Carla Kelly (15 page)

The side door opened directly into the kitchen, and there was her landlady, rolling out piecrust, from the look of the table where finished pies waited their turn in the oven. The room was hot and smelled of cinnamon.

“Apple pie?” Della asked, happy to not think of the skepticism on Clarence Nix's face.

Mabli stopped her practiced strokes and pointed with the rolling pin. “Apple, peach, and pumpkin. Want a piece?”

“You know I do,” Della said. She held out her package. “I bought myself some salami, cheese and apples, and Sister Jones—”

“Which Jones?”

“Oh, dear, there are so many, aren't there?” Della asked. She thought a moment. “She has a daughter named Myfanwy.”

“That narrows it to three or four,” Mabli said with a laugh. She sliced a healthy hunk of pie from the ones cooling on a side table.

“
This
Sister Jones sang half of the duet during sacrament meeting.”

“Mrs. Levi Jones! Elizabeth Ann. Here.” Mabli held out the pie.

“She gave me a wonderful loaf of oat bread, for which I bartered apples. May I keep food in your kitchen or this one? Oh, this is delicious.”

“My kitchen. I don't trust a single man here, and you mustn't, either,” Mabli said in good humor. “Do walk in. The door's unlocked, and you'll want to unpack.” She picked up her rolling pin. “And try out a beautiful bed.”

“Did he really make me a bed?” Della asked. “This is better than Christmas.”

“Wait until you see it,” Mabli said, stretching the pie dough round across the top of another apple pie. “My rascal of a brother-in-law and I made a discreet wager. I had to overcome his natural disinclination to wager on a lady.”

“Such nicety! I'm almost afraid to ask.”

“I told him you would cry. He said no, that you were too practical. Then we had an argument when I told him he was forgetting what women are like.”

“I've never cried over a bed before.” Della ran her finger around her empty pie plate and stuck her finger in her mouth, not willing to let even the smallest goodness escape.
Good thing you're not here, Aunt Caroline
, she told herself, feeling more wicked than worried. “What is the wager, or dare I ask?”

“If I win, he makes me a new rolling pin. If he wins, I make him and Angharad pie for a week.”

Della thought about that. “This is premeditated, Mabli. I'll try not to cry, because I'd rather he and Angharad had pie, since it will probably be as good as this one.”

“Don't worry! Cry if you choose. I'll see that he gets pie too, one way or other.”

Della went next door, going first to the kitchen with her food. She opened the door to her room cautiously, not sure what to expect. She gasped, then dabbed at sudden tears. Mabli won the bet.

She knew nothing about wood except that it was a soft honey color, all simple lines. The glory was the headboard. He had carved
Olympia
in the center, surrounding it with daffodils and something else she didn't recognize. “I am Olympia,” she whispered, tracing the careful strokes.

She sat down on the bed, staring at the beauty before her, then looked closer and swallowed. He had carved a profile of her face on one side of the headboard, getting her aquiline nose precisely right.

Someone knocked on the outside door. “Come in,” she called, digging in her pocket for a handkerchief.

“I didn't know what to carve on the opposite side, so it doesn't balance. When you think of something, let me know. I can add it when you're gone for Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday.”

Owen Davis stood in the door, wearing his coveralls, his tin pot lamp in his hand. When she blew her nose, he chuckled. “Looks like I lost my wager.”

Della dabbed at her eyes next. “You shouldn't bet—not because I'm a lady, but because you're not very good at it.”

“It's oak,” he said, still standing in the doorway, obviously not going to take another step unless she invited him into her bedroom. “Did I spell Olympia right?”

Della nodded. “And you get an A plus for even remembering I
have
a middle name!”

“A man—this man—doesn't forget a name like Olympia.”

“Come in,” she said, and he did. “I recognize daffodils, of course, but what are these?”

“Leeks. Daffodils and leeks—every Welshman knows them. Look at the inside of the footboard.”

She did, charmed to see what she now knew were dragons. Daubed with red paint, two small rearing dragons, simply carved, faced the center of the footboard, where she could see them from bed. “I'll see these first thing every morning,” she said.

“They'll bring you luck. Angharad carved them.”

She heard the quiet pride in his voice. “They're wonderful. You're teaching her to be a woodcarver?”

“Aye. I have no son, but I have a clever daughter. A machinist made small tools to my specifications, and she carves my dragons now. I put them on every piece I carve, or rather, she does.”

“Pine would have done for a bed,” Della said. “I'll only be here through the school year.”

He shook his head. “I build things to last and I happened to have some oak.”

“No one just
happens
to have oak,” she chided, touched that he went to all this work. “I hate to think how little sleep you got last night.”

“When my shift's over and the moon is going down, I'll sleep well tonight.” He stood up and ran a practiced hand over the headboard, flicking off imaginary dust. “And so will you, teacher of my daughter. Good day now.”

Humming to herself, Della opened her trunk and shook out her clothes. True to her word, Mabli had tacked up thick curtains. Della peeked through a gap in the curtains and put her hand over her mouth. There was the boardinghouse privy, and sure enough, the men weren't too concerned about who saw what. She closed the curtains and found a hat pin to secure them.

Across the end of the narrow room, Mabli had strung a long curtain on a dowel, creating a closet, with a small bureau inside it. She carried her underclothes to the bureau and opened the top drawer. A small carved box nestled inside. “My stars,” she murmured, putting in the clothing and taking out the delicately carved little box, one made to hold treasures that schoolteachers probably never accumulated. She turned it upside down, and there was Angharad's red dragon.

She opened the box and laughed out loud. Owen had left a note:
Choir practice at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday
.

Mabli laughed over the note too, an hour later, when she returned to her house and Della showed it to her. “He's not one to take no for an answer, is little Owen,” she said. “You should have seen how persistently he courted my sister!”

“I have no plans to go to choir practice
ever
,” Della said, “not in this ward of singers!”

“Is that so now?” Mabli asked, trying to sound innocent and failing. Mabli took her arm. “Tell me: do I get a rolling pin?”

“You know you do! I took one look at the bed and started to cry.”

“I knew you would,” Mabli said, satisfied. “Sit a moment and let me explain my house rules for boarders. Pay close attention. Last one in locks the door.”

“That's it?” Della asked. After Mabli nodded, Della handed her the Rules for Teachers. Her eyes wide, she read the list. “I don't mind if you have gentleman callers,” she said finally.

“I already promised Miss Clayson there would be no mining engineers. I don't smoke cigarettes, and I have no plans to dye my hair. Straighten it maybe, if I could, but not dye it!”

Della spent the late afternoon and early evening in the kitchen, glad to be busy. She had no trouble keeping up with Mabli because she had worked this way for several summers, saving every penny for tuition during her single year at the university. No one here would believe her if she told them that arranging her summer jobs was the only thing her Uncle Karl ever did for her.

The sound of men eating and laughing in the other room, the scrape of chairs, and the clink of china tugged at her heart. Before her father's death, she had worked in a Molly Bee boardinghouse, scraping plates and washing dishes for her dinner, when times were lean. Because times always seemed to be lean, she grew up with hard work. She almost said something about that to Mabli but stopped herself in time. Mabli would probably just wonder why on earth an Anders had to work so hard.
We'll let her think I'm a fast learner
, Della thought.

One of the boarders must have seen her when Mabli hurried in and out of the swinging door, carrying more bowls of food. By the time the soup tureens had been removed and the bread platter resupplied, the bolder men were looking into the kitchen, then going to the kitchen to ogle—Mabli was right—and ask her for more ketchup and jam, or whatever they thought they could get away with. German accents, French accents, an Italian or two—Della began to wonder where Bishop Parmley found his miners. Maybe Mabli shouldn't have worried: they were all polite to her.

When the congestion got thick in the kitchen, Mabli waded into the boarders with her wooden spoon, telling them what she thought and earning good-humored protests when she cracked the spoon on heads and shoulders. The more brazen miners offered to help with the dishes, which Della found flattering.

Finally the dining room emptied. Mabli looked at the clock and sat down with a yawn, pulling up her skirt around her knees.

“Should I start clearing the tables?” Della asked.

“No. I have a cleaning crew,” her landlady said. “You'll see.”

Della sat down beside her, watching with interest and dawning admiration of Mabli Reese when a little army of girls came into the kitchen through the side door. With shy smiles at her—Della recognized Annie Jones's daughters—some gathered dishes from the dining room while others started washing the plates Della had scraped and stacked.

“When they're done, I divide up the extra food,” Mabli said quietly. “It's not so important in the winter when their fathers are working full shifts, but someone always needs this food in late summer.”

“Mabli, you're a good woman,” Della whispered. “I was wondering why you seemed to have cooked so much extra. Our secret?”

“Not really,” she replied. “Mr. Edwards gives me a certain amount each month to buy food. Beyond that, he's not concerned, and no one can contrive like a Welshwoman. He never loses money.”

Della watched the girls with real respect as they worked quickly, chatting and sometimes singing. “How do you divide the food?” she asked Mabli.

“The girls take it to Annie Jones. She's first counselor in the Relief Society,” Mabli explained. “She knows who needs what. The girls are in the Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association. This is their summer project.”

“I am impressed,” Della said. “All we ever did in YL was learn to embroider and paint on china.”

“We do that too, but right now, this is more important.” Mabli looked at her crew, her fondness unmistakable.

So you have no children of your own?
Della asked herself.
I beg to differ
.

When everyone finished, Mabli brought over two pies and divided them. The girls clustered around, taking a slice apiece and holding it carefully, not dirtying another plate or fork. Mabli quickly packed the leftovers into tins. Each girl took one, plus cookies Mabli found somewhere to stave off starvation between the boardinghouse and their homes. They left as quietly as they came. Della looked out the door, pleased to see that older brothers and fathers were waiting to escort them home safely. She smiled to see the girls give their cookies to their escorts.

“How does Annie know … ?”

“Who needs what? My dear, this is the Relief Society,” Mabli said. “I never question it.”

Her landlady sat still another few minutes, as if gathering her energy, then directed Della to setting bread dough to rise. Soon the fragrance of cinnamon was replaced by the tang of yeast. By the time she finished kneading the dough, Della was pleasantly tired.

She stood in the doorway while Mabli took a last look around her kitchen, where all was swept and tidied, dish towels dry now and folded, dough covered to rise until before dawn, when Mabli's day would begin again.

“Have you ever thought about going to Spanish Fork or Provo and managing a restaurant?” Della asked. “It might be easier.”

“Dafydd is buried in Scofield. I'd be too far away,” she said simply. “Let's go home.”

Maybe it was home already. She had a bed made especially for her. Soon enough Mabli would probably have a new rolling pin, and Owen and Angharad would have pie too. Mr. Edwards still made money on his boardinghouse, hungry families had more than oatcakes, and the coal roared into the tipple. She hadn't been in Winter Quarters a week, and Della could already see the intricate web that bound them together.

Tired, she changed into nightgown and robe and washed her face in a basin in the kitchen.

“The tin tub hangs just outside the back door,” Mabli told her. “You're welcome to all the hot water you need, of course, and my curtains in here are very thick!”