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The Woman Shall Not Wear That

Written by Virginia DeMarce

Summer, 1634

No. Pastor Ludwig Kastenmayer put it out of his mind. His eyes must have deluded him. The cleaning woman at Countess Katharina the Heroic Lutheran Elementary School, here on the outskirts of Grantville, could not have been wearing . . . that.

He put it out of his mind until, while walking along the road to Rudolstadt, he observed some others of his female parishioners among a street-sweeping crew, among a gutter-cleaning service, and a window-washing crew. In each case, some of them seemed to be wearing what? He tried his best to pretend that he had seen no such thing.

Until the day that he entered his own home and observed the nether garment that Salome—Salome? his wife Salome?—was wearing as she bent over to clean the hearth.

He sat in his study and checked the appropriate references contained in Martin Luther's Table Talk—comments on whether or not it was worth a pastor's while to preach in regard to female modesty. They brought him no joy. Luther's thesis had been that it was not usually worthwhile to preach on such topics because, as a result of the German climate, one's female parishioners were ordinarily wearing multiple layers of skirts and petticoats that covered them from head to toe, a head scarf or hat, and not uncommonly a cloak, wool socks, lined boots, and mittens, with a hot brick under their feet.

This, the venerable Luther had pointed out, relieved German pastors of worrying about the topic of modesty, which had preoccupied so many of the early church fathers. They, living in a Mediterranean climate, had naturally been more concerned with the impact upon morals and mores of skimpy coverage, flimsy fabric, and revealing that which was better concealed. If a pastor had an affluent parish, an occasional sermon on the topic of luxury in dress might not be amiss, but that applied at least as much to men as it did to women. Usually more. For the average rural village church, even that was scarcely a problem, though.

The German climate had not changed significantly. Most of the time, at least in winter, the up-time women went around dressed in items such as "sweat shirts" which provided full coverage and did very little to emphasize those female attributes which many men found tempting. The garments were, in fact, Pastor Kastenmayer thought, quite literally as ugly as sin. The up-time men wore "sweat shirts" also, but surely only the devil himself, Kastenmayer thought with some humor, could persuade a female to put one on.

In the summer, however . . . Pastor Kastenmayer sighed. Although the up-timers were not his direct concern, their impact upon Grantville's Lutheran women was. It looked like it was going to be "back to patristics" for the themes of some of his sermons this year.

Plus, there was a more serious theological concern.

Only a few of the younger down-time women and almost none of the respectable married women in St. Martin's in the Fields parish had been tempted to try "jeans." Pastor Kastenmayer suspected that more and more of the girls attending the up-time high school wore them on weekdays, when they did not expect to be under his eye. Little Anna Krausin, Maria's sister, came immediately to mind. He occasionally had a depressing feeling that he really should try to do something about that. Although what he could do other than preach a sermon was something of a quandary.

Even Anna Krausin came to church wearing skirts of a respectable length. If not, precisely, of a respectable width, and almost certainly lacking petticoats beneath them. He referred this concern back to the topic of modesty, which appeared earlier in his notes.

If "jeans" were a peripheral matter because they had not made great inroads in his congregation—he added a mental "yet" to this analysis—those . . . things . . . that Salome had been wearing were not.

Upon inquiry, he found that the offending garments were sometimes referred to as "divided skirts" or "culottes" but the most common variant was called "skorts." Apparently these disguised trousers had become widely accepted among his parishioners.

He had refrained from reproaching her directly because . . . Salome, although an excellent wife in most ways, did not always accept reproaches as meekly as theory indicated that she should.

His first wife hadn't, either.

Hardly any wives did.

This was unquestionably one of the more lasting effects of original sin.

Except, of course, that if one read the narratives quite literally, which one certainly should do, Eve had not been inclined to obey either Adam or God Himself even before the Fall of Man. Which was most perplexing, no matter how various theologians attempted to explain it, since supposedly things had been perfect in the Garden of Eden. Did this imply that God regarded a woman with an independent mind as a proper component of paradise? Surely not. But, then . . .

Nevertheless. He pulled his thoughts together and focused them.

It was his clear duty to do something. In the Bible, more precisely in the Old Testament, more precisely at Old Testament, Deuteronomy 22:5, there was to be found the statement, in Luther's German translation: "Ein weib sol nicht mans gerete tragen/vnd ein man sol nicht weiber kleider an thun/Denn wer solchs thut/der ist dem Herrn deinem Gott ein grewel."

The English language Bible that Gary Lambert had loaned him agreed. "The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God." King James Version.

Anxiously, he checked it in the Greek translation of the Septuagint. He followed this by reference to the original Hebrew. Why waste all those years of education in the biblical languages that had been forced down his throat, after all?

His obligation was clear. He must enter the confines of Grantville proper to discover the exact cultural status of skorts and such related items as divided skirts. Did they, or did they not, pertain to a man?

Feeling vaguely morose, he wandered into an otherwise empty classroom at Countess Katharina the Heroic Lutheran Elementary School, next door to the church. Where he observed his daughter, Maria Blandina, teetering on the top of a too-short step stool, trying to tack up a new set of alphabet letters. Experiencing a panicked concern that she was going to fall off, carefully avoiding startling her, he suggested that she come down. She did manage to make her way down safely, surrounded by his anxious admonitions to "find someone taller to do that." In the process, alas, he observed that she was wearing what? Yes. That. Under her full skirt, but wearing it.

Of course, he had to admit, worn as an undergarment that did contribute a great deal to the preservation of appropriate feminine modesty. Far more than petticoats did. Hmmmn.

"I do feel obliged to do it," the pastor said to Jonas Justinus Muselius and Gary Lambert a few days later. "To determine the status of these 'culottes' and 'skorts.'"

After a few moments of further contemplation he said, "Jeans, on the other hand. They are obviously male clothing."

"Actually," Gary said, "they're sort of both. They come in two kinds. Sometimes girls do wear guys' jeans, but not usually. Not if the girl has a shape. If she does, guys' jeans are, ah, mostly the wrong shape, if you get me." He gestured with his hands. "Since Sheila was left up-time, I gave her clothes to the Ecumenical Emergency Refugee Relief Committee early on, so I can't show you. Unless we could borrow a pair from someone else."

Kastenmayer looked a little daunted by the prospect of a demonstration.

"Maybe Ronella Koch would lend us a pair, if we asked her," Gary continued.

August, 1634

"There you go," Ronella said. She had almost finished mounting Maria Blandina's new alphabet cards. She was only four inches taller than her friend, which didn't make a lot of difference, but had arrived from the trolley carrying the Kochs' eight-rung aluminum stepladder, which did.

She would start her adult career, teaching at Grantville high school, in a couple of days. Mathematics department. Advanced algebra and trigonometry. Her mother's determined tutoring had paid off. Combined, of course, with the incredible turnover that the high school faculty had experienced in the past three years, as experienced teachers were yanked out for other work in government or industry, replaced at first by retirees and teachers called up from the lower levels. Then the retirees, getting no younger themselves, were often unable to maintain the pace of full-time teaching and grading indefinitely.

Up-time, these plum courses would have gone to a teacher with more seniority. Here and now, down-time, Victor Saluzzo, himself the third principal in four years following Ed Piazza's move into government and Len Trout's death, counted himself lucky to get her. Even without anything resembling a teaching certification.

Her mother, Carol Koch, most widely known among down-timers for her role as an up-time delegate to the Rudolstadt Colloquy more than a year before, had steadfastly refused to sell the stepladder for its aluminum content, no matter how many anxious buyers appeared at her doorstep. In fact, after receiving several urgent appeals, she had removed the stepladder from the tool shed in the yard and now kept it under her bed in the house. As she said with perfect logic to a would-be purchaser who was pressing her very strongly, "It doesn't matter how much more money I would have in the bank. If I sell you that, we won't have a tall stepladder that's light enough for Ronella and me to carry around when we need it. And we probably never would again. So there."

"Stick your head in next door, will you, and ask Jonas if he needs anything put up, taken down, or changed around while I have the ladder here?" Ronella started to tack the last few letters to the molding.

"Will do." Maria Blandina ducked out the door.

In the next classroom, Jonas Justinus Muselius was looking glumly at his friend Gary Lambert. "I don't see why not?" he said. "It would be very suitable."

"I don't want to marry Ronella," Gary answered. "Any more than you wanted to marry Maria Blandina when the pastor asked you. Even aside from the fact that she's ELCA rather than LCMS, I don't want to marry her. I like her, but I just don't see her as wife material. At least not wife material for me. I haven't met anyone I've seen as wife material since Sheila was left up-time." He paused. "There's nothing wrong with Ronella. I'm sure she'd make a perfectly nice wife for someone else," he added charitably.

Jonas looked glum. "She's old enough that she's bound to be getting married pretty soon. We can't expect her to stay unmarried much longer. Somebody needs to make sure that she has a husband who appreciates her and will be kind to her. We ought to find her the right kind of husband. Someone with a sense of humor. Otherwise, since I'm sure that her parents will want it to be someone with a university degree, she'll end up stuck with someone like Johann Georg Hardegg, who never laughs at all. Just because he's a lawyer and suitable."

Gary would never have described himself as an intuitive type. Nevertheless, he looked at Jonas, suspicion dawning.

Jonas was thirty-two. Five years older than Gary. Jonas would never consider himself suitable for Ronella Koch, daughter of a prosperous up-time mining engineer. Not for Ronella, just turned twenty-three and already with a faculty appointment at the prestigious Grantville high school. Not with only one good arm. Not on the salary of a down-time elementary school teacher. Not.

So he was trying for what he considered the next best solution. A suitable husband. One who would make Ronella happy in the long run, even if it left him utterly miserable himself.

Jonas was that kind of person.

Gary was still thinking about this when Maria Blandina stuck her head in the door asking about any possible stepladder needs.

Jonas hated not being able to do things that required two hands. He was also realistic about not being able to do things that required two hands. He had a list of a half dozen little classroom chores that could benefit from the attention of Ronella and a stepladder.

Maria Blandina went back to her own domain. Ronella appeared with the stepladder.

Ronella didn't make concessions to Pastor Kastenmayer's flinch reactions. She was definitely wearing jeans. And a tee shirt. She scurried busily up and down, Gary moving the ladder from place to place for her.

Jonas sat there, watching the passing scenery a little wistfully. He saw no objection to jeans at all. Especially not on Ronella. There was nothing at all about jeans on Ronella that would delude anyone in the world into thinking that they pertained to a man. As an attempt at cross-dressing went, they were a total dud. When she wore them, it was perfectly clear that she was female.

Of course, that was always perfectly clear to Jonas. Meaningfully clear. Crystal clear. Increasingly clear. More transparently clear with every day that passed.

"Do you suppose," Ronella asked Maria Blandina rather wistfully, "that Jonas is ever going to make a move?"

Maria Blandina's life thus far had left her with few illusions. She had managed to hold onto a few dreams. Illusions, no. Approximately eighty children, first and second graders, day in and day out, did that to a young woman. Although she, like Ronella, was twenty-three, she had been teaching full time for five years already. Part time since she was sixteen.

"Probably not," she answered.

Early in the spring, Ronella had decided, "That one!" after she heard Jonas leading the prayer before the upper grade girls' softball game between Countess Kate, as the Lutheran elementary school was known almost universally among the up-timers, and the middle school in Grantville. He chose the first verse of Psalm 26. In the King James Version, since Countess Kate was playing an English-speaking school.

"Judge me, O LORD; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have trusted also in the LORD; therefore I shall not slide."

"That one!" she had said to herself. "The one with a wicked sense of humor. The one with a bilingual wicked sense of humor."

Now she asked, "Is there anything I can do about it?"

"Would your father be willing to propose to him for you?"

Ronella jumped.

"Well, you know," Maria Blandina said in a reasonable tone of voice, "Papa asked him if he would be willing to marry me and he just said no. So we know that he'll say no if he isn't interested. How much worse off would you be if your father asked him and he said no?"

"None, I guess," Ronella admitted. "But at least the way things are I can sort of hope. It would really sort of put the kibosh on everything if he refused."

"But it would be a lot less embarrassing than if you just flat kissed him and he ran away," Maria Blandina pointed out. "Which I sort of suspect you're on the verge of doing any day now. Kissing him, I mean. It gives you a lot more room to save face to have your father do it."

"Maybe," Salome Piscatora suggested tentatively, "you could make your inquiries to the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance in Grantville. The association that quite a few of the different pastors belong to. They might have an answer."

Pastor Kastenmayer regarded his wife with scandalized horror.

"They use the same Bible," she pointed out. "Even if it's translated into a different language."

He delivered an abbreviated version of his standard sermon on the hideous consequences of consorting with heretics.

Salome had heard it all before. Her father had been a pastor, too, and both of her grandfathers had been school teachers.

After long enough exposure, a sensible person got sort of inured to sermons and lectures.

Not that she wasn't fond of Ludwig, of course.

But she had no intention of giving up her divided skirts, culottes they were called, now that she had obtained them. They were such a convenience. She had the tailor cut them full enough and long enough that Ludwig would never even have noticed if he hadn't come in unexpectedly and seen her bending over.

Which just went to show. If they had pertained to a woman well enough before he noticed, it made no sense at all to argue that they didn't after he had noticed.

She would have to talk to Carol Koch about it. Carol was pragmatic and sensible, even for a woman. Much less a man.

Ludwig went off to his study to prepare his next sermon. Salome sat down heavily on the bench under the window in the main room of the parsonage.

Salome knew that she herself was pragmatic and sensible, even for a seventeenth-century German Lutheran pastor's wife, which was saying something.

She hoped that Ludwig would talk to Jonas before he did anything rash. Jonas was the son of her much older half brother. Her mother's first husband had been named Jonas Musch; Muselius was one of those fanciful Latinizations to which academics were prone.

She herself was the next to the youngest child of her mother's second marriage. Another Latinization, this time from Fischer to Piscator. So she was called Piscatora rather than by the sensible German name of Fischerin. She had been four when her mother died in Ohrdruf. That was in the county of Gleichen, which did not exist any more. Her father, for a wonder, had not married again, even though he had small children. His widowed sister, whose second husband died the same year as Mama, brought her own five children from two marriages and came to take care of them all. Tante Margaretha had been a good and conscientious woman. She still was, for that matter. At the age of eighty-one, she lived with her oldest son in Weimar these days.

Papa had become a pastor in Erfurt shortly after Mama died. Not a prestigious pastor in that great city. He had spent all the rest of his life as an auxiliary appointee, caring for parishioners in one of the poorest sections of the city to the best of his ability and maintaining his large household on a small stipend. This meant that aside from schools and books, their lives were in no way more luxurious than those of their neighbors. The schooling had to be reserved for the boys, who needed it to make their way in life. Papa had not died prematurely. He had been seventy-three, but it certainly had not helped that her two older brothers, Reichard and Thomas, had both died unmarried, just a couple of years before he did. He had not lived to see his youngest son marry so well, to the daughter of a Wittenberg professor no less, and begin to make a great success of himself.

She had no learning but what Papa had time to teach her after fourth grade. He didn't have the money to send her to a city school for girls. No accomplishments suitable to a fine young lady other than how to play the lute, which he played himself. He had taught her and her older sister Anna what he knew himself. Latin and a little Greek. The ancient classics. Theology. Dull things, not likely to attract suitors. Otherwise, she worked in the house, helping Tante Margaretha. The four years after Anna married and moved back to Ohrdruf, she had worked very hard. Five grown men in the house to be clothed and fed, with Tante Margaretha so sad those first years after her only daughter died.

The letter from Anna had come as an absolute shock. Their pastor had been widowed, she wrote, with five small children to care for. He needed to remarry as soon as possible. She had suggested Salome and the pastor had said, "If you think she is suitable, which you must, then ask your father." Papa had considered it an excellent opportunity to place her in a household of her own. He had been afraid that Tante Margaretha would keep her home too long and she was not likely to have many chances. So at the age of twenty, she had traveled to Ohrdruf to Anna. Three weeks later, as soon as the banns had been read, she married a man she had never met before she got there. Ludwig was almost twenty-five years older than she was, three months a widower. A widower who had loved his first wife deeply.

Overall, it was just as well that she hadn't expected more out of marriage than she got. In fact, she got more than she had expected. Kindness, absolute reliability, and no expectations that she should achieve more in the way of food and domestic comfort than was possible within the limitations of a pastor's salary. And, over the years, eight sons. By the will of divine providence, seven of them still alive and still to be educated. Joseph, the oldest, was nineteen, in his second year at the university in Jena. The youngest, Thomas, only three.

Plus, they were to be blessed again. In October, if all went well. Two more months to go. She was forty-one years old now. In the heat of this summer, she occasionally had a little trouble persuading herself that the creator was entirely reasonable in the way he distributed his blessings. She could not help but think that there were many childless women in the world who would have welcomed this particular blessing a lot more than she did. Ludwig was sixty-five and could not be expected to live forever. At some point, probably not too far distant, she was going to be a widow with no income and a large family of sons to finish bringing up.

And precious little help, probably, from her stepchildren. Matthaeus was a junior pastor now; Martin an assistant city clerk. Self-supporting, but in no position to assist anyone else. Johann Conrad still at Jena, soon to be a lawyer, which also meant several years before he had any significant income. Maria Blandina, dowryless, teaching for no salary at the school here.

And Andrea. Andrea, the selfish little snip who in April had clouded Ludwig's life by showing so little gratitude for a lifetime of paternal care that she eloped with a Roman Catholic up-timer, a representative of the anti-Christ on earth.

Salome knew that in this matter, at least, she was a failure and would be judged for it before God when the time came to separate the sheep from the goats. In spite of all her efforts, she had not managed to imbue her stepdaughters with sufficient common sense and pragmatism. Maria Blandina more than Andrea, but neither of them fully.

They were both, especially Andrea, very much like their mother, from all she had been able to learn. So there was probably little she could do about it. Ludwig was inclined to indulge them because they were so like Blandina Selfisch had been.

And she had been sitting long enough. She pulled herself up and went into the kitchen to see what the girl was doing. Thecla wasn't much of a servant. But she was fourteen and an orphan. By the time Salome was finished training her, she would be a competent housewife in a few years time. Competent enough, it was to be hoped, that some sensible man would overlook her lack of family and funds when he came to pick a wife. Or, if not, fitted to earn her living as housekeeper to a prosperous family.

Somehow, their servants were always like that.

"If Papa thinks that he absolutely must," Maria Blandina said to Jonas, "then I guess that he absolutely must go walking into Grantville interviewing men as to whether or not these various up-time garments pertain to men. Though I have a terrible feeling that he's going to get himself into trouble."

"How does he intend to do it?" Jonas asked, looking at his step-cousin. Now that her father had formally sounded him out about the possibility of a marriage between them and he had politely declined the honor, they had reverted to their normal ease with one another.

Maria Blandina had been terrifically relieved that Jonas wasn't willing to marry her. As far as she was concerned, it would have been sort of—well, like marrying one of her brothers. In age, Jonas was right between Matthaeus and Martin and he had been in and out of the house ever since Papa married his aunt when he was eleven and she was two. She knew Jonas awfully well. Although she would have made the best of it if that had been her fate. She didn't expect to duplicate her older sister Andrea's dramatic elopement with an up-timer, but if she ever did find a husband . . . She paused and sent up a silent prayer. "Dear Father in heaven, if you ever give me a husband, I would like to have one who is a little different, if you don't mind. Someone I haven't known almost since the day I was born. That would be very nice, all by itself."

She hadn't known the up-timer Gary Lambert since the day she was born, so she had thought about him occasionally. The thought, though, was that she didn't want to marry him, either. She might as well have known him since the day she was born. There must have been a lot of what Jonas now called "cultural continuity" among the German Lutherans who moved to America in that other world. Gary was very much like her brothers. A recognizable type. Even aside from the fact that he wasn't interested in marrying her any more than Jonas was. She sighed. Who would be?

"Papa can't very well carry a huge suitcase with him as he walks around town. Not at his age. So I borrowed things from Walpurga Hercher. Things that came into MaidenFresh Laundries. Just temporarily, of course. She found a child-size version of each of the various styles for him to take with him on his researches. As examples." She opened the box on her desk to display her trophies.

Jonas looked at the contents and shook his head. There was a divided skirt that would be knee-length on a small child, something called 'capri pants,' and jeans. The culottes were lavender, the capri pants were yellow and white checked gingham printed with daisies, and the jeans were embroidered. But the piece de resistance was an up-time shorts/overskirt combination, the style which the pastor so nervously thought of as "That." Maria Blandina called it a skort. Both pieces were sewed to the same waistband, buttoning on the left side. In a floral print of white, lavender, light blue, and a darker pink, with dainty green vines tying the individual blossoms together. With a pale pink background. Trimmed with pink rickrack on the pockets and around the hems of both the shorts and skirt. And pink plastic buttons molded to match one of the kinds of flowers in the print.

Poor Papa, Maria Blandina thought as she handed the box over to her father the next morning. With a certain amount of malice aforethought, she admitted to herself a little guiltily. However, as Jonas said, he would have to learn sometime.

Magdeburg, August, 1634

Mary Simpson's normal school committee got everything organized and sent off to Duke Ernst in the Upper Palatinate. It would open in the Jesuit Collegium in Amberg in September and start training elementary school teachers for the villages of the USE.

They had managed to get it all done on time. Except for one crucial thing.

The new institution still did not have a permanent administrator.

For the moment, Duke Ernst's personal secretary would add it to his workload. That was obviously not a feasible solution for the long term.

September, 1634

"You know," Walpurga Hercher said, "the pastor could get into a lot of trouble doing this. Especially if he went into some of the rougher places, like the 250 Club." She looked at her sister Lisbet consideringly. "I think we ought to get the boyfriend collection to steer him a bit. You and Jonas can ask Errol just to sort of fall in walking with him the morning he sets out, can't you? When Errol is finished playing for the children's music class at the school in the morning. Make sure that he doesn't go to the wrong spots."

"What do you call this?" Lisbet asked suspiciously.

"Reasonable prudence," Walpurga answered. "Pastor Kastenmayer isn't such a bad sort. Maybe Errol could take him to the Freedom Arches to talk to Derek Blount and those guys. If he wants to ask young guys. If he wants to talk to up-time women about it, he could go to Cora's. Ryan could take him there, since Magdalena works in the kitchen."

"I don't see why he couldn't just talk to Errol and the others out at St. Martin's," Lisbet said. "After all, they come to church with us now."

"The pastor's a man," Walpurga answered. "That would be far too simple a solution to the puzzle."

"You want me to what?" Ron Koch asked in horror.

"I just told you," Ronella answered.

"But."

"Look, Dad," Ronella said. "I want to marry him. We're at a standstill. You don't have anything against him, do you?"

"Well, no. But it's just . . . err, primitive . . . for me to arrange a marriage for you. Or try to." Ron had, after all, proposed to his beloved Carol on the basis of ten minutes' acquaintance. This project was distinctly alien to every one of his sensibilities.

"Please, Daddy," Ronella said. "Pretty please, with sugar on it." She clasped her hands, rested her chin on them, and batted her eyelashes.

That was not fighting fair. She knew it and so did her father.

"Jonas is a fine young man," Carol Koch said. "I got to know him pretty well during the Rudolstadt Colloquy and I really like him."

They both looked at her.

"If you won't ask him for her," Carol said, "I will. It's not as if he's going to find anyone nicer than Ronella."

Both of the elder Kochs looked at their daughter with considerable parental satisfaction and pride, pleased with their achievement and mutually agreed that no one would ever find a girl nicer than Ronella.

Ron Koch groaned. Outmaneuvered again. He wasn't good at talking to people. Not persuasive. He knew that. He preferred to let the facts speak for themselves when he made a presentation. He hadn't been trying to persuade Carol of anything when he proposed as soon as he saw her. The fact that they absolutely would never be happy again unless they got married to each other as soon as it could be achieved had been perfectly plain to both of them.

It was hard to think of any facts that he could lay out in such a manner as to demonstrate that Jonas would be the best of all possible husbands for Ronella. For himself, the facts that she wanted the guy and Carol approved of him were enough.

Lots of young couples started out on a shoestring. He and Carol would be content with that for Ronella.

He had a suspicion that down-timers didn't look at it that way. He'd have to ask one of them how a father was supposed to go about this.

Maybe he could ask Pastor Kastenmayer, he thought.

Pastor Kastenmayer subsequently confirmed that Jonas was not the product of a world that believed in trying to live on love.

Pastor Kastenmayer transferred the examples that Maria Blandina had collected for him from the box into a small satchel with a handle and set forth on his journey of exploration.

Errol Mercer joined him before he had even gotten out of the courtyard that lay between the church and the school, mentally shaking his head about the stuff that a guy would do when Lisbet asked him to.

He set out to do a little steering. Luckily, walking into town from St. Martin's, a person passed the Freedom Arches before getting to the downtown part itself.

The pastor politely greeted Derek Blount, who was eating his breakfast. Ursel Krause kept peeking from behind the counter, trying to see what was going on.

"Morning, Pastor Kastenmayer," Derek said. "Meet my brother Donnie."

He hadn't prepped Donnie. But he was, after all, Donnie's brother. The two of them had lived in the same house all their lives. He knew him pretty well. He had complete confidence in Donnie. At least as far as solving this little problem went.

Kastenmayer smiled. Derek's brother. An up-timer who was not scheduled to become one of the grooms for the girls of Quittelsdorf. Thus, an impartial witness.

He explained his mission.

He reached into his satchel.

He came out with the pink floral print skort.

"Would I wear that?" Donnie jerked back in spontaneous horror. "Hell, no. What do you think I am?" he asked. "Some kind of girly man?"

Although, in the interest of thoroughness, Pastor Kastenmayer pursued his inquiries for the remainder of the morning, through such venues—preselected by Walpurga—as the office of the "home economics" teacher at the middle school and Karen Reading's bridal shop, he knew that he had his answer. He returned home with a considerable feeling of relief. This was certainly going to simplify life.

After all, the pertinent passage in Deuteronomy did not say a word describing the prohibited garments. It did not state that they were any variety of trousers or indicate what they looked like. It merely forbade "that which pertaineth unto a man."

Grantville, October, 1634

"Okay," Gary Lambert said. "I'll come to Jena with you all and tell them what I know about the whole 'spouse left up-time' marriage thing. They need to come to some kind of a final resolution. Roland Worley seems a nice enough guy, so we ought to clear the decks if he wants to marry Rahel Dornheimer. I can kill two birds with one stone. Beulah McDonald has been nagging me to come and meet some of the faculty members there outside just the school of medicine. Dean Gerhard is planning a dinner party. I'll have her invite Pastor Kastenmayer and you, too, ...