The Grantville Gazette - Volume 6 Part 13

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 p.r.o.ne.

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 paris.h.i.+oners 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 cla.s.sics. 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 her 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 here 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 a.s.sistant city clerk. Self-supporting, but in no position to a.s.sist 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 grat.i.tude 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 G.o.d 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, b.u.t.toning 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 b.u.t.tons 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 inst.i.tution 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 cla.s.s 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 pa.s.sed 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. "h.e.l.l, 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 pa.s.sage 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, Jonas. Since you're going to be there anyway."

"Daddy," Ronella Koch said. "Do you mean to tell me that you haven't said a word to Jonas yet?"

Ron Koch looked miserably uncomfortable. "Honey," he said. "Uh. That is. Don't you think that if Jonas wanted to marry you, he would do something about it himself?"

"To be perfectly honest, no. I think that left to himself he'll be n.o.ble and self sacrificing until the end of time."

"I really don't want to do this."

Ronella knew that already.

"Please, Daddy. Please. Maybe you could say something to Pastor Kastenmayer and then he could say something to Jonas?"

That was a little ray of suns.h.i.+ne. Thin, watery, and wavering. But at least not his own personal rain cloud following him around.

Ronella looked at him. If Daddy hadn't done something by Christmas . . . Well, she would think of something. Right now, she had papers to grade. Stacks and stacks of papers to grade.

Oodles and gobs and mountains of papers to grade. One of the few things that could be said for the first year of teaching was that it sure took your mind off your other troubles.

Jena, October, 1634 Johann Gerhard, dean of the faculty of theology at the university of Jena, looked at his dinner party.

Overall, he was satisfied. Basically, the handling of the case of Roland Worley's up-time marriage in the briefs submitted by expert advisers from both law and theology schools throughout much of Lutheran Germany indicated that a spouse left behind in such a way should be considered deceased. Without requiring an extended waiting period or an individual decree in each case. The Saxe-Weimar consistorial court had ruled accordingly this morning, concurring with that of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt.

This meant that in addition to the now basically Philippist consistory in Schwarzburg- Rudolstadt, they had a ruling from the basically Flacian consistory in Saxe-Weimar. Flacian Lutherans basically thought that Philippists were suspiciously lax with tendencies toward crypto- Calvinism. Philippist Lutherans frequently thought that Flacians tended to be uptight, overly orthodox, ultrarigid pains. They rarely agreed on any point of doctrine.

Gerhard was orthodox himself, of course. Though suspected of pietist sentimentalism by even stricter Flacians. All of the Jena faculty was Flacian.

That the two consistories agreed on the marriage issue was a relief, since the alternative would have been the need for the party now in the seventeenth century to apply for divorce on the grounds of abandonment and that would have proven impossible. Abandonment, as everyone knew, had to be willful. It would be impossible to interpret the parting of spouses caused by the Ring of Fire as having been deliberate on the part of either one. That would have been a dilemma.

A serious dilemma when it came to finding a wife for Gary Lambert. Now . . . he had representatives of both contending schools of Lutheran thought at the same dinner party. Which might possibly turn out to be touchy.