Chapter 1: Bewildered

When she got out of the first-year lecture she attended so she would know what the discussion section had heard, Carolyn Pierce had some free time. She decided to see if her papers from last semester had been graded yet. They were supposed to be, but professors are no more prompt than the rest of us and have many fewer consequences for their delays than students do.

“I was a little disappointed,” Kindle said, as he handed her back her paper. “You did a perfectly acceptable piece of work, but it seemed shallower than your usual. Did the marriage preparations take too much of your time?” Well, the grade was A-, which didn’t look all that disappointing.

“Well, it was a busy period,” she said.

“As I said, it was a perfectly acceptable piece of work. Your class participation, however, shown in a way that this did not. Well, I shouldn’t be too harsh. That paper from many of your classmates would have pleased me no end. You got an A in the course.” Kindle never said what he gave you, only what you earned. As far as she could tell, he thought that way, too.

“Why thank you, Professor Kindle.” Walther was in the History department, and his office was half-way across campus. She’d scanted his paper to put more effort into Kindle’s, and she wasn’t taking the rest of Economic History. So, she’d look contrite and tell him that she’d try harder. Instead,

“Miss, Nolan. Come in. Here, I have your paper. The best that anyone in the class turned in. I see that you’re not going on. You really should; the later 20th century shows much more development.”

“Well, Professor Walther, I’m a teaching assistant this semester, and something had to give. It was Economic History.”

“I gave you an A for the course, as well. Probably what you expected. Students, however, always want to know. Excellent paper. If you want to continue publishing after you get your degree, consider economic history.” She took the paper, a piece of chaff she’d ground out in a hurry because the man had assigned it so late and went on her way.

When she got outside, the sky -- which had been threatening rain all day -- delivered on its threat. She got her umbrella unfolded and open, but not before she was fairly wet.

On the bus going home, she read the paper again. It hadn’t developed any brilliance in the time it was out of her hands. On the last page bibliography, Walther had marked the two memoire’s she had quoted. “Original sources,” he had written, “very good.” Well, she supposed that Historical Statistics of the United States didn’t quite qualify as an original source. It was a collection of figures the government had published originally long ago -- about a century ago, for the figures she had used. On the other hand, those figures were solid, and each memoire only reported one woman’s experience. It may not have been typical; it may not even have been accurate for her.

Kindle, on the other hand, had commented on her citation of freight charges. “A steel mill represents an enormous, nearly permanent, investment. You need the history of those freight charges, and since ca. 1960, the ocean-freight charges influence the west coast.”

To add to her feeling of bafflement, the wind caught her umbrella when she got off the bus. It blew it inside-out. She used it for what little protection it gave when pointed straight into the wind until she got to the downstairs door of the apartment. She changed her clothes from the skin out, got the umbrella back in shape, and began cooking. Still, she gave more of her attention to Walther’s weirdness than to the stove. Nothing burned, for a wonder.

Even when Bill came home, as wet as she was, she was still wondering about the grade and the comment.

“What’s wrong?” Bill asked her at the start of the meal. She unloaded.

“Remember that bastard, Walther? When he assigned us a paper late in the semester? I decided blow him off -- submitted a trifling paper that fit his public criteria. The other papers were more important, and I figured I could take the C.”

“Yeah.” He may have remembered. He might be encouraging her to talk until he caught up.

“I got the paper back today.”

“Is it going to cause you problems, hold back the degree?” He did remember. Well, she’d really blown her stack back then.

“No. That’s not it.” She got him the paper and showed him.

“Well, that’s wonderful. I’d been worried.” And it was, sort of, wonderful. The grade wouldn’t have much effect, but an A not having much effect was happier news than a C not having much effect. It was more puzzling than pleasing, though.

“I got an A- on my paper for Kindle. He told me he knew I could analyze more deeply than I had done. Still got an A in the course, though. Money and Banking was a B in the course. I haven’t got the paper back yet.”

“That’s wonderful. Is there something else you’re not telling me -- something for which all this is merely compensation?” He was still worried. Well, he could read her mood.

“Nope. That’s my news.”

“But you don’t seem pleased.”

“I’m pleased, but I’m more bewildered. It was a shallow paper on a shallow idea. It was scantily sourced. I can’t understand it.”