Chapter 3—Moving Up in the World
October 11, 1631
Delia Higgins' Garage
Master David and Johan got off the bus about a block and a half away from the Higgins house, and it wasn't until they were turning into the driveway that they realized there was anything going on. There were too many cars in the parking lot.
Usually there were one or two vehicles, most often a truck, sometimes a push cart or a horse-drawn wagon, here to pick something up or put something in the containers. Today, there were five cars and three wagons in the parking lot.
While Master David went in to see what was going on, Johan went to the storage lot office.
"What's happening with all the cars?" Johan asked even before he closed the door of the mobile home.
"Close the door," said Dieter. "Don't you know we're in the middle of the Little Ice Age?"
Johan was already closing the door. The day was cold, even for an old mercenary who was wearing the best clothing he had ever owned.
"Brent and Trent got the sewing machine working," Liesel said. "And people have been showing up all afternoon. Karl Schmidt brought the whole family. Mr. Marcantonio is here. So are a couple of people from the Grantville bank and the credit union. The Wendells are here, and the Partows."
"I don't see what all the excitement is about," Hans complained. "It's a machine that sews. The up-timers have all sorts of machines that do all sorts of things. Mrs. Higgins already has a machine that sews. She used it to sew the patches on my coat." Hans pointed at his coat to prove the point.
Johan didn't try to explain it to him.
Dieter said, "Say, Johan, could you loan me a thousand dollars? I'd like to buy a horse to get around on." He was grinning, but the question was at least half serious. They all knew that Johan owned five percent of the Higgins Sewing Machine Company.
"Huh?" Hans asked. They also knew that Johan was getting precisely the same pay that they were, not even extra for being the guard sergeant.
"That share he has in the sewing machine company," Liesel explained carefully. Hans could get angry if you challenged his intelligence too blatantly. "Now that the sewing machine company is making sewing machines, it's worth more. I heard people talking about it over at the house."
"Yes, but he can't sell it, can he?" Hans asked. "Not when Lady Higgins gave it to him. That would be . . . bad."
"Yes, it would be," Johan agreed. "Dieter is just going to have to save up and buy his own horse."
"Dieter isn't getting a horse until I have a sewing machine," Liesel said, and both Johan and Hans laughed.
"Hans, with all these people here I want you to take an extra round through the storage lot, in case someone got lost."
Hans nodded and went to the rack by the door. He grabbed a scarf and a fur cap, then put them and a great coat on. When he went out, he let in another blast of frigid air.
Once he was gone, Liesel told Dieter severely, "Don't confuse him.”
"Wasn't trying to confuse Hans, sweetheart," Dieter said placatingly. "I was teasing Sergeant Moneybags here."
"What makes you think I'm so rich all of a sudden?" Johan asked.
"It's all they're talking about over there," Liesel said. "How the Higgins Sewing Machine Company is worth ten times what it was yesterday."
"That, and that you conned your way into the affections of a little old lady. Took advantage of her and a bunch of kids," Dieter added.
Dieter held up his hands when Johan turned to him. "I'm not saying it. Some of the up-timers up at the house are saying it."
Johan bit back his response. Something about the close family inbreeding of anyone who thought that. He took a breath and asked, "What are they saying, Liesel?"
"Everything they can think of." Liesel sniffed. "That Master David and Miss Sarah and the Partow twins are all too young to be running a company that may turn out to be vital to the welfare of Grantville. That you have been manipulating Lady Higgins." Liesel hesitated then said in a rush, "They can't figure out how you're doing it the way you look, but you used your wiles on her the same way you suckered Vespucci. That the fact that Lady Higgins gave you five percent of the company is proof."
"I knew that was a bad idea, but Lady Higgins insisted. Mostly because she was angry with her parents."
"Why didn't she just keep it, then?" Dieter asked, sounding truly curious.
Johan leaned back in his chair, rubbing his temples. The truth was he didn't know why Lady Higgins gave him part of the company, even though she told him. "She said it was to give me a stake in the success of the company."
"That makes sense," Liesel said.
"Not to me," Johan said. "I have my own reasons for taking care of Master David and the whole family." He remembered that day when David Bartley looked him in the eye. "I am not afraid of you," Master David had said, and he meant every word. "I don't have to trap you into doing something that would be an excuse to punish you. I don't need to make you weak to feel strong, or safe. That's why we act the way we do, Johan! The way that seems so wrong to you. Because we are not afraid. Not the way these German lords are. And because we are not afraid of you, you don't have to be afraid of us." Master David had proved that since then, proved it every day since that first day. Johan Kipper had felt small and mean every day of his life. Until the day he met Master David, but Master David had never made him feel small, not once. Other up-timers had sometimes. But never Master David and never Lady Higgins.
October 26, 1631
Higgins’ House
Delia Higgins tapped her coffee cup with her spoon three times. "The first stockholders meeting of the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation is hereby called to order. Is anyone recording this auspicious occasion for posterity?"
"I am, Mrs. Higgins," Sarah Wendell said, holding up her dad's digital camera.
"Me, too," said Trent Partow, holding up a cassette tape recorder.
"I was afraid of that," Lady Higgins said, and Johan struggled not to laugh. He wasn't the only one. David Marcantonio was grinning and Dalton Higgins was smiling. Mistress Ramona was too, although as usual she was looking a little confused. Liesel was in the kitchen and Johan was standing by in case anyone needed anything.
"Okay. First we have some real business. It has been proposed to sell David Marcantonio two thousand shares of Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation common stock to clear the debt for the last two machines we bought from him. Do any stockholders have any objections to that?" Lady Higgins looked around the table. Her eyes seemed to rest on Dalton a little longer than on anyone else, but he didn't object.
"Good, then. Without dissent. Sarah, go ahead."
Dave Marcantonio handed Sarah a check for two thousand dollars and Sarah handed him a stock certificate in exchange.
Then Sarah pulled out the bill for the last two production machines and handed the bill and the check to Mr. Marcantonio. He tore up the check, marked the bill paid in full, and handed it back.
"There, Dave," Lady Higgins said. "You're now officially a stockholder, and as such you can be on the board of directors. I nominate you to the board of directors. In fact, I nominate you to the post of Chairman of the Board."
"Forget it, Delia. I'll sit on the board, but you ain't sticking me with the chairmanship."
"I nominate Delia Higgins to the post of Chairwoman of the Board," Sarah said.
"I second the nomination," Dave Marcantonio said.
"I move the nominations be closed," Trent Partow added.
"It's been moved that nominations for Chairman of the Board be closed. Any objections?"
For just a moment, Johan thought Dalton Higgins was going to object, but he didn't.
"Very well. We will vote by a show of hands. All those for David Marcantonio?" Lady Higgins raised her hand even as she said it. But her hand was the only one to come up.
"Thirty thousand votes for David Marcantonio. All for Delia Higgins?"
Master David raised his hand. So did Sarah, Trent, Brent, and Dave Marcantonio. Master David looked at Johan and rolled his eyes up. Johan got the signal and raised his hand, feeling a bit weird even as he did it. Then Dalton and Ramona Higgins raised their hands. Johan counted it up in his head. Master David twelve thousand shares, Sarah, Trent and Brent ten thousand each, made forty-two thousand. Johan's five thousand and Mr. Marcantonio's two thousand made it forty-nine thousand, Mistress Ramona's five thousand and her proxy for Master Donny's two made it fifty-six thousand. Dalton's five made sixty-one and the six thousand shares he was voting for his kids made sixty-seven thousand votes for Lady Higgins.
Lady Higgins looked around at the raised hands and the girls and said, "Oh, all right. But I nominate Dave Marcantonio to the board of the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation. Any objections?"
There was silence.
"Let the minutes show that Mr. Marcantonio was elected by acclamation of the shareholders present."
Master David held up a finger.
"Yes, David?"
"I would like to nominate Johan Kipper to the board."
"What?" It came out without Johan willing it. Master David hadn't mentioned this to him. No one had mentioned this to him.
"I second the nomination," Sarah said. "I'm a stockholder and the bylaws give me that right."
"I third the nomination," said Brent Partow.
"You can't third a nomination," Sarah said.
"I just did, didn't I?" Brent said.
Lady Higgins tapped her coffee cup with the spoon again, and silence returned to the room. "Johan Kipper has been nominated and seconded to the board of the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation. All stockholders in favor, please raise your hands."
Master David, Miss Sarah, Trent and Brent all raised their hands immediately, then so did Lady Higgins and Dave Marcantonio. That only left Mistress Ramona who was voting her shares and Master Donny's, and Dalton who was voting his shares and those of his children Mindy, Milton, and Mark. Dalton didn't raise his hand, but after another moment Mistress Ramona did.
"With a vote of eighty-one thousand shares," Lady Higgins said, "Johan Kipper is elected to the board of directors of the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation. Sit down, Director Kipper. It's inappropriate for a member of the board to stand around like he's waiting to serve the soup. And stop calling me Lady Higgins. You're a member of the board yourself now."
Johan just stood there. Liesel poked him in the ribs and he hesitantly went to the dining table and sat down. Finally, he found his voice. "Chief Frost told me you were a lady, and I have seen no reason to doubt it."
"Hear, hear," said Dave Marcantonio then he got a twinkle in his eye. "In fact, I propose that the official address for the chairperson of the board of the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation be lady or lord, as fits their gender. Do I hear a second?"
"I second the motion," Brent Partow said.
Even as Delia Higgins said, "You're out of order, Dave. Not to mention out of your ever-loving mind."
"Motion has been made and seconded," Dave said. "This is a stockholder meeting, Delia, not a board meeting. Any stockholder can make a motion."
"You still have to be recognized by the chair and I am the chair."
Master David held up that finger again.
"Yes, David?"
"I move that the chairperson of the board be addressed as lady or lord as appropriate to their gender."
"I second," Dave Marcantonio said.
"I third," Brent said.
Lady Higgins looked at Master David, and said. "I don't recognize you." Then she looked around the room. "I never saw that kid before in my life."
"Mother," Mistress Ramona said, shocked.
"Oh, good grief," said Dalton.
Delia looked at her son. "You shouldn't take this stuff too seriously, Dalton."
"I don't know why we're bothering with it at all," Dalton said. "Fine, David and his friends have got their company up and running, sort of. They are turning out treadle-powered sewing machines, sort of." He sighed. "Look, Mom, I appreciate the gesture, but I have to get back to work." He stood up. "Tell you what, Mom. I'm giving you my proxy. Feel free to vote my stock and the kids' stock as you see fit." Then he left.
The gesture that Dalton Higgins was talking about was the gift of five thousand shares of HSMC stock to him and two thousand each to his three children. Johan knew that he also had five thousand shares of HSMC. But, unlike Johan, Dalton hadn't been involved in the design and production of the sewing machines. He wasn't all that close to his mother and had been busy with his job and his family. Besides which, Dalton Higgins was an up-timer. He didn't understand what sewing machines meant, not like down-timers did.
∞∞∞
As they were leaving the house, Johan said, “You shouldn't have done that, Master David.”
"We trust you, Johan," Master David said. "We need someone we trust on the board, Director Kipper."
"It's not that we don't trust Mrs. Higgins or Mr. Marcantonio," Sarah Wendell was quick to point out. "But you're out in the field with us, working with the down-timer suppliers."
"Forget that," Brent Partow said. "We need someone we can trust in the board meetings. Someone who isn't going to override us—" He made little quote gestures with his fingers. "—'for our own good.' "
November 2, 1631
Thuringian Gardens
The seven girls trooped in, carrying bags. Johan watched as they set their bags on the table. Johan knew Judy the Younger Wendell and had seen several of the rest now and again since he'd been working for the Higgins family. Judy was Sarah Wendell's little sister and the rest were her friends.
"This is Herr Gerber. He is from the Netherlands," Johan said, "And this is Monsieur Carloni from Genoa. Fraulein Wendell, would you introduce your friends?"
Judy did, going from the oldest, Susan Logsden, to the youngest, Hayley Fortney. There was a solemn, almost tragic, air about the girls as they removed the dolls from the bags. They introduced the dolls, mentioning character traits. Like the imagined fact that one Barbie liked strawberry ice cream and another blueberry waffles. The dolls were, with a few exceptions, not in very bad shape, though it was obvious that they were dolls that had been played with, not collector's dolls still in the box. In other circumstances, that might have made them less valuable. There were only a very limited number of up-timer dolls in the world. Add to that the cachet that anything owned by an up-timer had, and they were worth their weight in gold. More than that. In these circumstances, the fact that they were actually played with by real up-timer little girls made them more, not less, valuable. Provenance was important here, and the computer printouts that came out of the bags next proved that Judy and her friends knew that.
When Haley Fortney started saying that maybe she should keep her construction worker Barbie, the price almost doubled.
They kept some of the money they got for the dolls, a bit over a thousand American dollars, split among the seven girls. But they bought eight thousand, two hundred fifty-four shares of HSMC at the price of one dollar a share.
Those, thankfully, were the last shares sold at the initial offering price, and that because Judy had gotten an agreement on the price before the corporate papers had been filed. From now on, the price would be determined by the market. And the Grantville Exchange currently had the price at $1.57 per share.
November 14, 1631
Mobile Home, Higgins Storage Lot
"Hey, Johan." Dieter waved as Johan came through the gate. "Liesel says that HSMC passed five dollars a share?"
"News must have gotten out about the Grantville bank agreeing to buy our loans."
"Would you mind explaining that?" Dieter asked, as he got to the stairs to the mobile home.
"It means we can sell a sewing machine on credit, or a rent with an option to buy deal, and the bank will loan us money based on the loans we made to the buyer. We still have to pay the money back, but it means we have, or can get, cash to buy parts and generally run the business. Miss Sarah and that old crank at the bank were going round and round on how much interest we were going to be charged. She finally had to threaten to take our business to Uriel Abrabanel."
"What does that mean?" Liesel asked, as they stepped into the mobile home.
Mistress Ramona was looking confused and Johan thought the question was at least half for her benefit.
"It means that we can sell the sewing machines as fast as we make them."
Ramona was looking worried and, surprisingly, Liesel was too. Liesel mouthed "Later," with a glance at Ramona.
November 14, 1631
Higgins House
Johan stepped into the kitchen and looked around. No one else was here. "What's bothering you, Liesel?"
Liesel turned away from the stove. She was fixing stuffed potatoes for lunch. They were one of the recipes developed by the cooking show on Grantville TV. They were stuffed with shredded cabbage, just enough ground pork for flavor, and local goat cheese, with a bit of sage, chives, and a little minced turnip, all broiled to a brown crispness. They were one of Johan's favorite foods.
"I was talking to Margaret, who knows Mary Gerber, who is walking out with Peter Strauss, who works in the Schmidt foundry. And she says that Peter says that Karl Schmidt is getting ready to go into competition with HSMC."
Johan took a couple of steps, then sat down at the kitchen table. It wasn't really all that much of a surprise. If it hadn't been Karl Schmidt, it would have been someone else. The problem was that it would mean losing the Schmidt foundry as a supplier, and the Schmidt foundry was selling them quite a few vital parts at prices that none of the smithies in the area could match. "That will be a problem, but I don't think he can match our price."
"It's not that. It's Mistress Ramona," Liesel said. "Whoever wins, she's going to get caught in the middle between her Karl and Master David."
"Oh," Johan admitted. "I hadn't considered that."
"You can't tell David," Liesel said.
"Well, I have to tell someone," Johan said. "It's a threat to the company."
∞∞∞
He ended up telling Lady Higgins about the rumored threat to the company, and she too insisted they not tell Master David.
"Don't borrow trouble, Johan," Delia Higgins said flatly. "And don't start a pissing match between David and Karl Schmidt. Let me handle it."
December 12, 1631
Higgins’ House
Johan opened the door for Karl Schmidt and his family. He might be a director of the Higgins Sewing Machine Company now, but he still took his position in the Higgins household seriously. The rest of the Sewing Circle, as David, Brent, Trent and Sarah were being called, were already here.
Liesel and Dieter took the Schmidt girls' cloaks and Karl’s and Adolph's coats. It was December in the Little Ice Age. It wasn't warm. But the central heat was running, and the house was toasty warm inside.
Johan knew what was going on and had agreed not to let David in on the negotiations. David was a good lad, but he still had a great deal of up-timer romanticism, especially where his mother was concerned. Johan knew what was going on, because he was deeply involved in the negotiations. Lady Higgins was as pragmatic about such things as a lady had to be.
Karl was going to ask to marry Ramona tonight, and Johan was worried. He understood how things were done in the seventeenth century. Karl expected a considerable dowry, but had also offered a major dower. A family merger that would make both families stronger. Marrying for money or connections wasn't considered crude or mercenary. It was the standard practice, and marrying without proper attention paid to such concerns was flighty and foolish.
Officially, they were here to celebrate the sale of the fiftieth sewing machine, which had happened the previous week. They were making a profit on the sewing machines now, but not enough of one. It would take them years at this rate just for the investments Lady Higgins had made to be paid back.
Once they were seated, and before dinner was served, Karl said, "I would like to talk to you all about a proposal I have. I have already spoken of it to Ramona and Madam Higgins, but without your agreement they will not agree."
Karl hesitated, then . . . "I wish to take over the Higgins Sewing Machine Corporation. I will put in my foundry to pay for fifty thousand shares of stock. I wish to wed Ramona, and with the wedding I will control her stock. Together with Mrs. Higgins, I would control over fifty percent of the outstanding stock. If you all agree, she has agreed to give me her support."
"Hear me out," Karl demanded, apparently unaware that no one was in any hurry to interrupt. "You four have done a tremendous thing. Four children have started a company that may someday be worth more than some kingdoms. You have brought wealth into the world, but starting a company is not the same thing as running it. Already there are others interested in producing sewing machines. So there will be competition and alternatives.
"Even if you do everything right, you will be at a disadvantage because people will not want to deal with children if they can deal with an adult. Others will find it easier to buy iron and other materials. People will say 'Do you want to trust a sewing machine that was made by children having a lark? Or would you rather have one made by mature men of consequence?' Besides, you have schooling yet to complete, so you will not be able to pay the company the attention it needs."
Karl talked on. He talked about potential problems, he talked about what he would like to do, how he wanted to make the company grow. Johan listened with less than half an ear. He'd heard it before. The important voice here would be Master David's.
David looked at Mistress Ramona to find her looking at him. Her eyes begged him not to kill this. She was almost in tears, afraid of what he would do. He looked at Lady Higgins as she caught his eye, looked at Ramona, then at Karl, and nodded. He looked to Sarah. She saw him looking at her and gave a slight shrug. And Johan watched it all.
Masters Brent and Trent were looking rebellious and betrayed. Johan watched David catch their eyes and mouth the word "wait." David turned his attention back to Karl, and the business part of the proposal.
It was fair. Johan knew that. The foundry was worth more than twenty-five percent of the company when you included Karl's connections with suppliers and customers, and both would increase in worth with the merger.
David looked at Adolph, and Johan followed his glance to see Adolph looking like he had a mouth full of sauerkraut. Johan knew that Adolph did not approve.
Karl was running down now.
Lady Higgins said, "Perhaps we should give the kids a chance to talk it over? Why don't you four go out in the garden and talk it out?"
The kids headed for the garden.
∞∞∞
The kids talked it out. Brent and Trent wanted to say no at first. It wasn't that they found the prospect of running a sewing machine company all that exciting. It wasn't.
"Oh, I don't know," said Trent, "I just hate the idea of losing."
"What makes you think you're losing?" David asked. "You're gonna be rich, and Karl's gonna do most of the work to make you that way. You never wanted to be the CEO anyway."
"What about you?" Brent asked. "You did want to be the CEO. Don't try to deny it. We were gonna be the chief engineers, Sarah was the chief financial officer and you were gonna be the CEO. The wheeler-dealer. So how come?"
David looked at the ground. He moved a rock with his toe. Then he said quietly, "Mom. She loves the guy and I think he loves her in his way. He'll treat her right."
Then, because mush is not an appropriate emotional state for a fifteen-year-old boy or a captain of industry, "Besides, it's a good deal. The foundry will really increase production once it's upgraded a bit."
∞∞∞
Sarah didn't buy the last part for a moment. Oh, it was true enough, but it wasn't what had decided David, and she knew it. David was doing it for his mother. She wouldn't have fought it after that, even if she had cared, but the truth was she didn't much care. She was more concerned now with other things.
December 25, 1631
Myers Home
Darlene Myers watched, unable to touch, as Jack struggled to make Christmas for little Johnny without her. They had gotten her insurance money, but without her income and with the extra spent on babysitting, finances were tight. Then little Johnny insisted, "I want Mommy!" and Jack said, "Mommy's gone away."
A part of Darlene remembered—even in her sleep—that she had been having this dream at least once a week since the Ring of Fire. Not Christmas day, but whatever day it was. She tried to wake up, but the dream rolled on.
They opened their presents and had Christmas dinner and then the wave front hit. It wasn't instant. There was plenty of time for Jack to feel the fabric of space time ripped apart by the wave front of changing time, for little Johnny to cry for a mommy whose transfer in time was the cause of the wave front of changing time that was ripping apart the very atoms that made him.
Darlene jerked up in her bed, with her shout of terror dying into sobs.
January 17, 1632
Power Plant
Darlene entered the power plant machine shop. “What's on for today?" She'd had the dream again last night, but little Johnny hadn't called for Mommy. He was forgetting her. Jack would be dating again, meeting other women. Johnny needed a mother.
She forced her mind back to the present. Her job now was to read technical manuals and answer down-timer questions about capacitance and other up-timer concepts that don't translate well into seventeenth-century German.
Darlene was trying to be upbeat, she really was. She made more money than she had up-time, but not knowing if Jack and Johnny still existed, if they were living their lives in ignorance of the disaster, the changes Grantville wrought on the universe would cause. Or if they had already been wiped away to exist only in her memory. The common belief that there were now two branches of time, that the universe of her birth was proceeding on, undisturbed by the Ring of Fire . . . It seemed to Darlene Myers that that was just wishful thinking. The laws of thermodynamics seemed to make such an outcome impossible.
Yes, the Ring of Fire was doing great things for the down-timers. But what about the up-timers they had left behind?
April 10, 1632
Wendell House
Sarah Wendell was still muttering. "You really should have done this a month ago."
Johan didn't sigh. For one thing, she was right, and he knew she was right. Which didn't make not sighing easier, just more necessary.
Before the Ring of Fire, the bread and butter of the Wendell household had been the preparation of taxes. Now, with Mr. and Mrs. Wendell working for the Finance Subcommittee, Sarah, with help from several of her classmates, had effectively taken over. And she had been harping on the need to get the taxes done sooner rather than later.
Johan Kipper was a taxpayer. After a lot of shouting in the Emergency Committee, and the run-up to elections, citizens and legal residents of the New United States paid income tax. For the mine workers and the power plant workers, it worked almost exactly like it had worked before the Ring of Fire, and to a large extent the same was true for anyone who had a job or ran a business. Mistress Ramona Higgins, for instance, was still an employee of the Higgins Storage Facility and Lady Higgins withheld taxes from her salary every month. For Johan, Hans, Dieter and Liesel, Mrs. Higgins withheld taxes based on their salary, but had not withheld for their maintenance—which was, it turned out, taxable income.
"You would have saved a bunch of worry."
Since the incorporation of HSMC, and Johan's appointment to the board, he had received a salary, most of which had stayed in the bank. What really worried him was the effect the merger had had on the price of his stock. When HSMC incorporated, they set the value of the stock at one dollar a share. After the merger between HSMC and the Schmidt foundry in December of 1631, the price of the stock had gone from $9.56 to $41.32 in eight days. It had dropped a little after the first of the year, but it was still over two hundred thousand dollars worth of stock.
"Capital gains aren't taxed till they're realized," Sarah continued.
"What?"
"You don't have to pay taxes on your stock until you sell it." Sarah looked annoyed. "You ought to know that."
Johan didn't know why he should know that. The intricacies of up-timer tax law . . . Well, they weren't any worse than the complex of German taxes and tithes, but they were different. And an old soldier, like Johan was, didn't have much to do with taxes anyway.
"You have to pay taxes on dividend income. So that wedding dividend that Karl Schmidt is talking about will be taxable, but that won't be till next year. No, the only real trouble you're going to have is with the maintenance Mrs. Higgins provided. That's taxable income."
"I know that," Johan said. "I have plenty in the bank to cover that."
"You won't have to. Mrs. Higgins is paying a maintenance bonus to cover the taxes on maintenance. And this year, she's doing the withholding, so it won't be an issue next year.
"If you had just come to me around the first of the year. You would have saved yourself a bunch of worry and I wouldn't be doing this when I'm swamped with the taxes of half of Grantville."
"Sorry, Miss Sarah. There has been a lot to do." That was perfectly true since the merger.
"Even if you get a loan against your stock, you won't pay taxes until you sell the stock to pay off the loan."
"Really? What would I get a loan for?" Johan asked.
"To invest," Sarah said. "HSMC isn't the only new company in Grantville. You need a diversified portfolio. I'm managing David's. And the twins' and Mrs. Higgins' portfolios, to make sure that we don't have all our eggs in one basket. And with the merger with Karl Schmidt's foundry, we can get an excellent interest rate from the credit union if we use our stock as collateral. There is a lot of real property involved in that."
Johan, by now, mostly understood what she was saying. On the other hand, he didn't know all that much about what was happening in the Grantville stock market. Not enough to trust himself to pick the right stocks. "You're handling it for Master David?"
"Yes, and Trent and Brent. David's busy running around for Herr Schmidt, and Trent and Brent don't care about anything but their gizmos."
"Would you handle mine too?" Johan said, now realizing why Master David insisted that he come over here.
"Sure," Sarah said, smiling. "It gives me a bigger pot of money to work with." She pulled out a document. "Look this over, and talk it over with David and Mrs. Higgins. Then, if you're sure, sign it and bring it back."
Johan took the document and read it through. It wasn't that long. It was a limited power of attorney authorizing Sarah Wendell to use his stock as collateral for loans and to invest the money, along with any other money he gave her. There was a clause that relieved her of liability if the investments lost money, but even that was fairly straightforward. Johan had been looking over similar documents ever since he got put on the board. "I'll sign it now," he said. "It's not the form, it's you I trust, Miss Sarah." He signed the document and wrote her a check for the better part of what he had in the bank.