A peaceful, stoic lifestyle might be somewhere in my future but that somewhere definitely wasn’t here and now. Chaos was in charge and I was forced to dance to his tune whether I liked it or not, though I still got to choose a step here and there. I had a little time before dinner and I needed to send a few letters, which I dictated to Clara. Aunty busied herself with thread and needle while Clara and I worked away. Peter was sent off to look for ideas down at the docks. I hoped he might stumble across something we could build while he was poking around. It took me a while to explain to him that I was paying for him to go out and just be curious about anything he came across that looked interesting.

After exhausting my miniscule knowledge of the inventor's trade, we got down to writing the letters. Our first missive was to the US Postmaster General, offering to set up a Post Office in Rulo. I also offered to run delivery services up and down our section of the river. I claimed to have a small steam-powered boat that would perform in almost all weather, though I did mention allowances for winter weather. I didn’t want to tempt the weather gods too much and get people killed.

The second missive was to the Justin Morgan family in Vermont, inquiring about purchasing, or getting leads on purchasing, breeding stock. With that, dinner time was fast approaching. Clara and I simply interviewed, or, more realistically, were interviewed by, Aunty until the Schumachers showed up.

The Schumachers brought a lot of challenges to my situation and they also brought a lot of people to my meeting. But I had prepared challenges for them, also. I needed to measure them before I decided, particularly if a larger group showed up. Which did. Obviously, Aunty was part of the challenge. She knew what was being done and agreed to act as my “official” advisor during the meeting. I needed a close reading on their behavior around women and negroes. Four couples showed up. There was one young single man; I suspected he was a Rabbi.

Basic introductions were made all around and Mrs. Byrne brought out the new, custom-made, all pork menus. I wanted to throw them straight into the fire before they had time to settle themselves. We jumped into ordering and started with Clara. She joyfully ordered the pomme frittes with sausage gravy and cheese. My turn to be surprised. Mrs. Byrne had wasted no time experimenting with the recipe; that was good news in my opinion.

I was still marveling at the possibilities when I realized the next person due to order was the young Rabbi. He simply sighed in acceptance and asked if a vegetable stew was possibly available. If not, he’d just have tea. It went the same way all of the way around the table. The three us held discipline and ordered pomme frittes.

We simply left that as it was for the moment and Mrs. Bryne went to fry up six orders of standard fries as we moved on to the next stage. Aunty spoke next. She had that clear, strong grandma voice and she delivered the spiel I had asked of her. She spoke directly to the women and asked them pointed questions about what each woman and her family had to offer us. Aunty had laughed for almost five minutes when I explained what I wanted her to do. I was sure Michelle would have a good laugh also. I had no fucking clue what the Pawnee would think, but the women did normally run all things family-related.

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The session actually went swimmingly well. They were obviously of the liberal sort and later turned out to have many books by some of the great Jewish philosophers and thinkers. The sticking point was the Rabbi, who didn’t have a woman to speak for him. I was searching my mind for a quick solution when Aunty stepped up her game.

“I will speak with him alone, Zach. Behave yourself, and please offer the guests some proper food.” Shit howdy, I had hired my own grandmother.

“Yes, ma’am,” Was my automatic reply.

Mrs. Byrne brought in our pommes frittes. They had been cooked in some vegetable oil - a rare thing - and she was happy about how they turned out. She also had proper menus. She explained that she had spoken with their Rabbi’s wife and insured the menu was fully Kosher. The fries were part of the Kosher offerings. They were allowed to order freely from this second menu. It had been signed by their Rabbi, which was the best we could do out here on the frontier. His wife was actually assisting with the cooking tonight. I did my best to entertain while we waited for Aunty and the Rabbi. I told them more about Rulo and passed around the Rules. Those were read and then placed at the Rabbi’s dinner setting.

The questions were a bit different this time. As businessmen, they were sharp operators and land division was a big deal. I had the feeling they had a lawyer amongst them and finally called on them to state their professions. Shoemaker, Tailor, Banker, Lawyer - all school trained and licensed in their home countries. Well, that had them all feeling proud and full of themselves. However, I had a trump to play. Before I could do it, I was preempted by the return of Aunty and the Rabbi. We allowed the Rabbi to order from the actual menu and then Aunty took back the stage.

“I’ll speak for this man, who doesn’t have a woman to care for his house. I will care for his house and he will provide for and protect me.” It was a bold, affirmative statement directed at everyone, but she was looking at me.

“That is acceptable.” I just left it at that for a moment and ordered a beer. I asked the Rabbi to detail his experience. He related his schooling and training, which had basically been his entire life since his bar mitzvah. Aunty had seemed to change his attitude a bit.

I made some quick, temporary decisions to meet the immediate need. I said town dwellers would receive a business lot with building, a housing lot with land, and a tradeable share of a forestry section to harvest fuel. Basically a house, a business on main street, and a bunch of trees to harvest or trade.

I did emphasize that tree harvesting would be under strict guidelines. I needed to protect these ancient hardwoods as long as I could. I noted to Clara that we needed to contact a few Universities worldwide to inquire about forestry.

I had my beer and lit my cigarette. Dinner would be delivered soon. Then I asked the most important question.

“Who here is an experienced warrior?”