Chapter 13

Margie still has the Narrative:

July began very quietly...

The plumbers and electricians were at work on the new houses, but the remainder of the construction crew were off on paid vacation. The deer problem had been resolved, and the crops in the fields were doing well, as it had rained on Sunday, the last day of June, and again on Monday, the first of July. Thursday, the Fourth of July, was a day of great celebration. My Parents moved the family grill to the O’Connell House here in Fourth Reality along with the necessary charcoal briquettes to run it. I had brought about 20 pounds of deer meat that had been sliced up at home along with my homemade honey barbecue sauce. Robert brought one of my three gallon aluminum ale kegs, and we used a cold spell on it to keep it at the correct temperature.

We set everything up behind the house that afternoon and were soon ready to party. Grace and Owen provided the fresh bread, butter, and salads. Grace had also made a large pitcher of sweet tea for the two of us to drink. I was having some trouble getting around now with this basketball size baby bump under my clothes, so I was sitting down whenever possible. The babies were a lot more trouble in my Human-form than they had been in my Were-form when I was chasing deer. Of course as Macha, I weighed three times what I do as Margie K.

The food was excellent. My Dad was doing the barbecuing, and Owen added some well seasoned hickory chips to the charcoal that really spiced up the taste along with my sauce. The men poured the ale, and I had a sip, but that was all. We all enjoyed ourselves enormously.

At the first scent of cooking meat, the cats joined us, but stopped a respectful distance on sensing my Father who was doing the cooking. They eventually came over to sit next to me, and they would ‘meow’ pitifully to see if they could persuade any of us to give them some of our meat. Grace still had some of the scraps left that had been set aside for them, and she brought them out for Dad to put on the grill for the cats.

I knew that the male cat would take the largest piece of meat if it were put on the ground for them to eat, so I used a smaller piece to distract him which he quickly grabbed and took off with. I picked up the female cat and sat her in my lap before giving her the larger piece of meat, well out of the male cat’s reach. She made short work of it and then curled up against my baby bump and went to sleep purring. Celeste and Frank had joined us when the food was ready, and we all ate and drank until the food and the ale were all gone. We had an excellent time, and even Joe had enjoyed himself.

On Monday, the 8th of July, the regular workmen were back on the job, and the Plasterers started installing the lath that would hold the plaster in place on the studs of the walls. Robert and Frank were on hand when they arrived to explain to them about the electric wires, and the copper water lines as well as the plastic drain lines, and the need to keep nails for the lath from penetrating any of them. The men were of course familiar with the iron pipes for the radiators. The plumbers and electricians had finished their work on Saturday the 6th.

Mr. Franklin, the general contractor, also had his men start the excavation for the basements of the next two houses that day. They would be dug by hand rather than with the backhoe that we had used to get the first two houses started. We, that is Robert and I, would return his concrete mixer and its materials here when the foundations were ready to be poured.

If all of that wasn’t enough to make my day a busy one, Uncle Aengus arrived about mid-morning. He had already been to see an architect, a Mr. Julian de Bruyu Kops in Savannah, and he wanted me to go with him to look at the preliminary plans for the school.

“Isn’t this a little premature, Uncle Aengus?” I asked when he explained what he wanted to do.

“Mr. Kops is a very well-known Architect and Civil Engineer. I’ve seen several of his finished projects, and they were all excellent. He has also recommended a contractor who will be able to do the entire job in a bit over sixteen months,” he told me.

“You haven’t been to see the Mayor or the City Council to obtain approval to build the school here yet,” I reminded him.

“They won’t meet until the 16th. They always meet on the third Tuesday of the month,” he told me, as apparently he or someone had already checked on that.

Not able to think of another excuse, I agreed to go with him, and he transferred us to 27 Bay Street, East in Savannah. We appeared in front of the building there and after entering went to the offices of Julian de Bruyu Kops, Architect and Civil Engineer. The young woman at the reception desk recognized Uncle Aengus, and we were shown into Mr. Kops office. Mr. Kops a man in his mid-forties with dark hair and brown eyes soon arrived. He was of average height, and I thought him a bit thin for his age.

“Good morning, Mr. O’Connell, and this is ... your daughter?” Mr. Kops asked a bit startled on seeing me in all of my pregnant glory.

“My niece, actually. She and her Husband are overseeing the construction of several houses in Statesboro currently. I brought her along to see the preliminary sketches, and to see what she thought,” Uncle Aengus told him.

“Yes, come into the back, one of my men is just finishing the overall sketch. We’ll be doing one for each of the separate buildings, and of course the architectural and engineering plans for each of the buildings,” Mr. Kops told us as he led us back past a number of young men who were busy drawing up plans for buildings of various types. It was obvious that Mr. Kops’s firm had a lot of business.

In the back of the office, an older man was busy working on a three dimensional drawing of several buildings surrounding an open area in front of them. They were long two story buildings with a lot of windows. A young woman there was applying tints to another drawing.

“This is Mr. Burger and his Daughter. They prepare most of the renderings of the proposed jobs to give the purchaser and his investors an idea of what the finished project will look like,” Mr. Kops told us.

“You can see the main school building in the center and the dormitories to either side of it on the open area in front of them. Behind the school building are the dining hall and an auditorium. Of course there will be a lot of land to expand on to later, if you have 400 acres as you told me,” Mr. Kops continued directing our attention to the drawing.

“Would it be possible to get a copy of this for our meeting with the Mayor and City Council of Statesboro on the 16th of July?” Uncle Aengus asked.

“Oh yes, it will be finished long before that, and I’ll have it mounted so it will be easy to transport,” Mr. Kops told us. “When would you like to pick it up?”

“I would think that Monday, the 15th, would be best,” Uncle Aengus told him.

“Yes, it will be finished and dry by then, that won’t be a problem,” Mr. Kops assured us again with a smile. We left soon after that and returned to Statesboro.

“I’ll pick that up,” Uncle Aengus told me, before adding, “I’ll want you and Robert to accompany Aunt Gale and me to this meeting.”

“All right, what about Grace and Owen?” I asked.

“They won’t be involved with the school, will they?” he asked in a questioning voice.

“They will probably be among the first students, and the only ones in the senior class. When will the school be ready to accept students?” I asked.

“Mr. Kops has recommended the firm of Roper and Strauss as the general contractor. He has worked with them on a number of large projects, and he feels that they can handle the job easily. He estimates that it will take at least 16 months from the start date until the school will be ready to open. He is also estimating that the project will cost at least $250,000. The Eternal Flame is all right with the cost, but would like to see us ready to open by the first week of January 1909, but I’m not sure that that date is realistic,” Uncle Aengus told me.

“It may simply require the use of some Magic to hurry things along at times,” I told him with a grin.

“Yes, you’re right,” he agreed, before departing, and I returned to what I had been doing previously.

Once the laths were applied to the wall studs, the Plasterers began to apply the base coat of plaster. Plaster is applied in three coats, the base coat being the first and roughest. It is followed by the intermediate coat and finally the finish coat which is very smooth.

On completing the base coat in the first house, the plasterers moved to the second house to apply the lath and the base coat there while the plaster in the first house dried. They returned to the first house when the base coat of plaster had dried sufficiently to apply the intermediate coat of plaster, but they needed to wait for a time for the base coat in the second house to dry sufficiently.

I had learned that plaster cures by the evaporation of the water that is used to mix it. Statesboro, Georgia in July is certainly more than hot enough to evaporate the water fairly quickly if it weren’t for the humidity being so high. To counter this, we had hired a specialist from the Third Reality to help us. He was an expert on drying plaster which was still a very popular wall covering there. His Family had developed spells over time to deal with the humidity and other weather conditions that affect the drying of plaster.

While he wasn’t a Relative, his Family had been associated with our Relatives there for many years, and he had agreed to be transferred to the Fourth Reality to help cure our plaster faster than normal here. Naturally, he would be paid for that at his normal rate, and he would be staying at Grace and Owen’s house while here. His name was John Haslet, and he was 30 years old, about 5’-10’’ tall with brown hair and blue eyes. The plasterers here were very interested in his ability to make the plaster cure at a rate quicker than they were used to seeing.

While the plasterers were working on the interior of the house, the finish carpenters were working on the exterior, installing the gingerbread that Victorian houses are famous for. They too worked on the first house before starting on the second. As soon as the finish carpenters were done with the first house the painters moved in and began painting the exterior of the first house. They too moved to the second house when the carpenters were finished there.

All of this work took several weeks to accomplish, and the plaster also took several weeks to cure to the point where the finish carpenters, the wallpapers, and the painters could begin work on the interior of the houses even with John Haslet’s help. He had spent considerable time here with the plasterers, and had picked up a couple of additional jobs from them while working for us. He returned home when everything was completed with quite a bit of money, and a promise to work on our other houses.

Also during this time, the foundations for the next two houses were poured, the masonry walls were started, and the basement floors were poured. Additionally, the excavation for the basements of fifth and sixth houses were started, as Mr. Franklin wanted to have all of the concrete and masonry work for them finished before cold weather set in. The carpenters and roofers could work in the colder weather, but he didn’t want to do any concrete or masonry work then.

During all of this activity, I had spoken to Grace and Owen about accompanying us to the City Council meeting on the 16th of July, and they had agreed to go with us. We were all nearly ready to leave when Uncle Aengus and Aunt Gale arrived late on the afternoon of 16 July. Uncle Aengus was carrying the sketch of the proposed school buildings, which had been mounted and placed in a very nice wooden frame. Grace and Owen were very interested in seeing it.

“Those buildings appear to be very large. Do you expect to have that many students?” Grace asked on seeing the tinted rendering.

“Not initially, dear, but we’re looking to the future and expect to have many students after a few years. Additionally, there will be training in all Levels of Magic from First Level to Senior Master. It may be a number of years before anyone will be able to qualify to take the Senior Master course, but we intend to offer it to anyone who can meet the qualifications,” Aunt Gale told her.

“From what Margie has told us, it requires a very powerful Talent to be able to qualify for Senior Master,” Owen remarked.

“That’s true. In the O’Connell Realm there are many Senior Masters plus the Grand Senior Master, yet not all O’Connells are Senior Masters. Those who aren’t usually have some other skill or they are Mages. We require many people to maintain our Realm and our society. Additionally, we have Relatives in the other remaining Realities,” Uncle Aengus told him.

“Something like that must be terribly expensive to build,” Grace said looking again at the rendering.

“Yes, it is quite expensive, but it is being paid for with the help of our Benefactor, the Eternal Flame,” Uncle Aengus explained before looking at his pocket watch.