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with him. Lucky he left before their mother remarried otherwise he would have stayed, trying to get
money from her.
They had eaten, after her father died, on the charity of others. When she was twelve, she had gone into
service herself.For very little wages, so young, and the daughter of Martin Ottmar the drunkard.The
worst of the work; the worst of the beds; the worst of the food.
The worst of the hired men.
God was merciful, however. He proved it. She was barren.
Seven years after that, her mother had made a very fortunate marriage into Quittelsdorf. Old Matthias
Dornheimer, twice widowed already, just wanted a housekeeper. But he was a very respectable man
who would have no breath of scandal. He picked a woman past childbearing and married her with all the
banns called. He had taken in his simple stepson (who also was his godson, and to whom, thus, he owed
a duty). But he had seen no reason to take in a stepdaughter who could work.
By then, though, Sabina had reached her full growth. Scarecrow thin, but tall. Arms and shoulders
formed by the hardest of work in the barns and with the cattle.
Strong enough to take care of herself.
And treated kindly by her stepsister, the well-placed daughter of a prosperous farmer.Not loved,
exactly, but not scorned. That had been, perhaps, God's kindest grace of all, that Rahel did not treat her
as a slut.Though she must have known the things that had happened, at least by report. In a village,
everybody did, of course. Keilhau was not far from Quittelsdorf.
Sabina's meditations continued. It was good to be working for the Booths. The cleaning crew in
Grantville had not been bad, but she was very glad that the girl on the other farm, Staci Ann Beckworth
she was called, had told her about this job. She would be quite happy to remain in service on this farm
for the rest of her life.
April, 1634
Lew Jenkins had never been married; never wanted to be. He had been living with Staci Ann
Beckworth, though, back when. Not that her parents were happy about it, but she'd been going through
some kind of spasm about being adopted.
Then the Ring of Fire.
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It seemed that people thought that he was just a perfect example of the kind of able-bodied man who
could be spared to enlist in the army full-time. They broke up. Well, after he went into the army, she
couldn't afford to keep up the rent on the trailer, not with what she was earning as a waitress at Cora's,
and moved back in with her parents. Then she got notions, finished her GED, learned German,married a
German farmer. Lew was pretty sure the guy had ambitions. Arnold Pflaum, his name was.Old Plummy.
President of the Grange, he was now.Hadn't hurt him a bit to marry an up-time girl.
Of course, he was also wearing his feet off right up to the knees, running those farms. Farming sure
wasn't a life that Lew had ever wanted. The army suited him fine.
Some of the guys in the army complained about latrine duty. Hell, before the Ring of Fire, Lew had
worked for O'Keefe's. Every damn day was latrine duty when your job was pumping septic tanks and
catchment basins. In the army, at least, you had some days that weren't.
Today, for example.He went back to work. Whole barrels of uniforms had arrived, with no sizes on
them. And, once they had opened a few, no consistent sizing within each barrel. He was holding each
piece up against cardboard cutouts of three different sizes of soldiers; then folding them into three
different piles. He got to decide which of the three guys they would most likely fit best.
Responsibility Jenkins, that's me.He grinned. He even refrained from deliberately mixing up the piles
with one another.
His sister Bernita would have been proud of him.
May, 1634
Walpurga Hercher looked at the list of possible husbands that "die Krausin" had drawn up for the
Quittelsdorf girls. She put her finger on Lew Jenkins's name and asked, quite simply, "Why?"
Margaretha Vandiver, once upon a time "die Krausin," looked a little defensive and said, "His sister."
"Hissister ?"
"Yes." The older woman reached across the table and tapped the name on the slate. "Mrs. Walsh, the
clerk at the post office, is his sister."
Walpurga reflected once more on the utter absurdity of this custom of a woman's giving up her own
perfectly good name for that of her husband (and possibly, should she be widowed, for that of another
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