Edeltraud was a darling girl.
But none of them knew about the others. Of course. He was not some kind of Turk, to have a harem. He was a respectable married man.
Three times, but these things happened. None of them could ever learn about the others. O Lord above, what a disaster that would be.
And he couldn't have told Mutti about either Rufina or Edeltraud, even if he had been single when he married them. They weren't Lutheran. And Rufina, in particular, expended a great deal of effort trying to convert him to her own faith. It was her least attractive characteristic. But tolerable, entirely tolerable, given that all the rest of her characteristics were most attractive. Especially her . . . His mind temporarily wandered off into the realms of remembrance.
Maria and Rufina and Edeltraud really, really, wanted to see a horseless carriage up close. They were extremely excited about it. And so did all the children. Well, not Maria's Otto and Edeltraud's Conrad, because they were too young. But all the rest of them.
There was no point in not telling them. The trip was going to be in the newspapers. The Grantvillers intended to get a lot of publicity out of Mayor Dreeson's tour. They would certainly find out that he was going to leave his horse in Grantville, ride to Frankfurt and back in an "ATV." With cushioned seats. And a driver. Who might even teach him to drive it.
So he probably wouldn't be able to get out of stopping to show them all the ATV and introduce them to the mayor. Strike the word "probably." There would be no way to get out of stopping at all three of his households.
He was the guide, Mayor Dreeson said. Because he knew the route.
What to do?
Publicity. Have the vehicle go slowly, with frequent stops at many villages. Mayor Dreeson had a bad hip. He was an old man, with the physical needs of old men. Stop at almost every village on the route. Get out. Have the drivers explain the vehicle to the children.
He could suggest it, at least.
Maybe he could arrange the schedule so the stops in Bindersleben and Vacha and Steinau were short ones. Midday. With everybody's attention on the vehicle. Not overnight, with a chance for conversation.
Please, O Lord, not overnight with a chance for conversation. Thank you, O Lord, that women in the Germanies do not share the idiotic up-time custom of adopting the family name of their husbands. Please, O Lord of Hosts, make the children so interested in the ATV that they do not call me Papa. Or, if they do, please make it happen at only one of the stops.
Grantville
On his next return from Frankfurt, Wackernagel stopped in Fulda to pick up paperwork from Wes Jenkins, for Ed Piazza, to set up Dreeson's trip to the Fulda area. Dreeson had agreed to go, contingent upon getting his wife Veronica and Mary Simpson successfully retrieved from Basel, so planning was in full spate. That wasn't the only thing Wackernagel carried on the trip, of course: a courier would go broke if he only took one commission at a time. But the paperwork was urgent, so his pleasant interlude spent chatting with Helena Hamm in Badenburg was brief. Unfortunately.
He also pitched his inspiration to Ed Piazza. "It's a political trip, I understand. You should have the driver to make stops in a lot of towns and villages. The mayor can get out, move around. He won't get so tired, that way. The cars will attract crowds of fascinated kids, whose parents will follow them. From here to Badenburg, not so much. It's close to Grantville, so the people are used to seeing cars and trucks. Not just driving on the road, but parked. Beyond Badenburg, though, even through Arnstadt, and up to Erfurt, people mostly see up-time vehicles going back and forth. Driving on the road. They've seen that plenty of times. They haven't, most of them, seen one stopped, where they could take a closer look, with a driver who was willing to explain how things worked."
Ed nodded.
Wackernagel clinched the deal. "You want to get votes for the Fourth of July Party all along the route, don't you? Not just over in Buchenland."
"I have the record here somewhere," Henry Dreeson said. "Somewhere in this pile." He started sorting through a batch of old 33 rpm LPs. "It was real popular, back in its day, and it was German, too, so maybe the down-timers would like it. Margie—that was my daughter, you know, Margie—sang it when she was in the Girl Scouts. And my granddaughter sang it in Girl Scouts, too. It's a kind of perennial. The kind they call a 'golden oldie.' Ah, here it is." He pulled a disk out of its cover. "It should suit you very well, Wackernagel. You're a 'happy wanderer' yourself, back and forth on your route all the time."
Wackernagel didn't like it as well as he liked Hank Williams.
On the other hand, it was Henry Dreeson's "Your Local Government in Action" tour through Buchenland: not his. If the mayor thought that this would be a good theme song, then maybe it would.