Carla Kelly (38 page)

“But I did that yesterday, miss,” he reminded her in his polite Welsh way.

“I know, but let's see if you grew overnight,” she told him. “You won't miss more than one minute of recess, I promise.”

He lined up obediently next to the broom, and his eyes grew wide. “Miss! I did grow!”

“It appears that you have,” Della agreed, quite aware now what Owen had done. “Ah well, you're still not tall enough to read though, are you?”

“No, miss.”

“I wouldn't rush it.”

There was no mistaking the relief in Billy's eyes.
Owen, I
will
know when he's ready
, she thought, suddenly understanding this little fellow.
I'll see it in his eyes
.

When Billy ran outside to join the others, Della took a good look at the broom, amused to see that Owen had carefully trimmed the head. No one would notice; there was still plenty of straw for sweeping. “I never would have thought of that,” she murmured.

All week Della focused on school (Miss Clayson grumbled about children tracking in mud and snow); choir (the entire choir was happy to wish Owen and Angharad away for Thanksgiving to find a piano tuner); and the library, where Clarence Nix presented copies of Sherlock Holmes's short stories, and a copy of
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
. “It's racy,” Clarence had warned her. “Keep it in your desk, and no one under twenty-one gets it.”

“I'll keep it next to
Barry Lyndon
,’ ” she assured him, and then she couldn't resist. “They probably won't mate,” she teased, which made Clarence blush as red as his bow tie.

All the focus in the world couldn't disguise her longing to check for mail, every hour on the hour, at the store, wondering when Mr. Auerbach would respond. “I won't, I won't, I won't,” she muttered each day, determined to wait until Friday.

Thursday afternoon, she swept out her classroom and put on her hat, testing her resolve to avoid the store, when someone knocked on the doorframe. She turned around to see the bishop dangling a letter in his hand.

“For you, Sister Anders. I think you've been waiting for this,” he said, as she hurried toward him.

It was a thick letter, with the Auerbach Department Store logo. She took a deep breath. “Pray, Bishop,” she murmured.

“All the time,” he assured her and handed her his pen-knife to slit the envelope. “I'm just nosy enough to want to know what it says.”

She gestured him inside her classroom and he squeezed himself into a desk. She sat across from him, took another deep breath, and pulled out a letter and train tickets. She couldn't help herself. Tears came to her eyes before she even opened the letter.

Nonplussed—hadn't he been bishop for years?—Bishop Parmley handed her his handkerchief and she blew her nose.

“You read it,” she said, her face still deep in the handkerchief.

“ ‘My very dear Miss Anders, I need Mrs. Aho at the earliest possible convenience,’ ” he read, and his voice wasn't so steady. He read ahead and chuckled. “ ‘My traitorous window dresser's assistant has abandoned me for my rival, ZCMI, so we are glum, what with the holidays approaching.’ ” Bishop Parmley took his own deep breath. “ ‘Will you please ask Mrs. Aho if she and her two children will visit me as soon as possible? Send me a telegram and I will have someone meet them at the depot. Monday would be good, but Tuesday will do. If she's agreeable, I'll make arrangements for housing and school. I'll pay all her expenses for this visit. Be persuasive, my dear Della! Your friend, Sam.’ ”

The bishop looked at her, tears in his eyes too. Wordless, Della handed back his handkerchief. He blew his nose vigorously. “Well, well. You organize a pie auction and find employment for a widow. Della, are you a genie let out of a bottle?”

“I never was before I came to Winter Quarters,” she assured him. “Bishop, this means the world to them.”

“I know,” he said, equally serious. “I sometimes hate that I have to run a business here and evict good people who have nowhere to go. It pains me.” He gave her a long look. “Sister Anders, the Lord is well-acquainted with you.” He couldn't say any more. He pressed his hand to the bridge of his nose and left the room quietly.

She sat there until the shadows started to shift across the canyon. When the Regulator whirred and prepared to chime four times, she leaped up and pulled on her coat, grabbing the letter and its contents and started running up the road toward Finn Town.

She stopped twice to gasp and wheeze, bent over and wishing she hadn't laced her corset so tight that morning. “Vanity, vanity,” she mumbled, as she tried to draw a big enough breath to get her up the road, which suddenly felt as steep as a coal chute.

When she stopped in front of David Wilson's home, Emil Isgreen opened the front door, looking at her with some concern. He came down the steps toward her, doctor's bag in hand.

“Is there something I can do?”

She shook her head. “Corset,” was all that came out.

“I can remedy that right here,” he said with a wink. “Trouble is, I'll lose my job and so will you.”

She waved her hand weakly and tried not to laugh, mainly because she couldn't. Wordless still, she held out the letter from Mr. Auerbach. He read it and had the same reaction Bishop Parmley did—a sudden urge to look away and fumble for a handkerchief.

“All I run into are crybabies,” she said.

“We won't get fired for this,” he said softly as he kissed her cheek. “Get moving, Della. You're the bearer of glad tidings.”

She waved at him and continued at a more sedate pace past the tipple and into Finn Town. Pekka was sorting through a pile of rocks and lumps of coal by his uncle's shack. He brightened to see her.

“Miss! Stop and visit,” he said, as hospitable as his mother, who was standing at the door now, her hands on her cheeks, her eyes on the letter in Della's hand, her expression close to hopeful. Della held out the letter.

“Mrs. Aho, I think you're going to celebrate Christmas early this year.”

Her hand to her throat, Kristina Aho read the letter once, then read it again. She took out the train voucher and stared at in disbelief. She just stood there looking at Della, her eyes full of wonder and hope.

“What does the assistant window dresser do?” the widow asked, clutching Della's hand to her breast now.

“She paints the backgrounds on all the window displays in Auerbach's Department Store,” Della said. “There are many windows and many holidays and seasons. Oh, and there are displays in women's lingerie and Housewares.”

Suddenly Kristina's legs couldn't hold her. She sat down on the front steps, unmindful of the cold, and stared at the letter again. She turned to Della, her expression intense now. “Could I live on what Mr. Auerbach would pay?”

Della nodded, confident she knew Mr. Auerbach's heart. “He would never offer you a job if you could not support your family with what he will pay you.”

Mrs. Aho pulled Pekka close to her and whispered to him in Finnish. He nodded, serious, seven years old and the man of the family. “Miss, could you send this nice man a telegram, telling him to meet the Monday evening train in Salt Lake City?”

“I'll do it right now.”

Della stood up. She turned to start down the slope, when Mrs. Aho grabbed her hand and kissed it. Della gathered the woman close. “I'll miss Pekka,” she whispered, “but this will be so good for you!”

Della joined the group of friends and relatives Monday morning early, as they waved good-bye to Kristina, Pekka, and little Reet from the depot in Scofield. She was there on Friday afternoon, standing in the snow with the others as the train brought them back, triumphant and employed.

Exhausted but happy, Kristina told Della about the house on the west side that Mr. Auerbach had arranged for them. “He said the rent would be small, so I could get on my feet again.” She giggled and rested her blonde head on Della's shoulder. “I didn't know what he meant by getting on my feet because I was standing right next to him, but I think it is good!”

“It
is
good,” Della assured her. “It means he'll be watching out for you.”

“As you have done here,” Kristina said simply. “Pekka is already enrolled in your old Westside School.” Pekka whispered to her in Finnish. “Ah, yes. Your principal Mr. Oldroyd said to send him more good students anytime.”

In his role as mine superintendent, Thomas Parmley arranged for the train that carried the Scofield miners to Winter Quarters Canyon to take the Aho family and their few possessions to the depot on Monday morning early. Miss Clayson surprised Della by giving her permission for the lower grades class to go along and wave good-bye, as the Scofield spur to Colton took the Aho family to Salt Lake City and a future.

When they returned to their classroom, cheeks ruddy from the cold and excited about their impromptu train ride to Scofield, Della unrolled a narrow strip of butcher paper for her students to draw a picture of themselves waving good-bye to Pekka.

“Draw yourself, and then put your name underneath your picture,” she said. She pushed back the desks so they could stretch out the strip of paper on the floor. “John Farish, you draw the engine. Janey Wilson, you draw the passenger car. We'll send this to Mr. Auerbach.”

Angharad tugged at her sleeve. “Miss, may I draw you when I finish my own drawing?” she asked.

“I'd appreciate that. I need to write these arithmetic problems on the blackboard.”

They worked quietly and soon the train was drawn, the tracks lined with students waving goodbye. Some of the figures cried, some laughed. There in front, waving a red handkerchief, was a medium-sized woman with a mound of curly black hair. She had a prominent nose, the Greek kind, and eyes as dark as her hair. Della looked closer and swallowed back her tears—so unprofessional in a classroom. Angharad had drawn a small red dragon beside her, waving to another small dragon on the roof of the passenger car carrying the Ahos.

“They might need a dragon,” Angharad said.

“They will,” Della whispered back. “So do I.”

rust Uncle Jesse. In the Knights’ return letter, welcoming her and the Davises for Thanksgiving, he had included travel vouchers on the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway, good for a year. “ ‘My dear niece (or whatever you want to dub our relationship), one of the perks of being a substantial stockholder in the Tintic Mining District Railway is a certain caché with the Powers That Be in Denver. Consider this an early Christmas present.’ ”

Wonderful
.
This trip won't cost Owen or the choir anything
, she thought jubilantly as she opened Aunt Amanda's letter. The first paragraph made her frown. “ ‘Since our Anders cousins aren't expected back from Europe before December, I have invited your Uncle Karl to Provo for Thanksgiving. I knew you'd be pleased,’ ” Della read and felt anything but pleased. She kept reading. “ ‘I'm looking forward to meeting the Davises. You mention them in nearly every letter.’ ”

She sat down on her bed, supremely dissatisfied with herself. Surely she hadn't mentioned Owen and Angharad
that
often. She picked up the letter again. “ ‘We have found a piano tuner. He's a timid soul, so Jesse may have to include another year's pass on the D&RGW to get him to Winter Quarters Canyon. I assured him it is a small price to pay for harmony—forgive my punning, dear—in the Pleasant Valley Ward Choir. See you soon!’ ”