Vote Nears--and E. German Fears Grow : Elections: In the town of Kremmen, there is uncertainty over what a new government might do to their economic future.

The little boy clutched the cowboy hat to his blond head and began to wail.

“We can’t afford that,” his mother admonished. The boy ran to the mirror for one last tearful look.

“You can come back whenever you like and try it on,” the shopkeeper offered. She doubted that anyone else in Kremmen would be able to afford it either. Twenty marks wasn’t that much, really, but people can’t be too careful with their money these days.

“Fear,” the people of Kremmen say over and over when asked what they feel as East Germany prepares for its first free elections and for eventual reunification with West Germany--fear that the West is theirs to touch but not to take; fear that freedom is theirs to try on but not to keep.

Such uncertainty is alien to this farming community of 2,800, about 30 minutes northwest of Berlin. Kremmen survived the conflicts of the Middle Ages. It overcame plagues and epidemics. Three times it burned down, and three times it was built back up. It came through modern wars virtually unscathed.

Some of the same cobblestones have lain in the same narrow streets for more than 700 years.

But now, like many East Germans, Kremmeners find the joy of their new-found political freedom curiously overshadowed by fear of an uncertain economic future.

They wonder if their jobs can survive a market economy.

They wonder if exchange rates will wipe out their life savings when the two Germanys adopt a common currency, certain to be dominated by West Germany’s stronger deutschemark.

They wonder if the line to buy oranges will always be a block long, and if a sack of hothouse tomatoes will always cost three hours’ pay, and if cowboy hats will always be a daydream for their little boys.

“Sure, we get to vote on Sunday, but what comes after that?” asked a 53-year-old retired nurse waiting in line to buy fruit at Kremmen’s only produce shop. She gave her name as Henny.

“We’ve worked our whole lives to build a nest egg, and now our money is going to be worthless,” she said, as fellow shoppers crowded around and nodded agreement.

“I didn’t work my fanny off all those years just so I might buy a Western coffee table!” she shrieked.

A silver-haired woman patted Henny’s arm.

“Things can’t get worse, dear,” she said. “They can only get better. It will get better.”

Henny dabbed at the beads of perspiration on her forehead.

“I get myself so worked up these days,” she said in apology. “It’s not me I’m worried about, though. See, I have children and grandchildren, and I want so much for them to have a better life than we did.

“Maybe it’s possible now. We’ll have to see.” She brightened. “Anyway, look at us! We’re standing here on the street speaking our minds for the first time. We can say what we want. There’s no more whispering in the dark so the children won’t hear.”

Down the ancient street, in the shop where the little boy was denied the cowboy hat, Elfe Schwanke was also worried.

“All this election propaganda is so new to us. We don’t know who we’re supposed to believe,” she said. “One party says this and the other party says that. How do you decide who’s telling the truth?”

The manager of the small yarn shop hopes to retire soon, and 38-year-old Elfe and her sister would like to buy the shop from the state.

“I don’t know how, though,” she said with a sigh as she sipped from a cup of coffee--coffee from a can that she bought in West Berlin.

She needs around 200,000 East German marks to buy the store, with a 20% deposit. The amount staggers her; the average salary in East Germany is less than 20,000 marks a year. The weak East German mark fetches the equivalent of only five cents in West Berlin--less than three cents U.S.

Elfe pointed to shelves and shelves of fading yarn in the stockroom and gave a hopeless shrug.

“We can’t even sell the inventory we’ve got because it’s so poorly made,” she said. “It’s too thin. You can’t knit with it. We’ve got about 35,000 marks worth of bad yarn. And unless we sell it, we can’t afford to buy better yarn from West Germany.”

There is no recourse for merchants saddled with shoddy merchandise in East Germany, she added.

“Fear,” she said. “We all fear for our futures.”

“Everyone somehow has a little fear in them deep down over all this,” said Mayor Walter Degenhardt. “People worry that their workplaces might close because they’re inefficient or can’t compete, or that industry will pass by rural towns like this.”

The mayor wonders if Kremmen might be able to attract some tourists. Without state subsidies and support, the future is unclear for the collectives that produce potatoes, sugar beets and grain.

West German investors already have expressed a bit of interest in renovating Kremmen’s crumbling guest house, and Degenhardt thinks there might be sufficient red deer and other wildlife nearby to promote a nature preserve.

“Politics and the future are all anyone talks about these days,” he said. “We know reunification is coming. Some are afraid that if it comes too fast, it will run us right over.

“Things are definitely going to change,” he added, “but not overnight.”