"It's weird to think of Johan that way," Darlene admitted. "Whenever he talks about himself, it's always not about himself. If you know what I mean."
"I haven't got a clue."
"It's 'young Master David put me on the board of OPM to represent him and the other members of the Sewing Circle.' Or 'and Mrs. Higgins put me in charge of the guard force for the Higgins Hotel.' It's never 'I am on the board of OPM' or 'I am in charge of the guards at the Higgins Hotel and at the Higgins warehouse.' It's even 'young Master Donny listens to me on matters of down-time custom.' Never 'I explained to little Donny that he's not supposed to kiss the girls and make them cry.' "
Now Sarah nodded. "I know. There is a whole range of responses we get, even from the down-timers who like us. We have Gretchen Richter, who has become more up-timer than up-timers on the subject of equal rights for all. Then you have Johan, who can barely manage to give lip service to the notion. He thinks of up-timers as nobles, the real nobles, the ones who behave the way nobles are supposed to. The ones, not to put too fine a point on it, that God put here. At first David tried to argue him out of it. Then he just sort of gave up. Besides, Johan is a heck of a lot more of a father to David than his dad ever was. He figures if that's the way Johan wants to be, then that's the way he can be."
"Pretty convenient for David to have Johan trotting around after him," Darlene said, feeling resentful of Johan's absence and blaming David for it.
"Look, Darlene, I know you're older and wiser than a teenage girl. . but the down-timers have different rules. And Johan Kipper has been learning those rules for fifty years and more. Expecting him to throw them all away in a few days or even a few years. . well, it ain't going to happen. It's not that David asked Johan to act the way he does. It's Johan. And David respects him enough to let him, even when it makes David uncomfortable. And it does. If you want any kind of relationship with Johan, David is part of the package, because Johan has picked David as his lord and that's all there is to it."
The fog was thick enough to walk on and it had been for a good part of their time in Antwerp, but the mission to Amsterdam boarded the packet boat that would take them to Hamburg in generally good spirits.
"I'll be glad to get back home," David Bartley said. "I'm getting awfully behind in my school work."
"We knew that was going to happen from the start, Master David. Though I admit we've spent more time on this than we expected," Johan said. "It was worth it, though, so far as OPM is concerned. We managed to make a good start on several businesses, and with the goods we've bought here and in Amsterdam, we have more than doubled our initial investment in guilders." Johan was grinning happily. That they had bought those guilders with a low interest loan from the Fed didn't bother him at all, and he suspected it didn't bother young Master David either. There would be significant bonuses for both of them when the annual report came out. That was important to Johan because, well, if a man was thinking about getting married it helped if he had the wherewithal to support a family. He would have something to show Darlene, something to prove she was getting more than a serving man. Even if he was young Master David's serving man and happy to be so.
Fletcher Wendell grinned at Johan. "Well, up-time women are just as practical as down-time women, but they like to pretend they are romantics. So you want to go with the whole romantic part first, you know." Then, seeing Johan's face, he added, "Well, maybe not. You take her out to a romantic dinner, kneel on one knee, present her with an engagement ring and ask her to honor you by accepting your proposal of marriage."
By this time Johan was looking a little green and Fletcher was having a grand old time. He kept elaborating on the proposal and adding bells and whistles till Johan caught on that he was being teased. Then Fletcher backtracked a bit. "Remember, I said they like to pretend that they are ruled by romance, not that they truly are. I guess the biggest difference is that it's easier for a woman to say no if she wants to, because she is less dependent on the prospects of the guy than down-time women. For that matter, the guys are less likely to end up asking the girl on the basis of her prospects. I think it's just because we were richer up-time. We could afford to follow our hearts, not that our hearts were always right either.
"Look, just ask her and let her know it's truly what you want, not just what's practical."
To be continued. .
Ein Feste Burg, Episode 7
Jena Lokschuppen, Jena, Saxe-Weimar County
May 1633
Nikki Bourne didn't exactly know why she was here.
One year ago she had started a chicken farm in Grantville-something she thought she was good at-but then the Croat Raid came, and the Croats had torched the farm and killed all her chickens and her future.
Then she had concentrated to get the best grades in her senior year, but now she still didn't know what to do after graduation, which was due soon.
When the principal announced that the senior class of the Grantville Tech Center would arrange a career day at the R amp;D facility of a new railroad company in Jena, and that the senior class of the high school, her class, was invited, too, it seemed a good idea to her to attend. But now she was the only high school girl among all these tech geeks.
The whole morning had been full of information about the jobs and training as machinist, surveyor, engineer, etc.-that the facility (everybody here called it Lokschuppen, even if there was not a single locomotive or even tracks to be seen)-had to offer for the tech center and high school graduates.
But manual labor was not exactly fitting for her. Ninety pounds, five foot high-or short- delicate, blond. Not a figure to operate one of these enormous lathes they had been shown or to haul a twenty pound theodolite through the wilderness.
At least Marshall Ambler, the guy who was in charge here, had promised to talk about office jobs in the afternoon, not that that seemed to her like a primary target to aim at.But what was her primary target?
Now was lunchtime. The large canteen was already nearly full of Germans, when the Grantville students-eighty percent of them Germans too-arrived. They got their share of vegetable stew and dark bread and now she looked around for a place to sit down.
"He, Puppchen, willste dich setzen?" Her German was not perfect, but "sit down" was something she could easily understand. And when she saw the friendly faces of some young workers-cute, they had introduced dungarees and overalls here-she smiled back and sat down on the space they had freed.
"Hi, ich bin Nikki." She introduced herself.
"Johann," "Hannes," "Hanns," "Johannes," were the answers from the four boys around.
"Are you joking?"
"No, welcome to the Four Johns, as chief Marshall calls us."
They didn't speak the Grantville Amideutsch but German with an admittedly not too heavy dialect. Nikki had enough contacts with Germans since the Ring of Fire to understand them-as long as they were talking to her. But when they talked to each other, Nikki was left out.
So she concentrated on her stew and let her thoughts wander. Nice guys, but no nice job in sight.