Part 30 (1/2)
”See for yourself.” Amber pushed several sheets of paper across the table. With the disappearance of staples and paperclips from ordinary life, they had two holes neatly punched in the upper left corners and were tied together with a short piece of string.
”What on earth?” Annabelle started to giggle.
”Yes. Master Ma.s.singer a.s.signed d.i.c.k to write five pages the same week that I a.s.signed the cla.s.s to write five pages on witchcraft inMa.s.sachusetts . d.i.c.k, ever ready to kill two birds with one stone . . .”
”I rather like it. At least, it's the first historical a.n.a.lysis of Arthur Miller in blank verse that I've ever come across. How is it for content?”
”Not bad,” Amber admitted. ”Really not bad at all. He's a bright kid.”
Grantville, April 1634 Kurt Washaw struck a couple of chords on his guitar, with Mich.e.l.le following on the piano.
La.s.s' die Ritter und die Bauer Freunden sein!
La.s.s' die Ritter unde die Bauer Freunden sein!
Amber Higham laughed. Among the four of them, the Quiney brothers, Zacharias Schaupp, and Dave Thornton had translated several of the songs fromOklahoma! into German-into what amounted to a down-time political cabaret based on the farmers' revolt that was breaking out south of the Thuringerwald . Instead of cowboys and ranchers, now the imperial knights and the peasants were supposed to strike up a friends.h.i.+p. To be friends.
Not patrons and clients. Not lords and serfs. Friends.
Aside fromOklahoma! , she had gained most of her knowledge of the range wars of the Old West from a couple of novels. Maybe she ought to look up what had gone on. If she ever had time. She tilted her head toward Master Ma.s.singer.
”Have you read any novels by Zane Grey? Or Louis L'Amour? I'm pretty sure that the National Library has nearly complete sets.”
”Mr. Quiney, why do always talk about the middle cla.s.s as if you don't belong to it?” Oliver Edgerton settled his spectacles on his nose.
d.i.c.k, no longer confused by the elderly man's preference to address his pupils with t.i.tles of respect ordinarily only directed at adults and social superiors, nevertheless took a moment to think.
”Well, we're not. In one way, maybe. But not in the other one.”
”Could you elaborate?”
”Partly, when you talk about the middle cla.s.s, you mean what this school calls 'economics.' Whether a family has attained a certain prosperity or not.” He made a statement, but there was a question in the way his voice rose at the end of the sentence.
Edgerton nodded.
”In that way, probably, we are middle cla.s.s. Not wealthy, but my grandfather did well and invested his income in property.”
”So youare middle cla.s.s.” d.i.c.k looked around. There were a couple of boys from the next grade level in this cla.s.s. That was Romeo Frost, son of the former police chief, who had spoken. d.i.c.k wanted to laugh every time he heard the name, but carefully did not. Guests should be courteous to their hosts.
He wasn't sure if he should continue. It could reflect badly on Master Ma.s.singer. But he felt a need to explain and it was easier to say these things directly to a fellow student than to say them while he was facing Mr. Edgerton.
”Middle cla.s.s also means respectable, Romeo. As in 'middle cla.s.s values,' as our teacher puts it.
Players, actors as you call them, are not respectable inEngland . Not respectable by definition, no matter how well-behaved. And our own family, Tom's and mine, has not been all that well-behaved. I never knew my grandfather. He died a couple of years before I was born. But I do know that even though my mother was born a quite respectable span of time from the wedding date, she was preceded into this world by her sister, who was born a scant half-year after the marriage of my grandparents. I scarcely remember my grandmother. She died when I was not yet six. But from what I recall, I can't imagine why he, uh . . .” d.i.c.k paused, looked at Mr. Edgerton and the up-time girls, and quickly subst.i.tuted another, mildly similar, word for the one that had been in his mind. ”. . . uh, bothered her. She was old when I knew her, of course-not that far off three score and ten.”
”Your aunt was surely not the town's only early-born child,” Mr. Edgerton commented.
”Well, no. But then my aunt's only child was a trifle early also. My parents' own marriage took place during Lent and was so irregular that they were excommunicated over it. Not to mention that my father was cited to the church court for having gotten another woman pregnant while he was betrothed to my mother. Her child was born a month after their wedding. Although I will grant that my oldest brother, who died as a baby, showed up almost nine months to the day.” d.i.c.k cleared his throat. ”What with one thing and another . . . anyway, my father is a vintner and the thin, vinegary beverage that is all his vines produce in these cold latter years has greatly soured his spirit, so that Tom and I were not displeased when Master Ma.s.singer invited us to travel with his company. Nor, I think, was our father ill-pleased to see the back of us. It was time that we were apprenticed.”
He looked around at his cla.s.smates then. ”And I am well pleased to be here. As is Tom.”
”Are you staying?” It was Romeo Frost who asked.
”Not for long, I think. Probably not past the summer. Master Ma.s.singer plans to move on toMagdeburg once he has completed his studies in the National Library. Ah, now it is the State Library, I recall. He is accustomed toLondon and is anxious for the livelier pace of a national capital again.”
Zacharias Schaupp handed a neatly tied pile of paper to Amber Higham. ”Do I get extra credit?”
Ah, the ever-hopeful student. ”What is it?
”It'sOklahoma! Translated into German.”
”All of it?”
”All of it. Except, not exactly . . .”
”How not exactly?”
”Master Ma.s.singer. Tom and d.i.c.k's master. You know him?”
”Yes, I know him.”
”Since they like the music-partly, he says he is sure, just because he doesn't like it. Partly because of the words connected to it. But since they like it, he set them the task of writing all of it for now, setting it inFranconia . The idea came to him when Tom and d.i.c.k were telling him aboutKiss Me, Kate , when a modern writer took a play of this time. He has taken a play of your time and taught them to use it for now. He did not write it. They did, as an exercise, as you would say. In English, of course. Their German is not that good.” Zacharias wriggled. ”But mine is, so I put it into German. Do I get extra credit?”
”Don't they want extra credit?”
Zacharias looked at her, his face blank. ”Why would they need it? They've been flying so far ahead of the rest of the cla.s.s ever since they came to Grantville that Kurt says they'll certainly break the curve.”
”Anyway, Mr., Ma.s.singer,” Annabelle Piazza bubbled, ”Ed is going to pay them for it. The state government wants to have copies printed. It will send the ma.n.u.scripts to Wuerzburg andBamberg just as soon as possible and get them done locally, so the Hearts and Minds people can start spreading it around. We've won the election, sure, but we still need to win this Ram Rebellion.”
”I rejoice for them.” Philip Ma.s.singer paused.
”Is there anything else?”
”Truly, Mistress Piazza, there is one thing that I do not understand. In all of the works in your library, and I have searched them diligently, with a.s.sistance of the reference librarians, there is not one word about the future of my young charges. Who should, by all rights, have been the brightest lights of the English stage in years to come.”
Annabelle sighed. ”Grantville is a small town, Master Ma.s.singer. There are certainly many topics about which our libraries had no information at all.”
Note for readers. In OTL, the original time line of human history, both Thomas and Richard Quiney died in January 1639, probably of the plague.