back to the first time he ever saw her. . . .

"Young man, that table is filthy! You're selling things for people to eat. Take everything off the table and wash it down with soap and water. Tomorrow, if it isn't clear to me that you washed the table off before you set your veggies out, you won't be opening up again. Is that clear?" Melvina McCabe demanded.

"But, I don't have soap and water."

"There's a water spigot there," she pointed to the public restrooms. "You can buy soap there," she pointed to a table selling lye soap. "Ask the chicken-plucker to loan you a rag and a bucket and tomorrow bring your own."

Adam cautiously approached the stall. Janos asked, "Plucked or live?"

"What?" Adam asked.

"Plucked or live? Your chicken? Do you want it plucked or alive?"

"No. I need to borrow a bucket and a rag." He pointed to Melvina who was talking to the basket maker. "She said. I've got to wash my table off."

"You're lucky." Jano's answered. "I've got to bring a brush and scrub the floor tomorrow morning before I start, and wash everything else down too, and I can't just put the feathers and other things in the trash can anymore. I have to take them home, or I can't come back.

"Here's a bucket and a rag. Bring me two tomatoes and a cucumber when you come back."

At the stall where a woman who looked older than Melvina but wasn't much over half of her age offered cakes of lye soap for sale Adam asked, "What's the smallest piece you've got."

She pointed to a one-inch cube.

"I only need enough to wash off the table."

Gretta glanced at Melvina who was telling a used clothing seller to leave the space under the roof to the produce vendors, "The sunshine won't hurt the clothes and it is hard on the veggies." Gretta looked at the bucket and pointed to the rag.

"This?" Adam asked holding out the rag.

Gretta grabbed it out of his hand, gathered up a few flakes and a crumb in it and gave it back to him. "Thanks," Adam said. Gretta glanced at Melvina again and still did not say a word. After Adam returned the bucket to Janos, he gave Gretta two tomatoes and a cucumber also.

The next day Mrs. McCabe looked the table over and nodded her head in acceptance. "Tomorrow wipe the table legs off, too." Then she actually smiled. Adam breathed a sigh of relief. He knew his mother would be furious with him if he lost the right to sell the garden surplus in the park.

That was back before Momma remarried. They were living with an up-time family at the time. Both the up-timers worked. Momma cleaned, cooked and kept the garden although Adam did most of the weeding and picking. What she didn't put on the table or dry for the winter, she sent to the park to sell. The up-timers provided room and board in return for Momma's cooking and cleaning.

Adam's sister Anna's job was all the income the family had. So selling stuff in the park was important. He didn't mind. It was boring just sitting there most of the day but it got him out of the house where Momma would find something for him to do. He didn't need to push the reel mower over the front yard more than twice a week. Momma was still trying to get the up-timers to get a goat. She wanted the milk and there was plenty of pasture going to waste that had to be cut since it wasn't being grazed.

Mrs. McCabe looked at the table and laughed. He'd laid the tomatoes out like a face, with the cucumbers for hair and the herbs for eyebrows and beard. "You should bring a book to read, young man."

"We don't have any," Adam said.

The next day Mrs. McCabe stopped at his table. She looked at the legs and nodded to say it was clean enough, and then she reached into her bag and handed him a sketchpad with half the pages missing and a mostly full box of colored pencils. "Here, draw me a picture of the chicken plucker's booth."

The next day Adam had the pencil box sitting on top of the pad when she came by.

"Well, let's see how good you are," She said picking up the pad. "I thought so. The way you mixed the riper and greener tomatoes and the way you turned the yellow sides of the cucumbers to make your face look like it had depth. . . Now, can you do it as a single color line drawing that looks like a woodcut on a broadsheet?"

Adam nodded.

Melvina handed him the pad and went off to talk to other vendors.

The next day she told him to make it smaller. The day after she had him draw it on a block of wood four inches square and a half-inch think. Then she handed him a carving set and said, "Let's see if you can cut it into the wood shall we?"

When the article she wrote about the market ended up in one of the newspapers using his wood cut, Adam remembered his mother's surprise. When someone from the paper came by the market with a block of wood and a sketch, Adam thought the man seemed a bit put off when he found out how young the woodcarver was. But, there was a deadline.

"Kid, we need this when we open in the morning. Can you have it ready?"

Adam ended up making as much as his sister that summer. Momma was not at all happy when school started and the new paper stopped using him. "Sorry, kid. Look, come on back after school on Friday and you can cut a block for the Sunday paper. But Mrs. McCabe would have my scalp if I let you do this when you should be in school." Momma was real unhappy about him losing the job. But, there was nothing she could do about it. Now he was through the eighth grade and he was cutting wood blocks full time. "Okay kid, but you are going to take evening classes or I won't keep you on as a carver. Melvina wouldn't like it."

****

"There's Janos." Vernon thought. "He's doing a bang up business selling dumplings, ain't he? What's he up to now, five or six carts? How'd you ever finagle that one anyway?"

"Who said I did?" Melvina's voice replied.

"I've seen the way you smiled every time you saw one of his pushcarts. Shoot, that grin on your face almost made me think you had money tied up in it."

"The only money I put in it was to buy a gallon to bring home that first day he was selling them in the market."

"The only thing?"

"Well, I bought another gallon to send to Anne, and I suggested to a couple of people that they should have dumplings for lunch."

"You suggested dumplings for lunch? Just how strongly did you make that suggestion?"

****

Janos looked at the folded card the funeral home handed out. Mrs. McCabe's age was a shock. He'd known the bossy up-timer was old, but, he'd never dreamed how old. She was too full of life to be that old. Even laid out, it hardly seemed possible to think of her any other way than he remembered. . . .

"Young man, you can't leave your wastes in the trash cans. It draws flies." Those were the first words she ever said to him.

"The cans aren't that big and you fill them up too fast. You don't want flies around things people are going to eat. From now on you just plan on taking your wastes back home with you."

She looked over his booth. "And another thing, you've set up permanently. I guess that's all right for now. You might have to pay a fee in the future, though. But I'm telling you right now, if everything isn't washed down before you leave tonight and that floor isn't scrubbed before you start tomorrow, you won't be coming back. We have got to keep things clean or people will get sick!"

A week later she asked him, "Janos, what are you still doing here?"

"This is my job, Mrs. McCabe."

Melvina snorted. "When are you going to get a real job?"

"What else can I do? I tried the mines and they said I had closet phobia."

"Claustrophobia?"

"Yes."

"Well, there are other things in life."

"Mrs. McCabe, I am saving my money. One day I will lease a farm. I am too old to be an apprentice."

"You listen to me, Janos. This is West Virginia. You can be anything you want to be. Get your act together, young man. Find an opportunity and go for it. Plucking chickens for that cheapskate you work for is no way to live."

Months later Arch Pennock set him up selling dumplings. That first day Mrs. McCabe bought half a dozen bowls for different people and ordered three gallons. One she took home and the other two she gave away. She was telling everybody how good his dumplings were. The business was up and running almost overnight; the way she had of prompting people to buy them had a lot to do with it early on.

****

"Look there's Dietrich," Vernon thought.

"Poor man," Melvina's voice answered in Vernon's head. "He works so hard and has such big dreams. He deserves to get ahead. It just never seems to work out for him."

"Yeah," Vernon answered his late wife's voice. "When the canning lids from back home were all used up he started buying up jars and filling them with dried tomatoes and dried summer squash. He put them in an oven to keep the moisture out before he screwed the new, tinker made, lids down and dipped them in wax. Worked, too. We've still got a jar from three years ago."

"It wasn't that long, Vernon."

"Well, it seems like it. Then a canning company opened up with that line of glass lids with the wire to hold them down and a cork ring to seal them. Now Dietrich buys the empties down at the market and fills them back up with what ever he can get cheap when he can get new cork rings. Otherwise he's still filling them with dried stuff and sealing it with wax."

"Well," Melvina's voice said, "He and his wife are making a living out of their kitchen. Did you know that they found the evaporator in the basement?"

"Yeah, you told me."

"They're buying the place, you know, they're not just renting it."

"You've got to admit that beef stew he puts up is first rate."

"And his wife keeps a spotless kitchen too," Melvina said. "Every night at five he picks up his daughter and any jars she's bought, in that pushcart of his. Then he buys up whatever produce the vendors will sell cheap. He can't compete with the cannery's volume but the grocery stores take everything he puts up. If he could get a steady supply of cork instead of having to buy what's left with the cannery getting first dibs, he could stick with making the beef stew. One of these days somebody is going to come up with rubber for the canning lids and then maybe their business can take off.

"That daughter of his is reading from when she gets set up to when she closes down. Did you know she's reading for law?"

"Yeah you've mentioned it, two or three times."

"Don't get sarcastic, you old coot."

"Well, quit telling me what I already know."

"How am I supposed to know what you remember and what you forget?"

"You're in my head. You ought to know what I'm thinkin'."

"Yeah? What's our wedding anniversary date?"

"I forgot it one time and you've been giving me fits about it for decades."

"Only an absolute idiot could forget something like that!" Melvina said. But Vernon could hear the humor in her voice and it brought a smile to his face.

****

Juliet noticed the smile and elbowed her husband. She was sure Vernon was losing it. She'd even suggested they should think about getting a court-ordered competency test and put the old man in the nursing home. Just yesterday, she'd told her husband, "Zane, you know I love him, but he's going to need someone to look after him. He's losing it, I tell you. I don't think he's admitting she's gone. I caught him talking to her, I tell you." The smile on his face was all the proof she needed, as far as she was concerned.

****

"Look, there's Alois," Vernon thought.

"He looks funny in a suit." Melvina's voice said. "I don't think I ever saw him without his leather apron. I still think he's the best basket maker in town."

"That's just because he works out of the market. You can get a good basket in the grocery stores or the hardware store."

"Yes, but if you want something made to order instead of a stock basket you have to go find a basket maker and everyone knows where to find Alois."

"That don't mean his baskets are better," Vernon told his wife's voice.

"Oh, and I suppose that don't mean he's more flexible either? If he ain't better, why is he always backed up with people waiting when they could buy stock items off the shelf just as cheap?"

"You might have a point there," Vernon said.

"Might? You old coot! Humph! Look there's Maria."

"Who's she?"

"I've told you. She runs the bakery co-op booth. Different housewives make bread for her. She sells the bread fresh, and day old. At the end of the second day anything left goes to the Catholic church's free food bank. Look, there's Ludwig, he's got the milk and cheese co-op booth."

"You set up the co-ops didn't you?"

"Well, there wasn't any point of half-a-dozen people sitting around trying to sell two loaves of bread or a gallon of milk apiece."

"Melvina, you spent entirely too much time down at the market."

"I don't know what you're griping about. It was your idea to enclose the picnic shelter with straw bales through the winter. Otherwise, the co-ops and other regulars would've had to shut down when the weather got too bad. And you're the one who built that oil drum wood burner to keep the place warm."

"Well, you were bound and determined to be down there every day and I didn't want you getting sick."

"Like that worked," Melvina's voice laughed.

Vernon let out a soft moan and he closed his eyes trying, unsuccessfully, to hold back the tears. Zane elbowed his wife by way of saying "see, everything is normal." Then he joined his father in trying not to cry.

 

A few weeks later

 

"Dad, Juliet and I think you should sell the house and move into a room down at the nursing home."

"Zane, the only reason I'm going down to the nursing home is to look for a woman who still has her teeth and her mind and who doesn't have any family who wants her. I'm sure she don't want to be down there anymore than I do. Those places will kill you. Being around all of those old people is contagious."

"Dad, that's just plain silly. You shouldn't be talking about marrying a widow at your age."

"Who said anything about getting married? It was the twenty-first century and now it's the seventeenth. We could just shack up."

"Dad!"

"You're right. I know it. I ain't going to find a girlfriend down at the old folks home. They've already given up and they're just waiting to die. I don't need that in the house. Ain't no point to it unless I just want to pay for another funeral."

"Dad! Get real. Speaking of the house, Dad, the place is a mess. It looks like you haven't vacuumed or dusted in weeks. You need to hire a cleaning lady."

"Ain't nobody here but me. I'll pick up before I have company over."

"Are you even doing the laundry?"

"I do it when I need to."

"You mean when all of the towels are dirty or you're completely out of socks and underwear. If you won't sell out, you need to hire some help. If you can't afford it, you should sell the place and get a room. You really should anyway."

"Maybe I should find a young widow with kids and start another family. This house is rather on the empty side."

"Get serious, Dad."

"Who says I ain't?"

"The grass isn't growing on Mom's grave yet!"

"So, I should wait for spring?"

"Look, Dad, quit teasing. I know you miss her. But she's gone. You've been caught talking to her more than once."

"Zane, she don't need to be here for me to talk to her. After fifty years I know what she's going to say before she says it."

"So you admit it?"

"If you mean do I admit talking to your mother? No. If you mean do I admit talking to her memory, yes. It ain't the same thing."

 

August 1635 Grantville

There was a rapping at the back door.

"I'll get it." Zane said, leaving the couch and the evening's movie on TV.

"Dad," Zane asked, when he opened the kitchen door. "What's up?"

"Zane, I'm going to sell the house, unless you and Juliet want it."

"Ahhh . . . have a seat. Juliet, get in here."

"But, the movie is . . ."

"Juliet! Get in here now!" Zane demanded.

"Vernon? What's up?"

Zane answered, "Dad wants to know if you want Mom's house. He's ready to give it up."

Juliet sighed. "I know that its got to be hard, Vernon, but it's for the best. They can look after you at the nursing home and we can stop worrying about you."

"Who said anything about a nursing home?"

"Well, you're giving up the house and we assumed . . ." Juliet said before Vernon cut her off.

"Nope. I got a job offer in Finland. I'll be gone for at least a year. No point in leaving the house empty that long, and I don't want to rent it out."

"Finland! Are you crazy?" Zane said, looking flabbergasted.

"Well, the folks at the state department in Magdeburg say Finland is still part of Sweden these days. But, yeah, Finland. They're building a paper mill in Finland and they've offered me a job."

"Dad, that's a thousand miles away," Zane objected.

"Closer to fifteen hundred actually," Vernon answered.

"Vernon, Zane's right. This is crazy. You just tell them no. You've got no business going that far at your age," Juliet said.

"Look, you've been after me to give up the house. I thought you'd be happy."

"Vernon, we wanted you out of a house that was too big for you to take care of, and in an old folks home where you would be looked after. We don't want you goin' off somewhere and getting sick and dying with no one to look after you."

"No, you want me to move into the nursing home and get sick and die right here," Vernon said, a little harshly. "Look, I'm going to be their number one consultant. I'm sure they will take very good care of me."

"Dad, the trip alone could kill you."

"I don't see why; it's a train ride to Magdeburg," Vernon said. "The rest of the trip is by boat. But you might be right. On the other hand, moving into a nursing home will kill me for sure. Ain't nobody gets out of one of those places alive. Now, do you want the house or should I go see a realtor?"

"Tell them to get somebody younger," Juliet said.

"There ain't nobody younger. There ain't nobody else in town who ever saw a working paper mill, much less worked in one. It's settled. I've told the state department I'd go, and I'm going. The only thing you've got to decide is whether you want the house or not."

"The state department can't make you go," Juliet said.

"They ain't making me."

"Then why are going, Dad?"

"It pays well, it's something to do, and it will keep me from being stacked up like cordwood with a mess of other unwanted old geezers who are just waiting to die."

"Vernon, you aren't unwanted and the nursing home isn't like that. They don't stack people up like cordwood."

"Juliet, just you wait until nobody wants you around and your ungrateful kids want to stick you in one.

"I ain't going to do it. Somebody not only wants me, they actually need me, or at least they need what I've got tucked away in here." Vernon tapped the side of his head. "I've got a job. It pays more than I've ever made in my life. I'd be crazy not to go."

Finland Early Winter of 1636,37 KymiRiver Mill Works

Kristiina, Countess Anna Marketta Bielke's personal confidant and business manager, watched along with Vernon and Aappo, one of Vernon's three understudies, as the mill girls packaged the first run of market quality typing paper to come through the belt driven shears.

"That's it," Kristiina said with a smile, "paper, suitable for printing books, or running through a typewriter. What the count had in mind when he decided his wife was interested in a paper mill. We will have something besides wrapping paper and brown bags to ship as soon as the weather breaks."

The old man had been right. He said Grantville would buy the brown paper. They had a contract with a distributor in Grantville for an ongoing delivery schedule of wrapping paper and the brown paper bags.

But this was what the count envisioned. Printing quality white paper would be their bread-and-butter product line.

"Sorry it's taken so long," Vernon said.

"Vernon, it's only been six months. Our business plan allowed a full year for start up after the construction was done and we budgeted for two years. You're way ahead of schedule."

"Do we run the irregular rolls of white paper back through the pulp tanks?" Kristiina asked. Once the chemists got the color pale enough to call it white, they still had a struggle getting the desired weight and finish. There were almost as many rolls of white paper that weren't suitable for printing as there were of brown.

"No," Vernon said. "I had Carlo design the bag shop to be reconfigured to make a waxed paper. It won't be as good as what we had up-time but it will be as good as the handmade stuff they're selling in Grantville these days and it will be a lot cheaper, so you will have a good mark up. You'll need a boat load of paraffin from Wietze as soon as you can get it though 'cause you'll run out of brown paper for the bag line before mill number two is up and ready to cut its teeth on more brown paper.

"I'll see the second mill up and the waxed paper line running come spring and then head home when the summer weather gets here. I ain't going through another passage like I had getting here."

"Mr. McCabe, you were caught in an unseasonably early storm," Aappo said. "It is usually safe to take a boat in the spring and the fall. Not that you're not welcome to stay as long as you are willing to. You've told us you've taught us everything you know; but then something else goes wrong and you've got the answer and it's something you never ...