Part 2 (1/2)

”Where I coiven to those who are judged to haveof the world around us, and the greatest contributions to literature, reater honor than to, say, be the chief administrator of the United Nations It also pays well With training, I think Piotr could win the prize in mathematics”

”Yours ood about it, but also much bad This land has much to be said for it”

”Yet you came here”

”It wasn't exactly voluntary Still, I can't say that I regret it I think I've found a home here”

”A home with Krystyana?”

”No Please understand that I like Krystyana She's a fine girl, an intelligent girl and competent at whatever she sets herthis-she's a wonderful bed partner But, dammit, she's fifteen and I' and she's had about three e Marriage should be a thing between equals Krystyana and Piotr and I would all be better off if they would get together”

”Do they know your feelings about this?”

”I think so I've tried to be obvious about it”

”But you haven't actually talked with theuess I haven't Sometimes it's hard”

”Would you object if I talked to therateful!”

”Then I will see what I can do”

She tried, but nothing came of it

The next day ere back in Three Walls, and the day after was a nor day The country folk knocked off work for teeks around Christmas, but the people at Three Walls had mostly been recruited from a city City folk worked whenever as available, and there was plenty for us to do

Winter is the best tis are easier to move around on the snow Also, the tops of the fir trees were about the only fodder the outdoor aniet

Besides the six dozen bucks left over from the fall's hunt, we had a thousand sheep in the valley All of theist of which was that I didn't know that rams were needed to make little sheep, but I didn't care I happened to reestation period Any ewe you buy in Dece to be And sheep are sexually mature in six months

Next year we'd have plenty of rams I think

Well, I had one ram in another, much smaller herd If he fell over dead fro season, I'd have to buy so all winter, with sixty woe teeter-totter

The s were up, but we needed lu containers, barrels, and so on

Some construction went on as well The coke ovens were drylaid sandstone, so there wasn't any worry aboutin foundations was difficult

The big probleht By Christht Most Americans don't realize just how far north Europe is Southern Poland is farther north than Lake Superior, and our seacoast is farther north than the shores of Hudson Bay A high latitude th of the day

Mining went on continuously, of course: it was always dark down there It was also fairly war caet I hoped that Count Lambert wouldn't hear about it

But even when the weather was good, which wasn't all that often, ere lucky to spend seven hours a day working

Well, if you can't spend, invest!

I set up a school for the adults A school for the children was already being taught by two of Lady Richeza's women, so once the children's school was out, the adults took over Most of my people couldn't read, write, or do si they could That's not quite the accoe to learn than English Polish is absolutely phonetic in its spelling, rather than nearly randolish is Every letter has a distinct sound, and there are no silent letters You spell it exactly as you speak it Learning to spell in English gave htra peoples can rarely spell their own language When I got back to Poland after e days, none of my Polish friends would believean ethnic joke!

But we had enough people around who could teach arith a course in first aid, and tutoring Piotr in math, I had a fair amount of time to myself, which onderful

I could close the door of my new office, sit down on my new armchair, putMostly about standards The weights and loth was ers, reed-on relationshi+p between those units, but the size of the unit varied from place to place A Cieszyn yard was not equal to a Cracow yard which was not equal to a Wroclaw yard

It even varied from commodity to commodity Fine velvets, for example, were sold by the Troy yard, which was shorter than all of the above And these weren't minor differences of a few percent The Wroclaw yard was half again longer than the Cracow yard

Weights were in even worse shape Cheese, wheat, and oats were all sold by the quarter, for example A quarter of what, you ask? Why a quarter of cheese, wheat, or oats! There was no ”whole” or ”half” But a quarter of wheat was er than a quarter of cheese, which was er than both of the others put together And of course a quarter in one city was not equal to a quarter anyplace else

Well, a pint of hed a pound, but ravity of milk varies by at least five percent, with the richest htest It spoils quickly, so there is no possibility of having a standard jar of milk somewhere Yet this didn't seem to bother anybody but et hung, but you never got any complaints out of hi on calendar refors in Poland were not really absurd At least we all agreed on which day was Sunday and what year it was From what a merchant friend, Boris Novacek, tells et to Florence in 1233, then go to Milan in 123 1

Some people started the new year on Christmas, some a week later, and some on March first For them, December really was the tenth month

Well, we had a standard yard Given my own choice, I would have preferred to use a e lord had specifically ordered ertip to his turned-away nose

This was shorter than a er than the A syste that was sort of done to es of the duodecimal system Since twelve hasdecie numbers and math just becomes easier to do

Since last winter, I had been carefully copying down every constant I could rees of them The distance froravity of aluminum and how s An engineer needs thousands of numbers, and much of what I did not re with nuhted to discover that a thousand (that is to say, 1728 in base ten) of our yards was almost exactly equal to an American mile! The American mile is almost equal to the old Roman mile, which was still somewhat in use

So, a dozen yards was a dozyard Twelve dozyards was a twel down, one twelfth of a yard was a twelyard Divide that by twelve and you had a dozmil, and a mil was about half a millimeter

Another nice accident that happened was that a cubic yard of cold water weighed slightly under an American ton, and a thousandth of that, or one cubic twelyard, weighed just over an Aht and volume We had a ton, a pound, and a pint, which was the volume of a pound of cold water

In a few days, I cahts and measures, all based either on our yard, or in the case of adro's number Our a

The ht But the day was measured from sunrise to sunset This er than an hour on Christ people by the hour a little silly In fact, most men were hired by the day, and were paid half as much in the winter as they were in the summer

We obviously needed a clock, but when I set out to build one, I was annoyed to discover that I couldn't rerandfather clock has a weight which drives a series of gears that turn the hands The speed of this turning is controlled, slowed down, by a penduluear train It y to the pendulum to make up for friction losses I couldn't sketch one that I could convince myself would work