Grantville Gazette, Volume 40 by Paula Goodlett, edited by Paula Goodlett Page A

"Melissa Mailey, back then she was a teacher at the high school, decided that these people deserved better, so she took them all to Valuemart. Valuemart sells used clothes."
    "You should talk to them," Louisa said to Tilda. "I'm sure they need someone who knows how to mend clothes."
    Herr Miller continued, "So Melissa Mailey, on a schoolteacher's salary, bought clothing for Gretchen, her younger sister, and all the little kids. I'm not sure about the grandmother. Anyway, the blue jeans and sneakers that Gretchen Richter loves to wear? Melissa bought her those, and because they were used, Melissa paid almost nothing for them."
    Frau Miller said, "I should have bought them out then. But I didn't think of it till much later."
    Herr Miller sighed. "Ms. Mailey buying clothes for everyone, this was before Grantville got famous. But now? Every rich visitor to Grantville runs straight to Valuemart to buy up-time clothing as a keepsake. You know what that's done to the prices."
    "Up-time clothes are so expensive now," Frau Miller said, "that Higgins-made clothing is actually cheaper." She sounded offended.
    Andreas Silberbach laughed. "Tilda, there's one thing you need to know as a tailor's wife in Grantville. Up-timers say that new clothes are so expensive? Well, to us down-timers, clothing in Grantville is a steal!"
    "Really?" Tilda said worriedly. "What makes it so cheap?" Cheap clothing meant cheap earnings; cheap earnings meant she couldn't make payments on the sewing machine.
    Louisa said, "Everyone who sews here has a Higgins. If you hand-sew, you starve. Then the up-timers won't let you charge them the old guild prices, because up-timers know you're not doing as much work as before you got the sewing machine."
    "So what prices did the tailor guild here finally settle on?"
    Herr Miller shook his head. "This rule that guilds have, 'No master may undersell another master'? We call this 'price-fixing,' and it's very illegal here."
    "So how do I know what to charge?" Tilda asked.
    "Here, you charge the customer the cheapest amount you can live on, and if that's cheaper than what Johann charges, Johann can't make you raise your price. But Johann can then offer something you don't, for free."
    Tilda looked at Louisa and shuddered. "Wow, masters having to fight like beasts in a cage. When you wrote that up-timers hate guilds, you weren't kidding."
    Herr Miller snorted. "Ask me sometime about the so-called 'Light-Bulb Maker Guild' that somebody tried to start. Right now, my main supplier is a master blacksmith named Christof Bettinger—"
    "He's Mennonite," Louisa added.
    "—and the reason he gets most of my business is not because he makes better hinges, but because he doesn't charge me 1630 prices."
    Tilda looked at Louisa, heartsick. "Why did you tell me to come here? I'll need to work like a packhorse, just to keep from begging!"
    "For a while, yes," Louisa said. "But don't you remember what you yourself wrote me? Ten or fifteen years from now, you'll be sipping wine, while all the hand-sew tailors will be the ones begging."
    "Not to mention, dear," Frau Miller said, "as soon as you learn how to make up-time clothing, you'll have three thousand potential customers."
    "Damned straight!" Herr Miller said. "No way will I ever wear a doublet and lace collar."
    "No lace collar?" Tilda said. "Then how can people tell you're prosperous?"
    "My sister, you're missing the point," Louisa said.
    "Why come here?" Louisa's husband Christian asked rhetorically. "Why work here? Because in Grantville, any of us down-timers can hope to be the next Hermann Glauber."
    "Who's Hermann Glauber?" Tilda asked.
    Christian and Herr Miller took turns telling the story. Herr Miller finished with ". . . I'll bet Vellie Rae didn't think twice before she said yes. Far as she was concerned, she was getting her shed cleaned out for free. But now, Vellie Rae and Jim are still struggling, while Hermann Glauber is rich. Because he saw the value in the 'rusty junk' in