by Eric Flint
“Flo,” Mary Lee said, “will have an answer for your widows.” She hoped. There were widows in Sundremda and she knew from Clara that there were others. Every village had them; more now, because of the war. They made their living, what living they had, by spinning wool. Flo knew about wool; maybe she would have an idea.
Mary Lee knew that wasn’t all of it. Clara was worried about a number of things. Only one of them was the plight of the widows in the villages her husband held Lehen on. Mary Lee wasn’t real fond of the stuck up Claus Junker but she at least respected the fact that he wouldn’t put a widow or orphan out, rent or no rent. Still, if those women could make a fairly decent living, it would help. Clara had made it very clear that what she didn’t want was another Guffy Pomeroy. They’d reached the porch. She rang the bell and hoped.
She rang the bell again, when Flo didn’t answer.
“I know she’s here,” Mary Lee muttered. “I checked with J.D.”
After the second ring, Flo pulled the door open. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you, Mary Lee. Come on in."
Flo waved them in. She looked . . . well, while Mary Lee hated the term, Flo looked stressed out. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“C’mon to the kitchen,” Flo said. Grumpily. A glance told Mary Lee that Clara was not pleased with this lack of manners. Clara was pretty down to earth as upper class town women went, but even the best of them didn’t care for being ignored or treated rudely.
Mary Lee and Clara followed. “Flo,” Mary Lee said, “do you want to tell me what’s wrong?”
Flo’s bangs fell over her eyes as she looked fierce. “I,” Flo said, “am sick of this place. The problems. Trying to deal with it. All of a sudden, I’ve got too many rabbits and not enough angora. I’ve got a ram that doesn’t have wool, he’s got steel wool. And he keeps getting loose. I’m afraid he’s going to get to Jen’s Merinos, that . . . thing.” Flo’s face was flushed. “And not only that . . .” She gestured around the room . . . “I’m having to cut back on coffee.”
“Oops.” Mary Lee stifled a grin. Flo had been hooked on coffee since she was about eight years old. “That bad, huh?”
Flo glared at her. “You can laugh.” Then she looked at Clara. “Sorry,” she said, then blushed a bit. “I’ve forgotten my manners. May I offer you something to drink?”
Clara Kunze, who clearly recognized a woman on the edge, grinned at her. “I don’t suppose you have any of Mary Lee’s frozen limeade about the house, do you?”
Flo grinned. “Who, me?” she asked innocently. “Me?”
Mary Lee gave Flo her own glare. “Tootsie, I saw that sale at Costco, didn’t I?”
Flo blushed. “Jeez, Mary Lee,” she said. “You’ll give away all my secrets, won’t you?”
“Only if you’ve run out of tequila.” Mary Lee grinned. “Of course, we can always do daiquiris, can’t we?”
“Tell me about these rabbits,” Clara said sympathetically. “Are they getting into your garden?” Mary Lee could tell that Clara was feeling her way and she was thankful for it. She had gone to some trouble to arrange the meeting and Flo had almost blown it in coffee withdrawal.
Flo laughed. “No. Not that kind of rabbit. These are angora rabbits. They have marvelously soft hair; you spin it with wool.” Then, seeing Clara’s expression. “It’s true. Here, I’ll show you.” She fetched a scarf made from merino wool and angora hair.
Clara felt the scarf. She rubbed it on her cheek, while Flo explained about plucking the fur from the rabbits and the other steps in making the incredibly soft, warm scarf.
“It’s like a warm cloud on a sunny day,” Clara enthused.
Flo smiled “What a nice way of putting it. The problem is it takes a lot of rabbits. Feeding them and housing them; the bucks have to be kept in separate cages or they fight. We don’t have enough room.” She turned the blender on, and waited for the margaritas. While they were blending, she salted the rims of three glasses. After pouring the frozen concoction into the glasses she set one each in front of Mary Lee and Clara, then slumped into a chair. “We have angora rabbits and can make angora yarn but not enough.” Flo sighed “They’re rabbits. They breed like rabbits but keeping them cared for is labor intensive and we don’t have the labor. Keeping the colors separated is going to get kind of dicey too.”
Clara looked up from stroking the scarf. “Flo,” she said, a bit dreamily, then took a drink from her glass. “My son Egidius, just yesterday, was telling me about a marvelous invention. A franchise, he called it. I understand your keeping this to yourself. It is very valuable but there are poor women in all our villages. They need work. Can’t something be worked out?”
“Huh.” Flo was confused. “I’m not keeping it to myself. At least I didn’t mean to. I’m not real sure what a franchise is. Not in detail.” She shrugged. “And I don’t really want to know, to tell the truth. If it’s like the franchises up-time, well, anybody who owned one got inspected and had people coming around making sure they were doing what they were supposed to. I don’t have the time, or the inclination.” She stared into her glass. “Mostly, I bought the rabbits and sheep to try and coax Jen to come live in Grantville when she graduated. Probably silly of me, but I’m a mom, you know. Now . . .” Flo drained her glass. “Now I’ll never see her again. Every time I see one of her friends, like Noelle, I choke up. Yeah, the rabbits are probably going to be a moneymaker, but that wasn’t what I had in mind.” She stood and gathered the ingredients for another batch of margaritas.
Clara was staring at Flo in surprise. “Then you would not object to selling the rabbits?”
“No.” Flo shook her head. She didn’t seem to notice Clara’s sudden intensity but Mary Lee did.
“Not all of the village women would be able to pay in advance,” Mary Lee said.
“We can work something out,” Flo assured her. The sound of the blender stopped conversation for a minute or so. “I’m not trying to keep the damn things secret,” Flo said. “I could sell them on spec.” At Clara’s look, she explained. “Sell them to people who would take care of them, then pay me what they owed later. Jeez, Clara. The sheep are enough to keep me busy. The rabbits—well, they’re rabbits. I’ve already got too many.” Flo prepared another set of glasses and served the drinks.
“Mary Lee, did your church do the Heifer Project? You know, where you donate animals?”
“I’ve heard about it,” Mary Lee said, after she’d licked a bit of salt from the rim of her glass. “I always thought it was a good idea.”
Flo reached for a pad of paper and made a note. “I don’t think anyone has started one here. I’ll get in touch with Mary Ellen at my church.” She pointed at Mary Lee. “You get in touch with your pastor, too. And Clara can get in touch with people she knows.”
“Heifer project?” Clara was clearly wondering what they were talking about.
“It was a program we had back up-time,” Mary Lee explained. “Someone would donate a female animal to a family in need of food. In return, that family agreed to donate female offspring to another family, and then that family would do the same. Of course, it’ll be a bit different with the rabbits.”
“That’s what we’ll do, then,” Flo said. “Sell what we can . . . say twenty dollars for a breeding pair. Give people a break. If they can’t pay right away, we’ll go for some interest, but not much. Donate the critters, if we have to. Johan will just have to suck it up.”
Clara grinned at her. “Your husband?”
“Nah,” Flo said. “My partner, I guess. He deals with the farm and the animals. And I think he’s gotten a little too fond of the idea of getting rich off all this wool.” She frowned. “There’s no way we can keep up with as many animals as he wants us to. But the angora hair is pretty valuable, so we’ll just do what you said. Sell them cheap, donate others. That way the hair gets harvested, the spinners make some money and we all have nice, soft clothes.”
“Hear, hear,” Mary Lee said, raising her glass.
>
Flo and Clara grinned. “Here, here,” they echoed, touching their glasses to hers.
“It’s going to take a while, I imagine, before it really gets going, Flo,” Mary Lee warned. “Months, I bet.
“Piffle,” Flo said, waving her fingers. “It will get done, sooner or later. Just a matter of getting organized, just like always. We can do it. Now . . .” Flo sighed. “If we could just get some coffee imported before I have to hurt someone.”
Mary Lee just about snorted the margarita up her nose.
* * *
“J.D. if you make one more smart-ass remark, I’m going to throw this damn soup stuff at you.”
J.D. looked at Flo, seeming a bit startled. Flo rarely cursed.
“I know I’m going to run out. I know everyone is. I don’t need you to remind me of that every stinking morning of the world. If you say ‘you’re going to have to give it up sooner or later’ one more time, you will regret it.” Flo had a headache. “Just shut up, will you?”
J.D. apparently decided that discretion really was the better part of valor and murmured, “Yes, dear.” As he rose from the table, Flo could see him hiding a smirk.
Jerk, she thought. Mr. I-can-take-it-or-leave-it jerk.
After J.D. had driven away, Flo headed outside. “Anna, I’m going for a walk. I need to get out for a while.”
“Ja, Flo. We take care of things.” Even Anna had started walking on eggshells around Flo these days.
Flo stepped out into the warm morning and headed down the drive. It was the non-coffee days that were making life difficult. Her coffee stash had been devastated by the purchase of sheep. Only a couple of teenagers had been willing to take money for their sheep. The others had held out for coffee. Now, Flo was trying to ration herself. It wasn’t easy.
“Damn sheep. Damn wethers. Damn rotten, bargaining brats. Damn it all, I have got to get hold of my temper.”
Flo had gotten used to soup nearly every day. She could live with the inconvenience of not having a car. There wasn’t even a decent sale to get to anyway. She’d even stopped listening for the phone on Sunday evenings, when Jen used to call.
Coffee was her only real vice. And Flo really, really missed coffee.
“Be honest, at least with yourself, Flo,” she chastised herself. “Two or three pots of coffee a day, honestly. A coffeeholic, that’s what you are. Don’t you feel silly? Don’t you hate being controlled by a craving?”
The headache was subsiding to a dull throb. Flo walked around a curve, and came to a sudden halt. Damn it, he’s loose again!
“You have to be the single most stubborn, stupid creature on the face of the planet, you know,” she said in the sweetest tone she could manage. Brillo had gotten loose so many times that they’d had to put a collar on him, so they’d have something to grab. “You’re going to be hit by a truck, you know. And then we’re going to turn your pathetic fleece into a rug, just so I can walk on it every day.”
Flo had her suspicions about Brillo. Breeding season was nearer every day. Brillo seemed determined to participate.
“Not going to happen, you scraggly so-and-so. Not going to happen.” Flo reached for the collar, and the infuriating creature moved away. Twice more, she nearly had him.
Finally giving up, Flo turned to go back and get help. As she walked, she continued to mutter. “Don’t know why he just won’t stay put. Has to get out, has to cause trouble. Can’t just stay in the pasture, has to get in the garden. Clover isn’t good enough. Has to have weeds. Weeds. Chicory weed. Chicory!”
Breaking into a run, Flo started shouting as she reached the barn. “Johan, Johan . . . that damn Brillo is loose again! And we need a couple of shovels!”
* * *
“Roasted and ground, my rear end.” Flo was getting irritated. She’d been experimenting for two days. Cleaning the roots and putting them in the oven didn’t work. The roots wouldn’t dry. Now she was chopping the chicory roots as finely as she could.
“If they did it in the civil war, I can do it now, Ilsa. I’m going to keep trying. It won’t be coffee, but I can mix it with what’s left. It will stretch the supply. I might make it through the winter without hitting a certain smart aleck, if I can figure this out.”
* * *
It took a week of experiments, but Flo finally discovered that if she dried the roots thoroughly she could grind them. Then she could roast the ground roots. Now it was time to try a pot of chicory coffee.
“Let’s try it with one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chicory, Anna. Then we’ll see what happens.” Flo was jittering with excitement.
The smell of coffee drifted around the kitchen. It was a different scent than usual, richer somehow. Flo took a cup from the cupboard and stood near the coffeemaker, enjoying the aroma.
When the coffeemaker beeped, she poured a cup full and sat at the table. She sniffed. “Unusual, but good.”
Taking a sip, she stopped to savor the taste. “Not quite the same.”
Another sip. “I can live with it.”
Yet another sip. “I think, ladies, I may last out the winter, after all.”
* * *
“Umm . . . Johan, do you think he’s going to hurt himself doing that?” Flo asked. “Throwing himself against the fence that way looks like it would hurt pretty badly. He shook the corner post, that time.”
“He will be okay, Flo. He is just mad. He can smell time to breed. We only keep him just in case. One more year, maybe. If good lambs and no rams die, I will see if someone wants him. Maybe Grange can use him.” Johan was not sentimental about his stock.
“It’s kind of a shame, Johan. He’s a really hardy sheep.” They started to walk away. “That wool, though, it’s awful. In a way, I wish we could use him. It’s silly to be sentimental, but he was our only hope for a while.”
“Will be useless, probably, Flo. Only need few rams. Need many ewes.”
* * *
The next morning, Flo was ready to personally castrate the Ram From Hell. The fence was down and Brillo had been found wandering through the breeding flock. There was no way to tell which ram had impregnated which ewe. They’d have to wait for spring.
* * *
“Flo, we’ve got to do something.”
Flo and J.D. were getting ready for bed. J.D.’s tone caused Flo to look up quickly. J.D. was usually a relaxed, casual sort of person. He rarely sounded upset, no matter what happened.
“What’s the problem, J.D.?”
“It’s Mother, Flo. I’ve had Price Ellis, Charlotte Green and Hope Underwood on the phone today. They insist that Mother has to be convinced to leave Prichard’s. It’s getting pretty crowded and they’ve got a lot of people with real problems now. Mother doesn’t need to be there. Her only problem is the arthritis. She’s taking up space they could really use. What are we going to do?” J.D.’s voice cracked from stress.
“We had the same kind of day, J.D. In my case it was Mary Jo, Claudette and Joellen. They must all be using the same list. They all know we’ve tried to move her in with us for two years, now. It’s Lena who objects. Every time I visit her she says the same thing. No.”
“I know. I talked to Wallace today. The ‘Adopt-an-Elder’ people are calling him, too. They interrupted meetings all over town today. We’ve got to get Mother to see reason, Flo,” J.D. said. “We could give her my den. It’s closest to the bathroom.”
“Heavens, J.D. You’re going to give up the boys club?” Flo exclaimed in mock surprise. “Will wonders never cease?”
“You’re a real smart aleck, when you want to be, aren’t you, woman?” J.D. smiled. “I’ll be happy to give up the den, now that I don’t have to listen to you and the girls talk. How could any man sit and listen to five women talk about that kind of stuff? You could make a statue blush.”
Trying to keep from snickering, Flo said, “Okay, big fella. You and Wallace bring her bedroom and living room furniture here. In fact, empty her storage unit. Clyde probably needs the space. We�
�ll get the room ready, and make it as private as we can. Then I’ll tackle Lena.”
* * *
Lena Richards was a strong, independent woman. After being widowed at thirty-one, she had raised two strong, decisive, competent men. She didn’t want to give up her own independence, but she refused to “be a burden” to her sons. At seventy-five, when housekeeping had become more than she could deal with, Lena had sold her house. She had used the proceeds, as well as her savings and Social Security payments, to continue living as she chose.
Prichard’s hadn’t been a nursing care facility prior to the Ring of Fire. Now, due to the war, it had become more and more crowded and had truly needy patients. Lena with her sharp mind, sharper tongue, and ability to get around with a walker, didn’t need that kind of care.
* * *
“So, that’s the situation.” Flo had finished her explanation to Anna, Ilsa and Maggie. “What do you think?”
“We should get busy. Lena should kom heim und be with family. Ilsa, we get to see the ‘secret room.’ What treasures we will find, eh?” Anna laughed.
“Oh, ja, Anna. Flo, is full of gold und silver, yes?” Ilsa grinned.
The “boys club” had become another standing joke in the household. Anna and Ilsa were appalled at the idea of a room in a private home dedicated to avoiding family. That was, after all, what taverns were for. The one time all the men had tried to sneak away, Anna had called in the troops. With ten of the eleven children lining the walls and staring, the men had given up and returned to the living room. In truth, they were all usually too tired to spend time talking when they could be sleeping.
The den had yielded very few secrets. Old papers and catalogs were just about the extent of the treasure. J.D.’s desk had been moved to the bedroom, along with a few boxes of odds and ends.
“Where can we put this ugly old thing, Anna?” Flo wondered aloud. “It’s really an awful old chair.”
Catching a flicker of Anna’s Oh, you rich Americans look, Flo said: “Come on, Anna, it’s not a throne. It’s just on old fake-leather recliner. It takes up too much space. There must be dozens in Grantville. Lena won’t want it in her room.”