Grantville Gazette.Volume XVII (ring of fire) Read online

  The opportunity I speak of is to become more than a supplier of washed wool. I believe that we should become a supplier of finished thread and cloth. I know my uncle will likely be opposed to this, but I believe it is essential. The cloth makers of England, France, Germany, and Italy will not pass on the savings from such a machine to the providers of the wool.

  The National Library has very little available on the subject of the spinning jenny, spinning mule and other machines used in the "mass production" of cloth. I enclose what they have from the various encyclopedias and I will be continuing my research. Carlos, we have a window of opportunity here, but that window will not stay open forever. If the family's wealth is to be maintained, we must have those machines. We must be able to break into the cloth markets of Europe before they have the machines to compete with us or we will likely never gain the foothold we need. I know what Uncle Ramon thinks of the mercantile trades, and that his opinion of those who work with their hands is possibly worse. But for the sake of our family, Cousin, you must persuade him to invest in an experimental facility geared to the development of the machines used in the mass production of cloth.

  ***

  Don Carlos de Aguilera sipped his wine as he read the letter from his cousin. After delivering the bad news, the letter shifted to asking after various family members, before switching back to matters of business. Business and trade weren't something his cousin seemed able to avoid. Don Alfredo suggested diversification into other crops. Which was a possibility. Cotton, peanuts, and corn.

  In the next few weeks, as I acquire them, I will send you a pair of Angora rabbits and some seed corn. I have included what drawings I have managed to accumulate, as well as reprinted articles on many things of interest. I'm particularly interested in the peanut butter. Up-timers crave peanut butter, Carlos. Small children beg for it. We must discover what they're talking about and attempt to produce it. There's a market right here. As well, I'm told that it is "nutritious." It has "protein." And that everyone benefits from ingestion of such. Best of all, the plant itself nourishes the soil. Which should allow for the growing of cotton if you can acquire the seeds.

  I strongly recommend that we attempt to breed sheep with better wool and size. Select the largest rams, the largest ewes and keep them isolated from the others. The shepherds have always attempted to breed the best to the best, of course, but they were as much concerned with the ability to traverse the meseta as they were with size and wool quality.

  Do write me. I sometimes feel that I'm lost in time.

  Alfredo

  Don Carlos rang for a servant. He didn't look down on his older cousin to the extent that many in the family did. Granted, Don Alfredo wasn't very good with a sword and seemed unable to avoid involvement in trade. But that too had its uses. "I will be dining with father this evening. Have my horse readied," Don Carlos spoke past the servant.

  In spite of Don Carlos's best efforts, his cousin's report was laughed off. Until the matched pair of gleaming white Angora rabbits arrived. With them came a sample of the Merino-Angora blend, in the form of a scarf. Even Papa couldn't laugh that off. As punishment for being right when Papa was wrong, Don Carlos got placed in charge of putting together a research and development facility to develop the spinning machines. He naturally delegated the actual organization to his steward, Ricardo. Then he went back to his hunting.

  ***

  Ricardo Suarez shook his head and considered whether or not he should just run screaming into the night and fall off a cliff. Then he sighed, and went back to writing letters, muttering all the while.

  "Build a research and development facility, he says. And what do we do if we succeed, I wonder. That's the problem with the entire family. They don't think ahead. Not at all." Ricardo was actually quite fond of the de Aguilera family.

  The patriarch of the de Aguilera family, Don Ramon, was a hearty man, nearly seventy years old. Upright, upstanding, bound by traditions… a bit hidebound, in Ricardo's opinion. Most of the de Aguilera scions were following in that tradition, except for young Don Alfredo in Grantville. Ricardo had hopes for Don Alfredo, although he knew that Don Ramon didn't have much use for him. The young man simply didn't meet his expectations. Don Alfredo liked making money and was, well, obvious about it. Don Carlos, his cousin, was much more the type to suit Don Ramon's expectations. Proud, courageous to a fault, honorable… but useless for practical things. Basically, a proud wastrel, at least in Ricardo's opinion.

  Very well, Ricardo thought. I shall write young Alfredo and get more information. Carlos… well, Carlos won't pay much attention to what I do, so long as his pleasures aren't interrupted.

  By the time Ricardo gave it up for the night, he'd made arrangements to hire an assortment of craft masters, journeymen and apprentices. As well, he'd arranged for them to travel to the most isolated village the family owned. It had been nearly depopulated by a virulent sickness two years ago, so there would be room for experiments and the surrounding hills and valleys could be used for the sheep-breeding program Don Alfredo advocated. Not to mention, the rabbits had to go somewhere else. The stable master was very insistent about that.

  ***

  Agustin Cortez alighted from the wagon, happy to be out of it. It had no springs and was not, he thought, well put together. What he saw however, was almost enough to make him want to get right back on it. Agustin was a journeyman cabinet maker, who was rather better with wood than he was with people. Which might have something to do with the reason that he was still a journeyman and not a master. He had a marked tendency to open mouth and insert foot. And always at the worst possible moment.

  So when he was offered a job working on a special project, well, he needed the job. But he hadn't realized until he got here that the job was in the middle of nowhere. As he looked around, mostly what he saw were sheep. There was also what appeared to be a broken down grain mill and the remnants of a village. All these things were located in a valley in the Cantabrian hills. What sort of a project could they possibly have in mind for this place?

  Agustin's musing was interrupted when a young woman walked by, carrying a load of wool in a basket. She sniffed as she passed. Apparently, whatever it was that they were doing here, the young woman did not approve.

  Well, he was here. Best to get on with it. "Senorita? Oh, Senorita?"

  She turned and cocked an eyebrow at him.

  "Who is in charge here?" Agustin asked.

  "Montoya." She shifted the basket, then pointed to the best of the buildings. "There." Then she sniffed again, and turned away.

  Not a friendly woman, Agustin decided. And plain as well.

  ***

  He found Luis Montoya bent over a number of drawings of a strange-looking contraption. A contraption Agustin simply couldn't make head or tail of, although he could clearly see where his skills with wood were needed. The drawing showed wooden parts that were hopelessly unadorned. And Luis, it turned out, was not "in charge," but merely another journeyman.

  "Gears I can produce," Luis said. "This I have the knowledge for. But I know nothing about producing thread. Women spin. Not me."

  "Ah," Agustin said. "So that's the big secret project we're to work on."

  "And secret it indeed is," Luis warned. "The de Aguilera, Don Carlos, was very clear on that. Not one word of what we do here is to be spoken of. Not to anyone."

  Agustin looked at the drawings again. Then he looked for more, something to show how this was supposed to work. There weren't any. "How long have you been here?"

  "Five days. Don Carlos, well, his steward, made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

  Well, Agustin certainly understood that. Eating is better than starving, any day. "Are more coming? Surely you and I are not the only men to work on this."

  "A master carpenter-he'll be in charge. Two or three other masters and journeymen, for wood and metal. Some apprentices, mostly, from the de Aguilera estates. The people here, only a few, are mostly herders and that ilk. Unletter
ed, of course. No knowledge of anything but sheep."

  Agustin sighed, then they got down to trying to figure out how this machine was supposed to work.

  As Agustin read through the sheets of paper, he kept running into words in brackets, with numbers. And at the bottom of each page were annotations. "In 1828 Mr. Thorpe, also an American, invented the ring spinning frame, whose principal feature consisted in the substitution for the {flyer 25} of a flanged annular ring, and a light C-shaped {traveler 26}." Unfortunately the annotations were not always helpful. {Flyer 25} was recorded as: 1) An advertisement (usually printed on a page or in a leaflet) intended for wide distribution. 2) Someone who travels by air. 3) Someone who operates an aircraft, followed by a note in another hand: This can't be right. We are talking about a part of a spinning machine.

  It was very clear that several people had worked on this and not all of them had known what they were working on. Some parts of the notes were printed and others handwritten. The right definition was in the packet, but Agustin would not find it for over a week. By the time he and Luis knocked off for the evening he was exhausted from trying to make sense of the half-translated documents.

  ***

  The rather surly young woman delivered their evening meal. A thin soup, cheese, and bread. Luis did, at least, have a cask of reasonable wine. The de Aguilera's weren't exactly generous with supplies, but they weren't entirely misers, Luis explained.

  "So," Luis said, "the problems of getting the machine to work are

  …" He began a litany of complaints, possibilities, conjectures and outright fantasy. Even Agustin knew more about wool and how it was processed, having seen the lavadero Alfaro, near Segovia in operation.

  "Have you no sisters?" Agustin asked. "Have you not observed a shearing, even?"

  Luis looked dumbfounded that he would even ask. "And what does that have to do with building the machine, I ask? We take the wool, we make the machine make the thread."

  The woman, who had returned to pick up the remains of the meal, laughed out loud. Agustin, who had four younger sisters, joined her.

  Luis looked hurt for a moment, then explained. "My family… my mother died, years ago, when I was small. So, no, I have no sisters. Only an aunt, who sent me to apprentice to a smith in El Ferrol, on the coast, after my father died. Which is how I became interested in clocks, because of navigation."

  Luis' story was a long one, which involved quite a bit of travel, a number of misadventures, and untold heroism. At least, according to Luis. Through it all, the woman listened, leaning against the doorpost, spinning with a hand spindle. Agustin watched as the thread grew longer, then, when the spindle had nearly reached the floor, the girl drew it up and wound on the thread. Again and again, the thread lengthened.

  Finally, Agustin could stand it no longer. "Why this way? My sisters use a wheel." He gestured at the spindle. "And what is your name, please?"

  She cocked her eyebrow at him again. "Lucia. And you can't use a wheel when you're walking the hills, following sheep. So-" She gave the thread another twist. "-I carry this, always."

  Agustin nodded. The production of fabric was time consuming in all ways. First the sheep grew the wool, then were sheared. The wool was washed, sorted, sold, then carded, spun and woven. Flax was worse, as the hard stalks had to be rotted in water before the fiber could even begin to be prepared for use. Silk wasn't something he'd ever seen produced, although that was done in Lyons, he knew. His sisters, who made his clothing, were always moaning about wanting dresses made from Lyons silk. Not likely, even though Papa wasn't dreadfully poor.

  ***

  The master of the project, one Pedro Munos, appeared three days later. And Agustin knew he was probably in trouble within moments. Munos was just the type of master he could barely tolerate. Worse, he was the type of master who could barely tolerate Agustin-and Agustin needed this job. It was clear that the man was more interested in sucking up to Don Carlos than he was in working the wood. More journeymen came over the next week, until there were eighteen men, along with the wives and children of the more senior of them.

  Agustin thought that "wife" might have been an overstatement in some cases, but that was between them and God. Just when he began to think that he might as well leave now, before he got in trouble with Munos, Miguel Cortes showed up. And Miguel, thankfully, was senior to Agustin, so Agustin could probably avoid Munos' notice, with a bit of luck and care.

  ***

  One of the exciting days that broke up the drudgery of making machine parts that no one understood was the day the rabbits arrived. They were, Agustin decided, very odd-looking rabbits. They were also, alas, not particularly friendly in spite of their incredibly long and soft white hair.

  This was discovered when the man who was attempting to transfer the doe from the traveling cage to a larger cage screamed vituperations at her. Then dropped her on the ground, clutching his bitten, bleeding hand. Before anyone could reach her, she took off between the buildings.

  "Catch that rabbit," Munos cried.

  What followed was something of a circus, with men, women and children chasing a very frightened-and quite speedy-long-haired rabbit that didn't want to be caught. And wasn't.

  Munos, huffing from his run, cursed everyone indiscriminately. The rabbit handler, with his wound bandaged, finally removed the half-grown kits to individual cages, along with the buck, these actions also accompanied by Munos' cursing.

  "This will set Don Carlos' breeding project back by months," Munos whined.

  "They're rabbits," Lucia pointed out. "It won't be that long before the young ones are ready to breed. Because they're rabbits, like any rabbit."

  "Would you like to say that to Don Carlos?" Munos asked.

  Lucia flinched.

  "I thought not."

  The rabbit handler carried a written explanation back to Don Carlos' steward. No one knew just how the temperamental de Aguilera scion would react, but they expected it to go badly for the handler.

  Badly, it went indeed. A week later, Munos received a summons from Don Carlos.

  ***

  "We are making good progress, Don Carlos, but it is a very complex device." Master Pedro Munos handed several sheets of paper to Don Carlos. They were the collected questions about the workings of the spinning machine so far. This was the first major status report since their discussions when Don Carlos had approved his hiring.

  Don Carlos looked through the sheets of carefully numbered questions. "There are over a hundred questions here, Master Munos. Can't your craftsmen figure out anything for themselves?" He snorted. "See Ricardo with this list of questions. What have you accomplished so far?

  "I have gotten most of the parts that were clearly shown in the diagrams made. There are a few diagrams that are less clear but they shouldn't prove much of a problem. Now all that is really needed is to assemble the machine, if the images are correct." Then, noting Don Carlos's look, Master Munos hastily added. "As I'm sure they are. There should be no great problems. I should have a working machine for you in a few months. As I said, it is a complex piece of machinery and these things take time."

  ***

  Ricardo felt a good bit of sympathy for Munos, when the sweating man entered his office. Don Carlos wasn't the easiest man to get along with, and was even less easy to explain things to.

  Munos plopped into a chair and wiped his face. "That… that. .." He stopped and shook his head. "It is most difficult to explain the mechanics, Senor. Most difficult."

  "So explain it to me, please," Ricardo said. "Tell me what happened."

  While Munos explained about the difficulties with the machines, and about the lost rabbit, Ricardo took notes and read over the list of questions. When Munos ran down, Ricardo settled back into his own chair and called for refreshments.

  "I see. Well, I will arrange for a replacement rabbit, and, if possible, for more of them. And I will send your questions to Don Alfredo. I must say some of them don't make sense to me, s
o I well understand why they didn't make sense to Don Carlos. What could the color of the wool have to do with the machine and how it will work?" He tapped the list. "Wool is simply wool. It is all much the same, whether black or white. Do try to provide questions that at least make some kind of sense."

  ***

  After three months, Agustin was nearly at the end of his rope. He, Miguel, and the other journeymen carpenters had built the parts they could see clearly on the drawings They'd also built parts they thought would work by extrapolating what they thought the machine should do. The smiths and Luis had done the same thing with the metal parts they thought the machine needed. But putting it together was not going well. Something was missing. Several somethings, probably.

  In the midst of this, some of the shepherds came back, Lucia's father and older brother among them. They had been on the meseta for a year, herding sheep throughout the country. This year, though, would be different. Don Carlos had directed them to bring the best rams and ewes to the mountains after shearing, and keep them there. Now, according to Lucia, was when the real work started for her family. The men would shear their own small flocks, as well as care for the de Aguilera flock and supervise the breeding program.

  It did mean that Lucia was in the village more, because she no longer looked after the flock with her younger brother and sister. It did not mean, however, that there was less work for her to do. In addition to the ever-present spinning, there was more food to cook, the garden to care for, sewing and darning of damaged clothing for her father and brother, as well as the wool to clean and card.