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through dealerships. If someone wants to pay cash up front we'll take it, but I don't expect that to happen
often. They are just too expensive. I figure we're gonna have to charge about four months wages for a
journeyman tailor for each machine, or more. I don't think we'll sell many in Grantville. The big plus for
our sewing machines is they don't need electricity, that's no big deal here."
"What about the laws restricting who can sew what?" asked Trent.
"Not our problem. If someone wants to buy or rent one, we assume that they are only going to use it to
sew in legal ways. Stupid laws anyway."
"I don't know," said David. Then, seeing Sarah's look, he held up his hands before him; fingers in the
sign of the Cross, as if to ward off a vampire. "Not about the 'stupid law' part. About the 'not our
problem' part. I figure the tailors' guilds will do everything they can to make it our problem. Making
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clothing is big business. It employs a lot of people. Some of them are going to lose their jobs. A lot of
them, actually. As best as I can tell, it seems to take about a man-week to make one set of clothing.
Most of that six-day week is spent just sewing the seams. That is one tailor fully employed for every
fifty-two men. For one suit of clothes per-year per-man. It's less than that, but that's because most
people don't get a new set of clothing every year. More like every two or three years. I've been talking to
some of the German girls."
That announcement brought "Woo Hoos" from the guys and a haughty sniff from Sarah.
"About their hope chests," corrected David, which only made it worse. "About the sewing in their hope
chests."
David tried again to get the conversation back on track. "That's mostly what's in them, you know.
Clothing, blankets, bed linen, sewn stuff that they take years making, and it's not because cloth is so
expensive. Well, not mostly. Mostly, it's because it takes years to sew the stuff. The women will love the
sewing machines, but the tailors won't. Have any of you guys had a run-in with Hans Jorgensen?"
That bought the guffaws to a halt.
They had indeed had run-ins with Hans. In most ways, Hans was a standard down-timer kid trying his
best to assimilate, but Hans hated sewing machines and sewing machine makers. It was a fairly
convenient hate. He had no direct contact with sewing machines and there were only four sewing
machine makers in Grantville, all teenagers. His father was a master tailor who was now reduced to
working in the labor gangs because there was not enough work in the tailor shops. Why wasn't there
enough work in the tailor shops? Because the Americans had sewing machines, and aside from fitting and
finishing, they didn't need tailors. Clothing, for the moment, cost less in Grantville than it did anywhere
else in Europe. The difference between the cost of the fabric in a suit of clothing and the price a tailor
could get for a finished suit of clothing was not enough to pay for the labor of the tailor not without a
sewing machine, and Hans' father didn't have one. Also, as the cost of sewing had gone down, the
demand for new cloth had gone up and so had its price.
"I know, Hans is an A-Hole," David continued, "but I feel a bit sorry for him. He was an apprentice
tailor before his village got trashed, worked for his father. They get to the haven of Grantville, and find
out that all the sewing machines are rented, and no one is hiring tailors. His dad is in a general labor gang,
and Hans goes to school, and what is everyone in school talking about? A bunch of kids making sure that
he will never be able to do the work his dad had taught him to do.
"Now that we're up and running, housewives all over Germany will bless the name of Higgins, but tailors
will hate our guts. I figure that there is about one tailor for every two hundred people in Germany, and
right now, every one of them is needed. Once the sewing machine becomes common, it will be one tailor
for every thousand or less. So, in towns where the tailors' guild is strong, we're liable to see laws against
sewing machines."
October 13, 1631: Delia Higgins' House
Delia had talked to Dave Marcantonio and Fletcher Wendell, and been lectured by Quinton
Underwood. The storage lot was a real waste of resources. Ray had insisted on shed-sized steel
containers instead of sheds when they had set up the storage lot. They were more expensive, but with the
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thick enamel paint they were a maintenance dream. They were also made of great big corrugated steel
plates an eighth-inch thick. Grantville needed the steel.
No one was going to just seize them, true. Quinton Underwood gave the impression he'd like to, but that
was just Quinton being his usual bossy self. Delia would be paid, and paid a fair price more than they
had originally paid for them. Plenty to put in wooden sheds and make up for the lost rent. They wouldn't
force her to sell if she didn't want to. But they were right, Grantville needed the metal.
They were right about something else, too. Grantville didn't really need rows of little sheds for people to
store their excess junk. What was really needed was industrial warehousing, big buildings, where raw
materials could be stored for later use, and finished products for later sale. The amount of space that
Dave and Fletcher were talking about would cost more than storage sheds to build, a lot more, but it
would be worth more too. To her and to Grantville.
It meant the rest of the dolls, or at least most of them, and maybe a bank loan to cover the difference.
Fletcher said she could probably get a bank loan to cover the whole thing, but the monthly payment
would be a killer. She would be much more likely to go broke if anything went wrong. Besides, Dan
Frost had talked to her about the danger of keeping her dolls in the house when everyone knew she had
the collection.
Delia knew it was the best course, but the dolls were committed. She had promised them to the kids if
they were needed, and they might be yet, in spite of the fact that they were in production now. She
almost dropped the idea without mentioning it. But Fletcher Wendell would probably tell Sarah and Dave
would tell Kent, who would tell Brent and Trent. She hadn't asked anyone to keep the discussions
secret. If she didn't bring it up, the kids would worry about it.
* * *
"You've all heard about the storage containers?"
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