by Carla Kelly
“I am, sir. Good day to you.” He held out his hand for Angharad.
Holding hands, father and daughter left the foyer to Della and Mr. Holyoke. He indicated his office and she followed him inside, feeling suddenly as assured as a salamander on a hot rock.
Mr. Holyoke put her at ease at once. “Sit yourself down, Mrs. Davis. My compliments on such a charming daughter.”
“She is the daughter of my husband and a fine student,” Della said, wishing they were sitting beside her. “I know enough Welsh for ‘hello,’ ‘goodbye,’ and ‘thank you,’ but I expect I will learn more.”
“I expect you will.” The smile left his face. “Tough times in the canyon.”
“I’m not certain I could adequately explain to you how difficult things are,” Della said. “So many of my pupils are fatherless now, and uprooted too.”
“Your husband is among those choosing to find a new livelihood elsewhere?”
“He is, although I do not think his heart is entirely in it,” she said. Something about the sympathy in Mr. Holyoke’s eyes told her she could trust him. “But here I am, because Mr. and Mrs. Knight are so kind to us.”
“You have excellent advocates,” he told her. “Uncle Jesse is a most persuasive man, and Mrs. Knight not one whit behind him. I wish I could offer you a teaching position, but I cannot.”
“I know, sir.”
“What I can do this summer is call on your assistance in the school library.” He smiled at her. “Mrs. Knight informed me of your weekly stint as librarian at the Wasatch Store.”
This was no time for the sweetest memories to flood her heart of watching the modest men and women of the canyon read newspapers from their native countries, devour magazines on American life and customs, and read through all of Dickens and Mark Twain and Thackeray. The memories poured out like a spring freshet, and she had to look down at her lap for a moment to regain her equanimity.
“It was a joy and a delight,” she said when she could speak. “Too many of my avid readers are gone now.”
The principal sighed. “I wish there was something we could use besides coal to warm our homes and fuel our industries, but that is an issue for another day.” He cocked his head to one side and regarded her. “Would you be willing to help us this summer? As soon as school adjourns, my librarian is heading to New Jersey for a summer course in the Dewey Decimal System at Rutgers University.”
“My goodness, I would love that,” Della said. “You keep the school open in the summer?”
“No, but it is an excellent time for a fairly monumental task, even in our modest library. You’ve heard of the Dewey System?”
“Oh, yes. Our little library in Winter Quarters used fixed positioning, but I’ve read about Mr. Dewey’s system.”
“Seems smarter to shelve by subject rather than height and date of acquisition, eh?”
“Considerably,” Della said. “But you said your librarian is studying the system this summer? Why would you need me?” I don’t mean to be suspicious, she wanted to tell him, but you’re talking to the lady who was railroaded into the Pleasant Valley Ward choir by someone seeking certain advantages. I wouldn’t put it past the Knights, but I won’t do busy work.
“It’s not superfluous work, Mrs. Davis,” the principal assured her. “If you agree to this, you’ll find yourself with stacks of books all over the place in here. I want you to do a preliminary sorting into category.” He moved a book across his desk toward her. “This is one of Dewey’s later editions that explains the whole thing.”
She picked up the book and ruffled through the pages. “I’ve been curious about this approach.”
He laughed. “Now that is a response worthy of a diplomatist!” He held out his hands. “Mrs. Davis, you see before you a man who is seriously outranked in seniority by our librarian, Miss Temple, who has been working in our school system for twenty-eight years, as opposed to my paltry nine. When the Rutgers course is done, she has informed me she intends to visit relatives in Maine. She is planning to arrive back here two weeks before school starts, and I don’t have the seniority to demand anything else.”
“I begin to see your dilemma,” Della said, as she itched to start reading Mr. Dewey’s tome. “You need someone to classify without the benefit of a university course. Or get started, at least.”
“I do, indeed. It will mostly be tedious sorting. Five days a week at hard labor, Mrs. Davis, for the princely sum of six dollars a week, and my undying gratitude. I dare you to tell me if you’ve ever had a better offer.”
Della laughed and held out her hand, which the principal shook. “Excuse my slang, but it’s a deal, Mr. Holyoke.”
She had immediate second thoughts. Five days a week? Well and good for the family purse, but what about Angharad? “Almost a deal, sir.”
“What? Regrets about such munificence from the Provo School District? Come now, where’s your courage?” the principal joked.
“My stepdaughter. She is but seven, and I can’t leave her alone,” Della said. “Her father will be working too, hopefully, and … well, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He gave her another kind look. “No problem at all. Bring her along, and set her to work dusting the books and shelves. I can guarantee her fifty cents a week, with ample time for the playground, when she starts to sneeze from all that dust.”
Della sighed with relief. She nodded. “Yes, please. She will be delighted to earn a little money to help out.”
“I understand tight times, Mrs. Davis,” Mr. Holyoke said. He stood up, and Della rose too. “I well remember shining shoes at the Hotel Washington in Madison, Wisconsin, to earn tuition money for the university.”
“I was a kitchen flunkie for a crew stringing telephone wire in Cottonwood Canyon to pay my tuition.”
“School is out here at the end of next week,” he said. “Show up the following Monday, you and your little helper, and I will have contracts for both of you.”
He escorted her from the school just as the bell rang.
“Time for an assembly, Mrs. Davis,” he said, turning to go up the stairs. “Why is it, I ask, that students have trouble concentrating as the school year draws to a close? We will now hear recitations from grade six, and hope they are sufficiently entertaining to tide us over until the noon hour and blessed lunch. Good day, Mrs. Davis, and thank you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered as he bounded up the steps and went inside. “Twenty-four dollars a month. I believe we can do this, Owen.”
Chapter 15
L
If she hadn’t been nearly twenty-five, well-educated, and a matron now, Della would have skipped all the way home. She reminded herself that just as cleanliness was next to godliness, so was dignity. She knew it was best to walk sedately up the front steps to the Knight home when she wanted to bang open the door and shout for joy.
As it was, she grabbed Amanda Knight in a bear hug, gratified to feel the woman’s arms tight around her. Amanda held her off and looked into her eyes. “Summer work?”
Della nodded, almost as out of breath as if she had run from Maeser School. “Six dollars a week and work for Angharad too. My corset is too tight.”
“I don’t think Owen would mind a bit if you didn’t lace so diligently,” Amanda joked.
“True. Vanity, thy name is Della,” she said, happy to laugh at herself, and grateful that for a few months at least, they could pay the rent. She knew Owen would find work and they would manage. Angharad would go to school at Maeser, and maybe the pain of May 1 would start to fade.
She was silent then, knowing they would never forget. She sat down and stared at the cut glass candy dish with its nonpareils that Angharad liked so well.
“What’s the matter, my dear?” Amanda asked, sitting down beside her.
“It’s difficult to explain,” said Della, she who never used to tell anyone about herself. The hard school of life in the barren Anders house in Salt Lake City had taught her that the less said,
the better.
“Try,” Amanda said, her arm around her as they sat together in the parlor.
“All I want to do is forget that Winter Quarters ever happened,” she admitted, after several deep breaths. “All that does is make me feel guilty.”
“Give yourself time. You have time.”
“I do.” Impulsively, she kissed Amanda Knight’s cheek. “I’d better go home and see if the other two-thirds of the family had good luck.”
She left the house, wishing she could shake off the chill that had descended on her with Amanda’s kind words. No point in telling her shirttail cousin that Richard and Martha Evans had said precisely the same thing when she told them last winter that Owen was too indecisive about revealing his own feelings. As it turned out, no one in Winter Quarters had any time left. No one had time left in the Molly Bee in Colorado, either.
No one need ever know how foolish you feel for believing your own loss of your father was worse than the loss of two hundred, she thought.
The postman was getting ready to deposit a letter in her mailbox. He tipped his hat to her.
“Mrs. Davis?” he asked.
She smiled inside, wondering when it would fully sink in that she was Della Davis now, not Anders. “Yes, sir. We moved in two days ago.”
He handed her the letter and said good day. She looked at the return address and wanted to hand it back, telling him politely that she didn’t want it, and could he please exchange it for something better?
Inside, she stared at the envelope, wishing it would go away, then picked up a paring knife from the drain board and slit it open.
It was a short message from her Uncle Karl, probably dictated to her from his office, because the envelope’s return address was Anders, Court and Landry, Attorneys at Law. He congratulated her on her sealing in the Manti Temple and invited them to visit in Salt Lake City. She kept reading and knew what to expect: “Had I known you were getting married last week, I probably would have come to your wedding. Thank you for at least sending a note that you were moving to Provo, with your address.”
That was it, the scold that she had not informed them. On the positive side, there was no suggestion as to when this visit to Salt Lake should occur, which relieved her. Also there was no pernicious paragraph stating that she simply needed to contact Aunt Caroline, who would make all the arrangements. All too familiar with years of non-arrangements, Della decided to consider that a small victory.
“I am never going to visit there again,” she told Owen later, when she sat on his lap in the kitchen after Angharad had gone to the Knights’ house to spread her good news about a library job for her too.
She hadn’t said anything about it when Owen and Angharad came home with the good news that Mr. Bullock was agreeable to having Owen install new wainscoting, as they had discussed last Thanksgiving, but never committed to.
“Forty-five dollars for the project,” Owen had announced. “I start next Thursday.”
She had been properly delighted, which wasn’t hard. She also knew she could not fool this man who knew her well now, even beyond intimacy. After Angharad banged out the screen door and down the back steps, heading to the Knights’ and more nonpareils, she handed him the letter she had stuffed behind the sugar bowl.
He read it, sat down, and held out his arms. “The beauty of this is you don’t have to go to that house ever again,” he told her. “We want to see Mr. Auerbach so I can give him the box I am carving. Why not send your uncle a note saying we will drop by his office that same day?”
“But I don’t want to see him,” she said politely, as if she explained it to a six-year-old.
What a clever man she had married. He saw right through her teacher’s façade. “I’m no fan of burning bridges,” he said. “I have an aunt in Merthyr Tydfil who disowned my mother when she joined with the Mormons and compounded the felony by marrying my father. I still send her a Christmas letter every year. I have no idea what she does with it, but it’s not on my hands or my conscience.”
“You’re going to make me see my uncle again?” she asked, feeling only a little militant.
“Aye, miss, but mind you: his office and not the house,” he said. “But mark me well, m cara: you’ll never face him alone again.”
L
During that week, he continued his wood carving in the kitchen, rather than the workshop, where the light wasn’t too good. Angharad was equally pleased to join them with her pad of paper and colored pencils at the table, as she practiced her letters and numbers while Della read to them both from Sherlock Holmes collected stories. They all agreed to listen to “The Speckled Band,” which kept everyone up too late, and led to Angharad needing to sleep with them.
“From now on, we’d better read Beatrix Potter,” Della said as Angharad slept between them. “Peter Rabbit is slightly less frightening than a swamp adder.”
Owen laughed softly and reached around his daughter to tickle Della. “Aye, miss.”
The swamp adder didn’t keep Della awake, but she did toss and turn at the thought of visiting Uncle Karl, even in his office. He had never been more than a distant figure, spending more time in his office than in the imposing house on the Avenues. His only comment about Della’s care had been to inform his wife of her needs and expect her to take care of them, something that never happened. An office visit sounded innocuous enough, and Della almost believed it.
She believed it all through the rest of the week, where she fell into the pleasant pattern of cooking, cleaning, and then writing a letter to Mr. Auerbach describing her new life in Provo and saying they would visit him on Monday. She steeled herself to respond to Uncle Karl’s note by reminding herself she was an adult. She sent a chirpy note stating a brief visit to his office on Monday afternoon, signed yours truly, Della.
On Saturday afternoon, when Mr. Bullock picked up Owen in his carriage to select the right wood at the lumberyard for the wainscoting, there had been time to visit Amanda. Two days away from her return to Winter Quarters Canyon, Mabli Reese had put her niece to work helping make tarts while Della visited in the parlor.
“I have a letter from Jesse,” Amanda said, after pouring lemonade for them both. “He and Ray are thinking of buying up a prodigious amount of land in the district of Alberta.”
“To what purpose?”
“A ranch for one, but he mentioned so much land that I wonder if he has a larger enterprise in mind.”
Della took a sip and set down her glass. “Amanda, how many fingers does Uncle Jesse have in how many pies?”
“The Tintic Mining District, of course, plus our ranch in Payson—my, but that was a hardscrabble time—and you know the Knight block downtown, plus investments here and there.”
“And a few houses in Provo, one of which we live in,” Della reminded her. “Why is he so kind?”
She knew it was a silly thing to ask, and regretted it immediately. “I didn’t mean …” She stopped and faced her own fact. “I have known some who are not so generous with their money.”
“So have I. Jesse is not one of those.” Amanda smiled, and Della saw a faint blush. “I asked him that after the Humbug Mine came in. ‘Why so kind to others?’ I asked. With no hesitation he said it was a mandate from heaven, given to him right there by the Humbug. I have never questioned his generosity since.”
“We have certainly been the recipients,” Della said. She couldn’t say any more. Amanda covered Della’s hand with her own and they sat quietly together until Angharad brought in two cherry tarts and asked why they were just sitting there.
“My dear, we were waiting for tarts, and here you are,” Amanda replied, and squeezed Della’s hand. “Take them outside and get another for yourself. And one to take home to Da.”
“Don’t fear what happens, Della,” she whispered as Angharad went to the porch. “You have champions now.”
Chapter 16
L
Sunday School in a new ward was filled with the usual discomfort of
knowing no one and the realization by afternoon services that Owen truly could not sing a note. As Della and Angharad sang and exchanged worried looks, he bowed his head and sat in silence, eyes closed, at the mercy of memory. Holding him close that night had helped, but she had still found him in the kitchen after midnight, putting the final touches on a carved box that needed no final touches. She watched him a moment, kissed the top of his head, and returned to bed.
She must have had restless dreams of her own, because the next thing she remembered was Owen gently shaking her awake and calling her name. She opened her eyes, remembering for a moment a young girl standing by a deep hole in the ground, shouting for someone. The bad memory drifted away like smoke, and she looked into her husband’s face.
“That was some nightmare,” he said. “I heard you from the kitchen.” He got in bed.
“I wish you would sing to me.”
“I wish I could,” he told her. “Will this do for now?”
“Almost. At least say the words to ‘Ar Hyd y Nos.’ In English if you please.”
“ ‘Sleep, my child, and peace attend thee, all through the night,’ ” he said, speaking all the verses until she slept, safe in his arms.
In the morning, with their own suitcases in hand for Salt Lake, they all walked Mabli to the depot and put her on the train back to Scofield. Mabli told them Mrs. Knight had given her twenty dollars for her services that week. “I didn’t expect such generosity,” she told Della as Owen bought her train ticket. “I was happy to help.”
“The Knights are like that,” Della said. “Just accept it.”
“I can’t help but wish the Knights’ cook would decide to visit her sister more often,” Mabli said as she kissed Angharad, hugged Owen, and let him help her onto the train.
Della watched Owen’s face as his sister-in-law sat down in a window seat. He took an involuntary step toward the train. With heaviness in her heart, she knew he wanted to return to the canyon, and coal, and maybe Gwyna. He stopped himself and looked at her, embarrassed.
“It’s all right, Owen,” she said and tucked her arm through his. “We’ll visit in a few weeks.”
