"Lena! Lena! It's here!"
Helena looked up from the pot she was stirring to see her cousin Dorothea Kellerin pushing open the door. The girl was barely able to hold on to the basket of food she'd bought at the market, considering the thick book she was waving. "What's here? And be careful with that. You'll bruise the apples if you drop them."
Dorothea pretty much ignored the admonition, which was fairly standard for her, especially when she was excited about something. Worried for the apples, which wouldn't store well if bruised, Helena said, "Come, Dara. At least put the basket down first."
Dara managed, finally, to get the basket down without mishap, but it was a near thing. "Come look at this, Lena."
"Again I ask, what is it?"
"The new Wish Book." Dara was practically bouncing with excitement. "Remember? We got the first one, the little one. But with all the fuss this past summer, we never got another. Until today."
Trust Dara to call it a fuss, Lena thought. A rebellion, one that had caused quite a number of deaths, not to mention the uproar here in Bamberg. Why, you still saw mounted men wearing Ram armbands on the street. Of course, they were actually a part of the State of Thuringia-Franconia Mounted Constabulary. The second company had decided to keep the ram as their symbol. She leaned over the book to see what Dara was pointing at.
"I want those." Dara pointed at the divided skirts that had become so common. "And they're cheap. Probably cheaper than you can make them, even."
Lena looked closer. It was getting to be time to buy Dara one of the suits of clothing that she got each year. Room, board and clothing, along with a small amount of wages was how she paid her cousin for her help. It was the common arrangement. Dara made pin money by doing chores or errands for others in her spare time, but her primary job was to help Lena and her husband Peter with the housework and work in the shoe shop. Her wages wouldn't be due until Dara left them to marry, as was usual. The young—and Dara was only twenty-two—didn't usually marry until they'd saved enough to start their own households. "That does seem to be a good price, Dara. But how do you know they would fit?"
"They have a sizing chart, they call it."
"Very well. I'll look at it after supper. For right now, though, we'd best get busy."
Lena looked over the section of shoes with increasing concern. The shoes were much like her husband made. At least some were. Some were better. Not fancier, but better designed. There were pictures that showed the structure of the shoes: lining, padding, support for the arches. Dead cheap, too. She began to worry, then, as she turned the page, she got very worried. Boots, this time And, not just the fashionable boots, either. Work boots, like any man would wear. And again, dead cheap.
How was Peter going to compete with these prices? They even, she wasn't too surprised to find, had a shoe sizing chart on the pages. Three, in fact. Men's, women's and children's. All sorts.
This was bad news.
Peter Schuhmacher looked up as Lena came in to the shop area of their home. "What's wrong, dear?" he asked as soon as he saw her face. They were a good match. She took care of the books and he made the shoes with the help of a single journeyman and two apprentices.
"This!" She showed him the book.
He looked at them and immediately realized the quality of the shoes. Still, the structure of these shoes and boots would require a whole lot of extra sewing and some really good glues. So he wasn't really worried. He did look at the prices, but the truth was that he still wasn't all that comfortable with the new money that the up-timers had introduced. Yes, thirty dollars for a pair of boots seemed a little low, but maybe not. Peter wasn't all that sure what thirty dollars was worth.
Lena was quick to inform him that thirty dollars was less than half of what he would charge for a pair of boots.
"They can't do it. There's no way that they can make these boots for that little. Especially these boots. Look here." He pointed at the picture showing the various layers of the boot sole. "It's not so much the materials; it's the time it would take."
Peter spent a long time explaining to Lena why the shoes in the catalog could not possibly be made or sold for the price listed. By the time he was through, Lena was about ready to pound on him with the boot heel. At the same time, she knew he was right. She knew enough about the business, about how long it took him to do the cutting, the sewing, and the nailing necessary to make a pair of boots.
In any case, Peter, having convinced himself that the so-called Eisenhauer Shoe Company couldn't do it, had decided there was nothing to worry about.
Herr Kacere was polite. "I'd like to help you, ma'am. I really would. But not at the cost of seeing more shoeless kids in winter."
"Our prices are fair, Herr Kacere! We do not cheat people." It had been hard to believe at first, but Lena was able to get an appointment with the SoTF administrators with only a few days delay. Everyone knew how busy the up-time administrators were.
"I'm sure they are. For handmade boots and shoes." Herr Kacere sighed and Lena could tell that he had had this conversation before. "Ma'am, you want to know what shocked us most, right after the Ring of Fire? It was how expensive everything was. Everything but labor, anyway. Before the Ring of Fire, some of the older folks used to talk about the horrors of inflation all the time. How, back in the good old days, they used to be able to buy a hamburger for a nickel, without considering the fact that when they could do that, a man got paid around a dollar a day. Just before the Ring of Fire you could buy a hamburger just about like the ones they talked about, but it would cost a dollar. But in that time, even at minimum wage, a man got paid around forty dollars a day before taxes. The nickel hamburgers were actually more expensive than the dollar hamburgers. Twice as expensive."
Lena wasn't at all sure what John Christopher Kacere was saying, except that it came down to "No, the SoTF would not challenge the mail order catalogs and their prices." And a part of her, a good part, wanted to leave in a huff. But the practical, pragmatic part kept her in her seat as Herr Kacere continued.
"And food was the least of it. More durable goods like shoes, beds, houses, and tools went down in price even more over the years. Since the Ring of Fire, we—at least those of us who are dealing with the economic impact—have spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what happened. It had a lot to do with assembly lines and production machinery. Mass production in general. I'm not sure of the details of how these boots and shoes listed in the catalog are made, but I can make a fairly decent guess. Somewhere around Grantville or somewhere on the Elbe, there is now a factory. In that factory, there are machines to cut the leather and shape it, to sew it together. And they don't make one pair of shoes at a time. One person at one machine is cutting the leather used in the toe, then passing that piece on to someone else. The next person on the line does subassemblies, sewing the toe to the side, or however it's done."
Herr Kacere shrugged his ignorance. "Then the piece goes on to final assembly. What matters to us is that if you add up all the time of all the people working on that line to make one pair of boots or shoes, it's a lot less than it would take in your husband's shop. And that's what lets them make shoes for so much less. Plus the fact that since they're buying a lot of leather, they probably get a better price on it than you do.
"Ma'am, I realize this isn't really fair to you or your husband, but I have to weigh that against what's best for all the people who need shoes. The best thing I can suggest to you is that you try to modernize your shop. Go look at how they do things in Grantville or wherever the shoe factory is. See about getting a loan and buy some sewing machines and leather cutters or whatever they're using."
"Peter, we must."
Peter shook his head. "No, we must not. Lena, I know you are concerned but a trip like that would be expensive. Wait till these shoes get here. And the buyers find out they are made of paper or gut."
Lena wanted to go immediately to Grantville to see about buying the machines and setting up the assembly lines needed to compete with the boots and shoes in the Wish Book and the other catalogs. That, however, was not to be. Peter was not convinced. Not yet. He wanted to wait and see.
"Already we have fewer orders."
"I know. But they will be back." Peter sniffed. "When they see what they have paid good money for. And after buying from a picture in a book, they will deserve what they get."
The most irritating thing about it was that little bit of uncertainty. It was just possible that Peter was right. After all, how much could the assembly line and production machines that Herr Kacere spoke of really speed things? They had to be scrimping on materials as well, didn't they?
Over the ensuing weeks, the number of shoes and boots ordered from the shop decreased a bit more. Finally, Lena had what she needed to convince Peter that they must act. The first order of shoes and boots had arrived.
Karl Strauss flinched a bit when he saw Lena in the market. It didn't take her long to see why, either. Karl was a clerk and scribe and had been a fairly regular customer of Peter's. But now! Lena looked at his feet. "Penny loafers, I see, Karl."
Karl blushed.
Lena considered for a moment. Karl was young. She could probably bully him a bit. "Come, Karl. Tell me. Why?"
"Business has not been good, Frau. They were much cheaper. And by adding the thicker 'socks,' they are more comfortable, as well."
Lena did her best not to glare. Some of the so-called new styles in clothing for men struck her as ugly. Yet here stood Karl, not only with penny loafers, but with something called "cargo pants." She wasn't sure, but the models in the Wish Book did not have the leg pockets so full that they bulged. She did agree that it was nice not to need to knit stockings quite as long, now that pants were longer. And the thicker yarns that had come into fashion did work up quickly.
"Up-timers." She shook her head. "Please come to the shop and let Peter look at them. Dara will be glad to see you."
Dara bustled around providing refreshments. Probably showing off her "domestic skills," Lena thought a bit darkly. Dara was yet another of the younger people who was enamored of up-time ways, styles of clothing and attitudes. Dara was particularly fond of the clothing styles. She was forever drawing new things she'd like to make for herself, and saving money for the fabric to do so.
Many of the younger people were adopting those ways wholesale, without thinking. Lena even agreed with some of them. But not all. Most especially not the lack of support for the guilds, the lack of consideration for custom. And she wasn't at all enamored of Dara flashing her eyes at a clerk. Dara's father expected her to marry one of the farmers in their village, once she'd earned her dowry. If anything came of the relationship, one or both of them would be ruined. Dara, if he refused to marry her, and Karl, if he didn't refuse. Yet here she was, flirting with him as though it was perfectly all right.
With Dara's eager help, she talked Karl out of his shoes so that Peter could look at them closely. And with Dara cooing at him, he didn't balk at letting her inspect the sock, either. Even those could be made with one of the up-time machines.
After Karl had left—eagerly escorted to the street by Dara—Lena gave her husband a look. "Well?"
"Very good leather," he admitted. "Very good. And I could not pull the glue loose, not without damaging the shoe."
"We must go inspect the factory."
Unfortunately, that statement started the boys, Endres and Benedict, off. And they were still going at it when Dara got back. Everybody wanted to go to Grantville. Then Peter got that mulish look on his face and shouted them down.
All in all, it wasn't a very pleasant evening.
"Only one order this week, husband. And that for a pair of boots with the buyer's family crest on the side. Something the Wish Book doesn't offer, I should add. At least not yet, thank goodness."
"So? The boots for the mounted trooper will bring a lot of money."
"And take a lot of time. And there's only one new order." Lena slumped in her chair. "Peter, you must listen to me. The factory-made boots will ruin our business. They will ruin the business of all who do not modernize. We must do this and we must do it soon, else we will be left behind in this new world."
Another effect of the arrival of the first of the new shoes was that the shop's business had a precipitous drop. Even several canceled orders. People who had believed Peter about the impossibility of making good shoes for that price were taking a new look.
Peter sighed and looked depressed. "Very well. Hans can finish those boots. We will go." Then he looked at the eager faces of his sons, as well as the hope in Dara's eyes. Well, she was Lena's cousin. And she'd be a help on the road, keeping the boys occupied.
"Yes. We will all go."
And on a bright, sunny morning, they set out. North, over the mountains—and they really were mountains, even if they weren't a scratch on the Alps. Unfortunately, all did not stay bright and sunny. It started to rain two days out of Bamberg, and kept right on raining for over a week.
Then they reached the railhead a bit south of Saalfeld. The railroad south of Grantville was little more than a spur line. They were informed it went to the steel works of Saalfeld and to an iron mine a bit south of that, mostly to make it easier to get the iron to the steel works. Still, a little transshipment town had grown up around the rail head and a warehouse had been set up at the end of line. It was, they were told, a temporary warehouse that would move when the railhead did because the railroads could carry so much more than a mule train, or even one of the new wagon trains, that cargo shipped by rail piled up waiting for more traditional transport.
And there was "a line planned to go to Bamberg once they could scare up the steel for the rails." So the railroad agent informed them. "For now you folks are standing right at the south end of the Golden Corridor. From the mouth of the Elbe to here, between the rivers and the rails. Shipping is cheap and easy. When they get the railroad down to Bamberg, it will link to the Rhine." It made the last of the trip easier, but at the same time was a warning of things to come. Finally they reached Grantville, and there was no room at the inn. At least not at the sort of inn they could afford.
Eventually they managed to rent a room in one of the new subdivisions just outside the Ring of Fire. John Christopher Kacere had provided them with letters of introduction.
Lena had to stop herself from drooling at the thought of buying some of the goods she saw on display. By the time these goods actually reached Bamberg, the price was a lot higher. But she was determined that the first thing they had to do was check on the Eisenhauer Shoe Company.
They took their letters of introduction to the State of Thuringia-Franconia Office of Economic Development. Who in turn directed them to the Eisenhauer Shoe Company. It was then they learned that the factory wasn't in Grantville. "Yes, sir, the marketing headquarters are here in town where we have access to the computer and the telephones. But the factory, we moved that up north of Halle on the Elbe. Oh, must be three . . . no, four months ago. To make shipping easier. We can ship raw materials by barge and ship out the shoes the same way. Got access to the whole navigable Elbe that way."
The clerk was what they had learned was called an "old Grantville hand," a down-timer who had lived in or near Grantville for several months. It was clear to Lena that before the Ring of Fire he had been a villager. And from the pleased little smile on Dara's face, she could tell the same thing. Apparently the up-timers really didn't care if you were a villager or a townsman. This was going to make it even harder to convince the already rebellious Dara to keep her proper place.
"How can we get there," Peter asked the clerk.
"It's no problem. You can take the train part way and a river barge the rest. It's a regular stop for the barges these days. It's not even all that expensive. And Herr Eisenhauer likes visitors. There's even a tour."
"Here you see . . ." The guide pointed. ". . . our cutting press. There are six processed hides and this press is cutting boot soles. We get twenty left and twenty right soles from each processed hide."
Just then the press dropped and in the blink of an eye two hundred and forty boot soles were cut. Lena looked at Peter who was staring openmouthed. Two hundred and forty. Peter was skilled and hard working; he could cut a single boot sole in less than a minute. But two hundred and forty. Even if you included the time it took to stack the hides on the cutter . . .
Their guide was still talking. "These pieces are sorted by size and then moved by cart to the sewing line . . ."
Lena walked along, following the young guide, taking note of each step. There were some places where delays happened. Sometimes the cutters were ahead of the sewing, sometimes one or more of the other operations were a bit delayed while someone finished a different operation. But the speed! Such speed.
"The up-timers tell us, and you can see pictures on the wall there, that back in their time, hundreds of thousands of pairs of shoes came off of a rolling belt, were packed in boxes, then transported by their trucks to 'retail' locations and warehouses."
Lena couldn't quite imagine hundreds of thousands of shoes. Nor could she quite imagine the rolling belt, until she took a good look at the picture the guide pointed to. It was all quite a shock. Peter's face was as pale as she'd ever seen it.
Peter was drunk for the first time in ten years. And for the first time ever, it wasn't a happy drunk. He wondered if it was because he wasn't drunk enough, then looked down at the little glass that had held the very potent drink that the bar tender called "Shine." The bartender, a most helpful fellow, had informed him that it was called a shot glass because if you emptied it in one gulp you felt like you had been shot.
By that standard Peter had now been shot several times. It hadn't helped. Because the killing blow had been delivered before he ever got to the bar. That had been done in the shoe factory, where they had killed his pride in what he did, his hope for the future, his dreams for his children.
Lena was upstairs in a surprisingly nice room, especially considering that she would be a homeless beggar soon. Dara and the boys were in Grantville, where they were no doubt spending the rest of the family's savings. Which might be just as well. At least they would have a few days of fun before the end, which was more than most of the shoemakers in Bamberg would have—or their families, either.
After due consideration, Peter decided that if however many shots he had taken had not put him out of his misery, one more probably wouldn't do the job. He kept seeing that press coming down like a headsman's ax. Cutting off his future as it cut out soles. In a way, the worst part of it all was that now having seen it, he understood exactly how it worked. It was so simple. Straight forward. In a way, it wasn't even that new. He used tools in his shop. He often separated out the work between the apprentices. Sometimes everyone in the shop had a hand in making a single pair of shoes. He could follow each step along the assembly line in the shoe factory, see what it did and why. He could even think of improvements. Not that that did any good. It must have cost a fortune to put the factory together.
Peter knew that Lena thought of him as a stubborn old fool. He figured she was probably right in a lot of ways. He'd never been all that good with numbers or accounts or keeping records. But he had a craftsman's eye and a craftsman's sense. He knew how things fit together . . . for all the good that did now.
Lena paced. Then paced some more. At one point, she seriously considered pulling Peter out of the bar before he got completely drunk. Then she considered joining him and getting drunk herself. Then she paced.
Right up to the tour of the factory, Helena Kellerin had had a plan. They could raise the money for improvements to the shop. It wouldn't exactly be easy but the up-timers were actively loaning money for modernization. To raise the money, they would need to present a prospectus to the bankers. A plan with decent detail describing how they were going to turn that money into an improved, more productive shop. Lena had been convinced that it wouldn't be that difficult. She would draw up a prospectus and present it to the bankers. They would buy a couple of the sewing machines that Herr Kacere had mentioned, maybe some improved leather shears. They would modernize the shop and start producing more shoes for less money. That had been the plan right up till the tour of the factory.
But they hadn't seen an improved shop. They had seen a factory.
She hadn't told Peter of her plan. It had been hard enough just getting him to come here to look at the factory. Now she was glad she hadn't. It would have been embarrassing. With all the changes in the world in the last few years, she'd studied everything she'd been able to find about how money worked. Especially the new up-timer economics. She had known about money of accounts. In fact, much of the shop's income came from people who didn't have silver to pay. The price would go into an account book and the shop would get paid when the crop came in. And the shop did the same thing with other merchants. It had taken a while but what she had finally realized was that all money—even pure silver coins—was just another form of money of accounts. If you understood money, you understood everything.
Except you didn't. Lena had, she was still convinced, gotten a good handle on up-timer money and economic system. But when she saw that factory, she realized that though she understood the process of mass production from the money side, she didn't even have the start of a handle on it from the . . . uh . . . making stuff side. She could grasp easily enough what each device did. It was the way it all fit together that had her stumped and, from his expression, had Peter stumped as well. Peter was set in his ways. He'd been making shoes for over twenty years, ever since his own apprentice days. There was no way that Peter knew how to make these new-fangled methods work. Just no way. He was too determined to keep on with the old ways.
They were sunk. Aside from the process part, there was the administrative part. There would be so many people to deal with. Employees, not apprentices. You could get to know everyone in a shop . . . but a factory? Lena wasn't sure. With a few apprentices, and a journeyman or two, you could rapidly learn which ones wanted to learn and which were little monsters whose parents had paid the apprenticeship fee to get them out of the house. But the shoe factory they had just visited had one hundred fifty-three employees. Most of them had families. Over three hundred people lived in this town, simply because of the shoe factory.
There were only so many changes a woman wanted to deal with. Life as she knew it was falling down around her ears. Dara making eyes at a clerk. Her own sons wouldn't be following their father into his trade, because that trade wasn't going to exist in a few years.
How were they going to live? Admittedly, Peter could repair these factory-made shoes and boots once they needed it. It would be a horrible comedown. He'd hate it, cobbling stuff together from scraps. Worse with prices so cheap—and she was pretty sure they were going to get even cheaper—how many people would have shoes repaired? What if it was cheaper to just order a new pair?
She threw herself on the bed. She considered weeping. But then her stomach growled and she realized that what she needed was something to eat. And maybe a drink. Or two. Three at the most.
"Aiiee." Peter flinched, both from the bright sunshine and the noise of the barge being loaded. Loaded with crates of shoes which gave yet another reason to flinch.
Lena found herself squinting and flinching as well. Probably, she thought, that last drink hadn't been a real good idea. Her head hurt. A lot.
Obviously, so did Peter's.
Once they'd found their seats—no staterooms for them. They were traveling steerage. Peter leaned his elbows on his knees and buried his head in his hands.
"I'm sorry, Lena. Sorry it took so long to realize that you were right."
Lena started to shake her head, then thought better of the idea. Her stomach wasn't exactly settled just at the moment. "It doesn't matter, Peter. I didn't realize how complicated all this was. We can't build or run a factory like that, anyway."
He snorted. "I couldn't bring myself to believe it without seeing it. But now that I have, it all makes sense. Perfect sense. I can see how they do it, every step of the way. From leather and wood to finished shoe. It's not even hard. For all the good that it does. We're sunk, whether I understand the factory or not."
That took a moment to percolate through Lena's brain. "You understand it? You know how the machines work?"
Peter waved his hand. "Simple. I could have most of them built in Bamberg, now that I've seen them. Except for the sewing machines. I know exactly what they're doing. It's still shoemaking, just . . . ah, simplified. Well, not exactly simplified. Taken apart. All of the steps in making shoes are still done, but they're done in a different order and broken down into smaller bits than I would normally use. Even with the new apprentice." He shrugged. "But I can't afford to do it. Oh, I could reorganize the shop more along the lines of the factory. Probably will, when we get back. It might keep us in business for an extra few months. But it won't be enough, not without the machines."
Lena's hangover began to clear up. Hope for the future began to trickle back. "What did you say?" she asked, rather louder than she intended.
"Please! My head . . . what did I say?"
"You said you knew exactly what they're doing."
He nodded, then flinched at the movement. Lena understood. The morning sunlight off the river wasn't helping either. Nor the chug of the steam-powered barge.
"Oh, yes. Simple. But we have no money."
"Dear . . ." Lena smiled. "We have no money, true. But we can borrow it or get investors. Let me explain how to get it . . ."
A week later, with funds running low and two rambunctious boys to handle, not to mention Dara who was driving her crazy, Lena was about to bust. Red tape, they called it. The loan they needed was too large for the small business loans section of the Committee Savings and Loan Association. So she and Peter had been to see the people at the Grantville Bank, as well as the people at the credit union. With Peter agreeing, nothing was going to stand in her way if she could help it. The family's future was at stake.
She thought she had the credit union convinced, because of the time factor. They had a window of time to get up and running before the railroad connected the northern and southern parts of the SoTF. If they could get the sales base, and name recognition, along the Rhine and Main Rivers established before the railroad came through, they had a good chance of success.
"Come along, Endres," Lena said. "You're better with numbers than Benedict, so I want you to see how the bank operates. Benedict, you and Dara stay here with your father and work on the design for the assembly line."
On the way to the credit union, Lena had Endres recite what he was learning about the business. No longer would it be possible for him to merely understand the economics of a single shop. He'd have to learn about bigger businesses.
"Mother?" he asked after a pause.
"Hm?"
"What about the other shoemakers in Bamberg?"
Lena looked at him, wondering what had brought that on.
"Johan's father." Endres explained. Johan was a playmate of his. Johan Senior was prominent in the Shoemaker's Guild. "What will they do if we build a factory and take away their business?"
"That's where the stock comes in," Lena said. "Hopefully, they will be willing to invest. That way they will each have a part of it." Lena really did hope that was the way it would go, but she had also planned for the possibility that it wouldn't. If they had to, Lena was pretty sure they could rent the property needed to put up a factory outside of town. "If they join us, they will bring what they know with them. Your father says that knowledge can be combined with mass production techniques. So we can have a line of custom-made shoes and boots for people with more money or special needs."
"I'm not sure Johan's papa is going to be happy about that. When we left Bamberg, he was very angry about the Wish Book. There was to be a guild meeting, Johan said. And he said that Papa would be in trouble . . ."
Lena looked down at her eight-year-old son. "Not exactly. The guild knew we were coming and agreed to it. It is true that they were thinking more in terms of getting the government here to crack down on the catalogs. And it wasn't just the shoemaker's guild. Many of the guilds were upset at the products for sale in the catalogs." She smiled. "Some people will bury their heads in the sand no matter what. I knew that the government would not restrict catalog sales to satisfy the guilds. But I did deliver their request. Demand, really. I was told that it would be filed with all the others. Then I was told that less than ten percent of the population lives in the cities, and now those villagers have a vote in how things get run. So the guilds will have to change, as they should already know."
"Yes. Just like that." Peter smiled. "Very good, Dara."
Dara glanced up at him. He was looking back and forth between her drawings and a book in English. Peter didn't read English and neither did she, but they could look at the diagrams and use them as a basis for what they were doing. They had also hired an old Grantville hand to translate. They couldn't afford a real up-timer but Al, as he said to call him, had had two years in Grantville's high school. He had gone over the flow chart and described what was in the boxes and what the different shapes meant. It was, he said, a graphic description of an assembly line.
Dara was having fun with it. She'd always been able to draw things, but it normally wasn't something she got a lot of time to practice. She was just too busy. This was something between drawing and writing. Like drawing ideas. It was interesting, but not as much fun as the drawings she'd made of the new clothes she wanted to make. Some of the up-time clothing she'd seen was wonderful. Some of it, like "sweatshirts," was horrible. But she had ideas for a lot of new things.
The days in Grantville while Peter and Lena went to Halle had been eye-opening for her in more ways than one. There was no way, she'd decided, that she was going back to being Lena and Peter's servant, cousin or not. There were too many other options now.
The wages, board and clothing that she received from them were dwarfed beside what she could earn here in Grantville, even as a maid at the Higgins Hotel. And if she took a job at the Higgins, she'd have the time to take some classes and improve her prospects. Becoming a farmer's wife was less and less appealing.
The whole world was opening up for her. And she wasn't going to let it pass her by.
The only problem was: how would she tell them she wasn't going back to Bamberg?
"Good enough," Peter said and for a second Dara thought he was talking about her plan to stay in Grantville. Then he continued. "That's the tongue and top subassembly, which is going to be one of the slower parts. We may need a double line there, but we won't know that for sure till we've been up and running for a while."
Dara answered the phone. Dara always answered the phone, almost from the moment they had arrived in Grantville. Lena looked on with irritation only slightly leavened by amusement as Dara raced to reach the instrument before anyone else could. A few moments later the phone was turned over to Peter who spoke for a few minutes. Then, with a bemused expression, he informed Lena that the Eisenhauer people would like to talk to them. Lunch tomorrow at the Higgins Hotel.
"So you come to our plant to steal our secrets and go into competition with us." Herr Eisenhauer smiled to take the sting out of his comment, but the smile was just a little bit forced. Lena could tell.
"It is just business, Herr Eisenhauer. Where did you get the idea for your factory?"
Herr Eisenhauer nodded a bit shamefacedly. "The same place the other shoe companies did. From the up-timers and the national library. In any case, we heard about your proposal. You do have an excellent point about the railroad. The transportation bottleneck between the Elbe corridor and the Rhine is making deliveries difficult and expensive. Considering that, we have a counter proposal to offer. Have you ever heard anything about something called a franchise?" Herr Eisenhauer had used an up-time word that neither Lena nor Peter were familiar with.
"No," said Peter. "What does that word mean?"
Hermann Eisenhauer explained, and neither Lena nor Peter were impressed. In fact, Lena was a bit miffed about it.
"You seem to be saying that we should pay your company for permission to make shoes, which would be sold under your label. And then we should also pay you for each pair of shoes or boots we sell. Why should we do that? We can just as easily make our own shoes, sell them on our own label and not pay you anything." The more she thought about it, the more miffed Lena got. It seemed like a very good deal for the Eisenhauers but not for her and Peter.
So Herr Eisenhauer explained again, this time saying that was just the definition of a normal franchise. What he had in mind was a little bit different. His company was willing to put up part of the startup capital and provide technical support in exchange for a percentage of the profit and, equally importantly, quality control. "If the Eisenhauer name is going to be on the shoes, they have to be good shoes."
Peter was ready to leave at that point. The suggestion that shoes he made would be a poor quality was offensive. Especially since his shop had usually made workaday shoes rather than the fancier shoes for the wealthy. Peter's shoes were plain, but well made. Unfortunately, a lot of people fail to make the distinction. In other words, he took Eisenhauer's comments personally.
"No offense, Herr Schumacher, but not knowing you or your products, how can I possibly know that? In fact, I am pleased that you insist on quality in your merchandise. But there are temptations in a factory and you need quality control. Suppose someone slips poor quality leather into their shipment to you, and it goes unnoticed till the shoes are finished. It can happen. I've seen it happen. It's then that you need a real stickler on quality control."
The conversation continued, going back and forth between what Peter and Lena needed and what Eisenhauer wanted for it. Winding around to the political situation in Bamberg. They were going to have to offer the guild something. The opportunity to invest looked like the best bet. Besides, Peter and Lena didn't have all that much money. Yes, they could get a loan for some of it but loans mean interest and the possibility of foreclosure. If the Eisenhauer people were going to be putting up the lion's share of the money, they would want both control and the lion's share of the profits. There was also the possibility of the Eisenhauer people sending someone to Bamberg or perhaps Frankfurt to set up in competition with them. Perhaps in partnership with local shoemakers, who had more money to invest or were willing to take a smaller cut. Nothing was settled at dinner but everyone was cordial, keeping their options open.
The next day Lena went to the credit union to discuss Eisenhauer's offer and the problems with it. The biggest in Peter's view, and Lena tended to agree, was that they didn't know whether the guild would see reason. Or how much reason. Some of the guild members would be willing enough, drawn in by the potential profits. Others would reject the whole thing because it wasn't the way their father did business. Some would fear for their political power and social position. Not that the shoemakers guild was one of the prominent ones in Bamberg, but still the position of guild master—even of the shoemaker's guild—was not to be sneezed at.
The reason that made it difficult is that it meant Peter and Lena would need to go it alone for an indeterminate amount of time. If all or most of the members of the shoemaker's guild pitched in, there would be enough money to put the factory together, almost without the Eisenhauer's investment. They would still want that investment, Peter and Lena agreed, because through the already present catalog ads, it offered a ready market. As soon as they got into production, they'd be selling shoes. Also technical support would help a great deal in putting the factory together in the cheapest, most efficient way.
After she had explained the situation to the loan officer at the credit union, that worthy had a suggestion. A drawing account, rather than a loan for a fixed amount. And a limited power of attorney for the credit union, given the Eisenhauer's involvement. The credit union was now prepared to approve the loan amount, secured by stock in the company. Peter and Lena would make the deal with the Eisenhauer Shoe Company, then go back to Bamberg and get as much of the guild as they could, or as wanted to, to invest in the new company. Then the credit union would loan the remaining amount, transfer the funds and take possession of the stock as security against the loan. There were more details about how long they would be given to put the new shoe factory in operation, but that was the gist of it.
Lena, Dara thought, might as well be glowing, she was so happy. Which might make this the time for her own announcement. At any rate, with the family leaving in two days, she had to do it.
"Ah, Lena?"
Lena smiled at her. "Yes?"
"I'm not going back to Bamberg."
"What?"
Dara kept herself from flinching at the shout, but only just. "I'm not going back to Bamberg. I got a job. Right here in Grantville."
"What kind of job?"
Dara explained her plan. She'd taken a job as a maid at the Higgins Hotel, and was going to night school, then look for better work. "I don't want to be a servant, Lena. And I won't have to be, not in a couple of years."
Lena leaned back in her chair, remembering. She'd been lucky. Her father was a prosperous farmer. But Dara's father hadn't been quite . . . well, that didn't need to be spoken of. Uncle didn't like work as much as Papa had, perhaps.
So Lena hadn't had to put herself to work to earn her dowry. She thought about all the changes, then she took a breath. "Why the Higgins?"
"I already know how to clean," Dara said. "I don't know how to type and my reading isn't as good as it needs to be. I'll have to work at that."
Lena took a good look at Dara, at the way she'd adapted her own clothing, and remembered all the drawings Dara had shown her. She thought a moment. "Will you let me help you? Perhaps we can do better than maid."
Dara barely kept her nervousness under control, while Hermann Eisenhauer looked at her drawings. One thing she did know was shoes. You couldn't really avoid learning about them if you worked for a shoemaker. Finally, Herr Eisenhauer smiled.
"You've caught it. Exactly. A blend of up-time and down-time. Just like the clothing, even the language, is changing, so will shoes. And homes. Almost everything." He looked at the drawings again, then smiled at her. "Welcome to the company, Fraulein Shoe Designer."
"Fine," Lena said. "That's settled. Now all we have to do is persuade all those fools in Bamberg to go along with the plan."