She shook her head. Rudolph kept saying mildly that this was the young pastor's first job and he was still full of himself and all of his book-learning. Rudolph argued that Pastor Schaeffer would season all right if they just put up with him for a while.
She sort of doubted it. Ableidinger, who was fifteen years older than his new supervisor, was sure that he knew just as much and probably more. He didn't hesitate to say so in public, either. She moved over to the window, pulling back one of the wooden shutters that kept out the winter air, hoping to find a distraction in what was left of the winter daylight that would head off another dispute between God's representatives on earth—or, at least, between God's representatives in Frankenwinheim.
It didn't help that Pastor Schaeffer so strongly disapproved of Ableidinger's marriage. The pastor was still unmarried. He had heard all about the scandal when he was studying in Jena—a Professor Lenz had told him all about it. He still disapproved strongly, even though the poor woman had been dead for five years now.
Kaethe shook her head. Maybe the pastor had skipped over, "Let the dead bury their dead."
Today, she was lucky. "Tobias is coming," she said. "And it looks like his rucksack is full."
"It's a new one." Vulpius picked up Die Moderne Landwirtschaft, which Tobias had shaken out onto the table in front of his grandfather. "Modern Agriculture, no less. Our new governors must be setting out to make every printing press in Bamberg profitable."
Ableidinger moved over to stand at the shutter Kaethe had opened, sorting through a package of pamphlets that he had ordered from Würzburg. That was where the new governors of Franconia had set up the center of their administration, so he thought that the most important publications were likely to be printed there—not in Bamberg, which was just a regional center, if he understood the newspaper right.
The stack wasn't as big as he would have liked it to be. It was going to be another grim winter. If food was scarce and prices went up, he had to keep some kind of a reserve if he was going to feed his son and himself. He could afford a few short items and broadsides, but he could not risk buying expensive books. Not this year, no matter how glum it made him. Winter was a glum time in the best of years, with the days so short. Glum. Grim. The only comfort was having something to read.
So the small size of the package that Tobias had been able to buy was discouraging. He picked up the first. Der Gesunde Menschenverstand. Below, the subtitle read, Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" Translated into German, with an Explanation of Unfamiliar Terms.
He frowned. The first unfamiliar term was "common sense." He had never heard of something called gesunder Menschenverstand. "Healthy human understanding?" He thumbed through the foreword. The translator had considered using schlichte Vernunft as an alternative translation before settling on the one he chose.
"Simple reason?"
He had just begun to lose himself in reading the pamphlet when Rudolph Vulpius started to laugh. "Here, Pastor Schaeffer. You being named a shepherd, here's one for you." Vulpius tossed an issue of Die Wochentliche Bauernzeitung, one that hadn't previously reached Frankenwinheim, across the rough boards of the table.
Schaeffer read the page, the expression on his face becoming grimmer with each line.
Stuffing Common Sense into his belt, Ableidinger came back to the table, looking over the pastor's shoulder. It was the entertainment page. At the top, large type proclaimed, The Latest from Grantville. Just below, on the left, was a woodcut of a scruffy but very well-endowed ram. The title was Schade, Brillo! Schade! "Shame on you, Brillo! Shame!"
"What's a Brillo?" Old Kaethe asked. She was looking over the pastor's other shoulder with no more deference to his status than Ableidinger showed.
"Maybe it explains it somewhere in the story," Vulpius said.
Pastor Schaeffer was turning red and starting to sputter.
"For the sake of your health," Ableidinger said, reaching over and taking the newspaper. "It's a fable, like Aesop. That's classical enough." He started to read it out loud for everyone in the tavern. His booming voice, trained in rhetoric and debate, caught the attention of even the people who didn't pay much attention to the politics of the village or the region. "The English title of the story was Bad, Ba-a-a-ad, Brillo!"
Everyone knew animal fables. Nobody had trouble figuring out that Brillo, whatever a Brillo might be, stood for the sturdy German farmer. Nor that the merino ram stood for the rulers who made their lives difficult.