by Carla Kelly
“No need. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to support my family. I liked Provo, but odd jobs weren’t going to pay the bills.” He tugged at her tangled curls. “Neither would Mr. Dewey.”
“Is that an emphatic no, or may I use my mind too?”
She heard a rueful chuckle in the dark. “You should have been a barrister, complete with wig and gown. What can I say to that that wouldn’t incriminate me as an unfeeling husband?”
Well done, Della, she thought. Don’t give up.
L
After boiled eggs and porridge, Owen caught the train to Silver City. Della and Angharad walked hand in hand to the one-story clapboard building that also served as the Sunday meetinghouse. As they passed tidy houses like theirs, Della had to admit that Uncle Jesse knew how to build a town, even though she didn’t want to be there.
She remembered Hastings, the village at the foot of the mountain where her father was buried, with its streets going off in all directions at the same time. Winter Quarters was scarcely better, with a canyon so narrow that the houses seemed to cling to the rocks.
True, there were no shade trees here, but she had not expected to see any, not in a mining camp. Knightville was built close to several mines, one with a headframe bearing a startling resemblance to a gallows. She noticed two other mines with timbered portals, or drifts, where miners just walked in and went to work, without being lowered down hundreds of feet. One of those was the fabled Humbug Mine, which had started the Knight fortune.
“It’s better than I thought,” she told the girl holding her hand so tight. “There’s a baseball diamond.”
They could never have gotten lost. All they had to do was follow the children. Della’s heart softened a little more to see an older woman standing by the entrance. Her hair was white and confined haphazardly into a bun, with tendrils bolting for freedom, and her gaze was kind. She dressed neatly in a simple shirtwaist and dark shirt, reminding Della for one sweet moment of her own teacher clothes.
“I think you will be fine here,” she whispered to Angharad.
“How do you know?”
“I just know. Trust me.”
Della towed Angharad up the few steps to the front door and introduced herself to the teacher, who gave her name and held out her hand.
“Miss Baldwin, this is Angharad Davis, my stepdaughter,” Della said, feeling the pull of the classroom in a way she hadn’t expected. “I was her teacher last year in Winter Quarters Canyon. She is qualified for second grade, and possibly third.”
“Actually, it’s Mrs. Baldwin. I’m a widow, and I live with my son, who is Mr. Knight’s surface superintendent. Do come in.”
She led the way into the one-room school, small for certain, and if not crowded, then at least cozy. Della breathed deep of chalk dust and the industrial strength floor cleaner that all Utah schools seemed to use. For a blink of time, she was back in Winter Quarters, anticipating her first day teaching the lower grades. Any moment now, Israel Bowman would come out of his classroom and wink at her, and Miss Clayson would stand there patting her ruler.
But no. Israel and his pretty Blanche Bent had married in Provo in June, and Miss Clayson was teaching in Boise. And I am here, Della thought. In a blink, she saw another little girl in her first school in Hastings, Colorado, her lunch bucket a lard tin and the contents crackers and a carrot, the same as Papa took into the Molly Bee when times were tight.
She shook her head, wondering where these unnerving blinks were coming from. “You are in good hands, my love,” she told Angharad.
They hugged, and Della put her hand on Angharad’s shoulder, as other students, already in class for a week, walked around them with smiles, maybe remembering their first day in class. They were all children of the mines, and mines opened and closed without regard to school schedules.
“You’re getting a lovely student, Mrs. Baldwin,” Della said. She felt a strange tug at leaving Angharad here, no matter how nice the teacher.
“Mrs. Davis, I understand what it feels like to turn over my child to another. We’ll do well.”
That was all Della needed. She stepped back and smiled at student and teacher. “Angharad, I’ll be buying groceries in Eureka. You can find your way home if I am not here at three.”
“I’ll make certain she heads home with children who live close by,” Mrs. Baldwin assured her. “You’re in the Henry’s house?”
Della nodded, watching a shadow cross the teacher’s face. “A sad business, but my husband is here to make it better.”
“So we have heard. Tell me, if you know, what has become of Mrs. Henry?”
The teacher whispered this last question after she turned Angharad toward the classroom door.
“Mrs. Henry has gone back to Iowa, where her family lives,” Della said.
“My late husband was a miner too.”
Then you know, Della thought. Does it never end?
Angharad was already talking to a girl about her size, who patted the empty desk next to her. Della walked down the steps and stood in the schoolyard, with its amazing view of the valley below. She gazed across the broad plain toward distant mountains, everything a shade of gray and faded olive. She saw the multi-colored slag heaps and the gallows-like headframes.
Is this to be my life? she asked herself. No answer. Again for a blink of time, she felt like she was in another canyon in another state, twelve years old.
Chapter 25
L
Owen told Della and Angharad that night over dinner that he could find no fault with his carpenter crew. He had ridden the train home with other miners and with the bishop of the Knightville Ward, who was already eager to enlist Owen’s services in the elders quorum.
“Bishop McIntyre told me that the last quorum secretary kept the minutes in Welsh until he convinced him otherwise,” Owen told his ladies as Della passed him two sausages she said had come from an Italian butcher shop in Eureka. “Sausages? This time last year it was oatcakes, eh, Angharad?”
Angharad nodded, her eyes bright, because he knew she liked sausage too. “What about your day, my dear?”
“Da, it’s not the Maeser School, but I don’t mind so much.”
Owen glanced at Della, who put her hand to her breast and heaved a sigh of relief, which eased his own heart. And what about you? he wondered. “You found an Italian butcher in Eureka?”
“I did. Sister Pritchard warned me that he sometimes puts his finger on the scales when he weighs meat.”
“Did he commit such a felony with you?” he asked, happy to see her eyes livelier.
Della touched his arm. “No! Here’s the beauty of it. He looked at me, kissed his fingertips, and said, ‘Que bella, signora.’ ” She laughed out loud. “I thought Sister Pritchard’s eyes were going to pop out of her head.”
“I trust you did the honest thing and told him you weren’t Italian?”
“It gets better,” she said, hiking her chair closer to his in a way that eased his heart, after her unhappiness of the last few weeks. “When I told him my mother was Greek, he pointed next door to the Andromeda. It’s a Greek coffee house.”
“Mam, you didn’t!” Angharad asked, her eyes wide. “Coffee?”
“I did, but not to drink coffee. Greek coffee shops are just for men.” She laughed, and took another bite of sausage.
He already knew his wife was part of the female species, which he had once told her was a breed apart. She could spin a tale as well as a Welshman. “And?” he prompted, as she took her time chewing and swallowing. “As a husband, should I worry?”
“Not in the slightest.” She gave him a sly, sidelong glance. “However, I do not think Sister Pritchard will ask me to be a Relief Society teacher anytime soon.”
“Must I tickle you right here to get the rest of this story out of you?” he asked.
Angharad gasped. “Da, do you tickle Mam? I’ve never seen you do that.”
“Only now and then,” he said, his face warm. Long after you
’re asleep, daughter.
Two spots of color waged their own war in Della’s face, but she held up her hands. “You two will try me to death! I went into the coffee shop—it was too early for the men to congregate—and introduced myself to the proprietor, Archimedes Stath.”
“Stath doesn’t sound so Greek,” Owen said. He speared a bite of sausage from his wife’s plate, and she smacked his wrist with her knife. “Ow!”
“Da, really,” Angharad murmured. “Your manners …”
“It’s short for Stathopoulos. When he came to Castle Garden in New York City, a customs official shortened it for him, whether he wanted him to or not, I suppose,” Della said. She generously gave Owen the rest of her sausage.
“Da, were you in Castle Garden too, you and my other mam?”
Her other mam. Owen’s heart softened as he remembered two frightened young people, holding hands, hoping there wasn’t any reason they wouldn’t be allowed into the United States, considering that they had twenty pounds to their name and no urge to recross the Atlantic.
“Your mam and I came later, so we went to Ellis Island.” He chuckled at the memory. “The admitting officer changed my name from D-A-F-Y-S to what we use today.”
“You didn’t ask him to change it back?” Angharad asked.
“I was too afraid to argue. It was enough to be here, and I’m used to Davis now.”
“Was I there too, Da?”
“You were, but so small inside your mam,” he said, and he felt the red returning. He wasn’t used to such frankness, but why not tell her what she wanted to know? “There we were, the three of us, in a new country.”
He glanced at Della and saw tears in her eyes. He could tickle her later. Time to reel in this interesting conversation. “Where were we now? Sister Pritchard was shocked at you, Mrs. Davis, when you went into a coffee house.”
“Mr. Stath was so kind. I told him that Mr. Randazzo next door said I should introduce myself.” Della smiled at them both. “Angharad, imagine this! He kissed my hand and told me my face could launch a thousand ships, except we live in a desert.”
“Your face? Mam!”
Yes, her face, Owen thought, admiring his lovely wife, trying to see her through a Greek’s eyes. The Welsh may have been blessed with silver tongues and throats, but the Almighty had lavished everything on Greek women. I was a lost cause the moment I saw her. I’ll tell Angharad some day.
“Helen of Troy, the wife of King Menelaus of Mycenae, was supposed to be so beautiful that her face could launch a thousand ships. Don’t look so skeptical, daughter!” Della said.
“Launching ships? What does that have to do with anything?”
Here came another sidelong glance from his wife, who appeared to have mastered the art of delivering humor with a straight face. “Angharad, it’s a sad fact but true that men don’t make much sense when they fall in love.”
“Really, Mam?”
“Yes, really, Angharad.” Della clapped her hands together. “That’s enough! Here’s the best part. Is everyone ready for dessert?”
Owen looked at Angharad, and she nodded. “Aye, Della Olympia Davis. Your daughter and I are ready and willing.”
She gave him such a tender look, then opened the bread box and took out a small plate. “Baklava,” she announced. “No one does desserts better than the Greeks.”
Owen felt his mouth water. “I had this once at a Winter Quarters Christmas party. A very small piece, please.”
Della poised a paring knife over a little corner.
“Well, slightly more.”
She sliced off a similar piece for Angharad, who took a tiny bite, sighed, and took another bite. After the third bite, she eyed Owen’s plate. He put his hand over it, and she laughed.
“Da, she’s right. We don’t have anything like this.”
“We do not,” Owen agreed. He ate his piece slowly, rolling around the overpowering honey goodness in his mouth. “There is nothing subtle about the Greeks.”
Della took one bite and divided the remainder between his plate and Angharad’s. “I’m only half Greek, and that’s too sweet.”
Baklava required more milk, which Della poured before she sat down. Owen looked over the table, with its leftover sausage—probably going in his lunch box tomorrow—applesauce, and bread still warm. Winter Quarters and oatcakes seemed a long way from Tintic Mining District.
Angharad pushed away her plate with a sigh. “Can you make this?”
“No. I’ll never have the patience,” Della said. “Mr. Stath told me he makes baklava every Monday, and he’ll save me a piece. He also said he makes spanakopita on Wednesday. You will like that, Angharad.”
“I will?”
A veteran father, Owen knew dubious when he heard it.
“Spinach, Greek cheese, and eggs, in the lightest crust you can imagine,” Della said.
“Maybe,” Angharad said, still wary.
“Trust me. Now let us do some dishes so you can have the table for homework,” Della said.
“Did your mam make you spinach pie?” Angharad asked.
“I never knew my mother,” Della said. She set the dishes in the sink and sat beside Angharad. “She was taken away from me and my father when I was a baby.”
“Who would do that?” Angharad asked. She placed both her hands in Della’s, which touched Owen’s heart. His child was as tender as his wife.
“Her own father,” Della said. “I don’t know why, and I don’t know where in the world she is.”
“Would you like to find her, Mam?”
“More than I can possibly express in words.”
He took that thought to bed with Della later, breathing deep of the hint of olive oil she used to straighten out her tangle of curls.
“I wonder how we could find your mother,” he said.
“I have no idea,” Della said, as she composed herself for sleep. “A few years ago, I wrote a letter to Hastings Dry Goods, Hastings, Colorado. Papa sometimes let me pick out penny candy there. It was the only store I remembered. I asked if anyone had ever heard of Olympia Stavrakis.”
“What did you learn?” he asked when she remained silent.
“That the Molly Bee had closed five years earlier, and there weren’t any miners left in the county. End of story.”
She slept, but not for more than an hour or two. By the time the moon rose and rested its mellow glow across their bed, he heard her speaking in a small voice, asking for her father. “Please let me see him. Please,” he heard, each word louder and more frantic than the one before. “Frederick Anders. You know him. This is his mine!”
Before he could grab her she leaped out of bed and stared down at the floor, seeing something that wasn’t there. “Don’t hide him from me,” she said. “It’s cruel! Cruel!”
Then she dropped to her knees, pleading with someone equally unseen to him, but clearly larger than life to her. “You don’t understand what I did!”
She put her hands over her face and sobbed. Afraid to upset her, Owen got out of bed slowly. He gently rested his hands on her shaking shoulders. She turned her face into his nightshirt and wept.
“Della, Della, whatever it is, you’re safe with me,” he whispered.
She opened her eyes, startled, and looked around at the two of them kneeling together on the floor. “Owen, what happened?”
“I don’t know.” This wasn’t the first time. He thought she didn’t need to know that.
Chapter 26
L
Della settled into life in Knightville, almost but not quite welcoming the first snowfall near the end of September. She had missed Owen the week he was in Salt Lake City, accompanied by a mining engineer, as they arranged for timber shipped to his carpenter shop, located between the Union Pacific tracks and the Denver and Rio Grande tracks.
At least she had spared him another of her nightmares, one of those dreams that found her waking up on the floor on her hands and knees, staring down into what, she had no idea.
She began to dread falling asleep, wondering if she would wake that way again, or if the image would be one she could bat away like a lone mosquito flitting around in a darkened bedroom.
Owen came home with presents from Mr. Auerbach. “I went in to pay a friendly visit, and what did he do but send me home with enough date nut sandwiches for everyone in your class, Angharad.”
“Da! Really?”
“Would I tease about something so serious?” he asked her. “I did eat one.”
“I’ll forgive you, even though thousands wouldn’t,” she teased back.
“From me to you,” he told Della later in the privacy of their bedroom, when he pulled out a pale yellow silk nightgown, one she remembered from the corner of Lingerie where shoppers went for a peek but seldom bought.
“How did you ever work up the nerve to go to the lingerie department?” she asked.
“I just walked in there like a Welshman, looked the frosty old dame behind the counter right in the eye, and told her to wrap up her favorite one. This is it.”
Della laughed until tears ran from her eyes. “That was Miss Marchbanks! I hope you didn’t tell her who your wife was.”
“I might have mentioned Della Anders. Can’t be certain of that because the number she pulled out fair blinded me.”
“It doesn’t mean anything to you if I’m rolling my eyes in the dark, does it?”
“Not even a little. Go to sleep.”
She kissed him back and closed her eyes, happy to obey, except that he shook her shoulder.
“You still there, fairest?” he asked.
“Barely.”
“Here’s something else I did. The engineer had some shopping of his own to do, so I went to your uncle’s office.”
Funny how the mention of her uncle snapped her wide awake. “And?”
“I stopped in to say hello.” He nudged her. “Remember, I am a gregarious chap.”
“That you are, Owen Davis,” she agreed.
“It was just a short visit, to tell him how things were here in Knightville.”
She heard him move a bit and turned to see him up on one elbow, the better to see her. “Say on, sir.”
