There was absolutely nothing for Mouse to do whilst I sat through the first meetings of the day. This was not a good thing, Mouse was not the sort of woman to sit around daydreaming. She always preferred to be doing something; perpetual motion was a trademark of that woman of mine. While we discussed and argued, she freshened the fire and made a new pot of coffee for us meeting-dwellers. With that all done she disappeared out the conference room door.

Meanwhile, at the table we were discussing the overall progress of the efforts to the Postal contract. It turned out that we would be ready to leave for Fort Atkinson this afternoon and the slow river current of autumn meant we could be there by nightfall. While this sucked in that I’d be travelling overnight again so soon, it also meant that I could be back again tomorrow and ready to head south.

The season was a big reason for our need for speed. Every day took us another step closer to the onset of winter and the idling of the boats until spring. The unpredictability of early winter storms greatly increased the risk of staying on the river too long. We couldn’t afford to lose our boat until we could purchase or build a couple more. We had plenty of wood for construction and enough pig iron to build a couple of engines. The big slowdown on building boats was a lack of experienced shipwrights and smiths. We were hiring apprentices everywhere we could find them but it was still a slow process. We worked out plans to do more recruiting up at Fort Atkinson during this visit.

There was an issue: by taking a blacksmith or shipwright along to recruit on these journeys, we would slow productivity here by a tremendous amount. However if we didn’t start recruiting talented and experienced folk, our productivity would never increase to keep pace with our growing needs. It was a true dilemma We resolved to visit both shops this morning and upon my return from Ft. Atkinson, a decision would have been made and I’d pick up passengers, if any.

All of that accomplished and it only took two hours! We did have a tentative route map with estimated times; we’d start to catalog those times on this run so that we’d have the basics of a schedule worked out before next spring. That was if the weather and the steam engine held during this run. We were running on coal and would refill the hoppers in St. Louis. One of my goals was to strike a contract for coal while I was down in St Louis; it would guarantee a ready supply for the coming year. The postal contract was a ten year contract and we needed to think along those lines. I also knew that as steam engines grew in popularity, the demand for coal would rise. Competition was guaranteed over the long haul.

I found my wife in the ‘Teacher’s Office’ working on her Pawnee language writing project. She was trying to learn to ‘write’ Pawnee - in her words. First of all, the ‘Teacher’s Office’ was a rather grandiose description for a small storage room that happened to have a desk and a chair in it. Second, and more interesting, was that in reality she was creating a written version of the Pawnee language, something that had never existed before either in the past or future. If it had existed, there was never an example that I’d ever seen or heard of, in the modern version of my life. Pawnee history was well studied, known and taught as part of history classes in my youth under the banner of ‘Regional History.’ Apparently that was all about to change.

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As a group we headed over to see the beginnings of the first plank-board building to be built in Rulo. It would be sitting on the north side of Main St. and directly in the middle of the block. A cellar had already been dug and was being bricked in as we watched. Posts were stacked nearby and stacks of planks were quickly joining them. This building would become our General Store and Post Office very much in keeping with tradition. We would, of course, build a separate postal building with a sorting capacity in hopes that we could add additional routes.

So the plan called for this to be a two-story building; there would definitely be an awning with a boardwalk out in front of it. We planned to build the boardwalk on both sides of the street to keep any further construction aligned with our pre-planned offset. A hole in the ground with two men laying bricks wasn’t much to look at but we took a few minutes to discuss street layout and things such as drainage, sewage and water. We didn’t go too far down those rabbit holes because it was a complicated topic and we really needed to get our hands on an expert. Add one more item to the recruiting checklist.

Our next destination was the Smithy. It was a bit of a walk to the industrial sector, located just a bit down the road from the livery. The layout here was large and we had posts in the ground laying out current lots. Each lot had mandatory green space on either side to lessen the risk of a single fire leveling the entire town. Thank you Chicago, for a well learned history lesson.

Our smithy had grown quite a bit since we built the first forge and bellows by hand. We even had a coal storage bin sitting next to it. A small shed had been built for charcoal as well and we had a lot more of that than we had coal. The charcoal was all processed over near the lumber yard and while it was preferred to wood, it was still nowhere near as hot or consistent as mined coal of any grade. There were three apprentices working for the blacksmith now. They were recognizable by the permanent smudge marks on their faces and bulging forearms.

The smith himself was teaching the youngest how to make nails or at least how to make nails correctly. A decent pile of mis-shaped yet probably serviceable nails was at their feet. It was nice to stand in the sunlight and simply take in the sounds and smells of such a place. Hammers rang out, bellows whooshed and heat rolled out from the forges. I remembered to take a moment and enjoy this scene; it was far different from what I had imagined. This certainly wasn’t the movies. This was the real thing. This was neat.