Carla Kelly (30 page)

She glanced at his profile and saw the small muscle working in his cheek. Yesterday's Della would have remained silent. Today's Della nearly did. “You have your own boulder.”

He nodded, silent.

“I can listen too,” she offered and said no more.

When they passed the school, Della looked to see Miss Clayson standing in the window, dressed in black as usual. She could not help her sigh.

“You have your work cut out there,” he commented.

“I'm already thinking of what I will probably do this week to incur the wrath.”

“As a parent, let me say that I am delighted with Angharad's progress,” he told her.

“Tell me something. Last week, Miss Clayson's tirade included scolding me for … for glamorizing the mine. She doesn't want a single boy to go into the pit. They should all be doctors and lawyers.”

“Those doctors and lawyers will get a little chilly, when winter comes and there's no coal,” he said with a laugh.

“What about you? Do you want Angharad to marry a miner?” Della asked.

He considered her question. “What I want—perhaps what any miner in this canyon wants—is for children to have a choice. Some of us never did.”

Della thought about Owen's words that afternoon as the four of them walked back for sacrament meeting. It was still on her mind in the morning as she hesitated and then joined Miss Clayson inside the front entrance of the school, ready to welcome her pupils too. Before anyone came inside and even though her stomach was churning, she stood beside the principal.

“Miss Clayson, I angered you last week,” she said. “Here is what I do at every school where I teach: I pledge myself to educating each child in my charge, boys and girls equally, so they will have a choice someday. Mining is as noble a profession as any.”

Miss Clayson did not raise her voice. “Mines kill,” she said, with such infinite sadness that Della looked away.

“I know,” she said softly, “but these children love their fathers.”
And I loved mine
, she thought. “They are also proud of them. I will not confuse these children and divide their loyalties. It isn't in me.”

The children were coming inside now, the boys flushed from running, and the girls more sedate, some walking arm in arm with their sisters or friends. Della's heart warmed to see the greeting in their eyes when they saw her. She ushered them toward their classroom and waited another moment as Mari Luoma came up the steps.

“Good morning, Mari,” Della said.

Mari blushed and looked toward the outside door. Della saw Heikki beaming at his young wife, nodding his head in encouragement.

“Good morning, dear teacher. I am so pleased to see you,” Mari said in careful English, almost as though she didn't want to wear it out.

“Excellent! I am pleased to see you too.”

Mari giggled, both hands over her mouth. All during recitation and arithmetic board work, Della tried unsuccessfully to erase Miss Clayson from her mind. During lunch-time, she tried to talk to Miss Clayson. She reached the stairs leading to the basement just as she heard the woman's door close.

Della walked back into her classroom, supremely dissatisfied with herself, until another thought surfaced. She stood still, suddenly aware that perhaps others’ lives could be as distressing as hers had been.
But isn't now
, she thought with amazement.
I have been blessed.

By the time her students trooped back in, ready for the treat she had promised, she was ready. She held up the book, one of several that Clarence Nix had ordered on her request.

“Here are the rules,” she told her students. “You have to get comfortable and not worry about recitations or whether three plus three equals seven …”

“Miss Anders!” Eddie Williams said promptly. “It's six.”

She smiled at the bright faces looking back at her, eyes merry, then slapped her forehead. “You're right! But we're not supposed to worry about that during story time. We are going to read
Black Beauty
.” She opened the book. “ ‘Chapter One. The first place that I can remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it …’ ”

She walked home after school in perfect charity with herself, accompanied by Mari Luoma and her other Finnish students. Other students had trailed along too, dropping off with a wave to her when they reached their own homes.

When Della stopped at Mabli's house, Mari put her hand on her arm. “You come with me?” she asked, pointing farther up the slope. “Finn Town?”

“I will come with you to Finn Town, but not today,” she said and looked at Pekka Aho to translate. “Please tell her I have to help Mabli Reese in the boardinghouse kitchen and then go to the library tonight. Maybe another day?”

“You are a busy teacher,” Pekka said, then translated. Mari continued up the slope with the other students, her long, blonde hair in one braid down her back. Della watched them until they were out of sight beyond the bend, because she thought little Tilda Koski might look back and wave. She did, to Della's delight.

The library was pleasantly full that evening. It was becoming such a social place that Della had put up a sign last Friday: “Please keep conversations to a dull roar, unless the building is burning, in which case you may shout
Fire!
in the language of your choice.” Everyone coming in laughed, but the resulting volume probably would have suited even Miss Clayson.

Owen came in just before closing again and put
The Jungle Book
on her table. “We loved it,” he whispered. “I was only frightened one night.”

Della laughed out loud. When Owen put his finger to his lips and shook his head, she mouthed, “Dirty bird.”

“Care to recommend another, oh Greek oracle?” he asked.

Della crooked her finger and he followed her. “The Little Prudy books. There's not a girl alive who doesn't like them. There are six, so you can get started.”

He took the book from her and turned the pages. “Anything for an older reader who will be thirty-one in January?”

He followed her to the D's, and she handed him
A Tale of Two Cities
. “Ever read it?” she whispered. “I cried until my nose ran.”

Owen leaned his forehead against the bookcase and put
Little Prudy
to his face to stifle his laughter. “I'll take it,” he whispered back. “Since I'm here, may I ask to escort you to choir practice tomorrow night?”

“Afraid I won't show up?” she teased.

“No! I like your company.”

hoir practice began promptly at seven o'clock Tuesday evening in the chapel, with the men gathering in one corner to sing “Men of Harlech” as a warm-up. Owen helped Della off with her coat and joined the tenors and basses.

“They like to show off when someone new arrives,” Martha Evans whispered to Della. “We humor them.”

The ladies giggled. Della was impressed with “Men of Harlech,” but she had to smile. “Tell me this: Does the Pleasant Valley Ward choir
really
need a secretary?”

The ladies looked at each other, hands to mouths, which told Della everything she needed to know. “Are all the men in this choir as unprincipled as Owen Davis?”

“Aye,” Martha said promptly. “It's a sad fact and true about men. Better you learn now than later. They do anything to get what they want.” She put her hand on Della's arm and leaned close. “But here is the truth—we prefer this unprincipled Owen to the one that never smiled.”

“And I want to sing,” she said simply.

When the men finished showing off, Richard Evans beckoned Della forward. “At long last, we have a secretary,” he said, which made everyone laugh, including Della, after she glared at Owen. “I know there will be some correspondence in the early spring as we get ready for Eisteddfod in June.”

“Owen—Brother Davis—promised me there would be letters to send right now,” Della said. “Told me Sunday he was composing a letter.”

“He lied,” James Gatherum, a Scot, told her with a perfectly straight face. “ ’Ave ye no’ heard of ‘welshing,’ Sister Anders? There's a rrreason.”

“Lads, lads, kindly don't malign me,” Owen said in good-humored protest at their laughter. “I walked her here and I'd like to walk her home, if she is still speaking to me after you
bwca
finish.”

“I suggest we pray, if anyone can do it with a straight face,” Richard Evans said. “Martha?”

“Only because you're my husband,” she said.

After an opening prayer, Richard Evans had his choir take their positions behind the pulpit. He directed Della to stand between Tamris Powell and Claudie Jones. He sang a note and they began running up and down scales in chromatic intervals. When they finished, he handed out well-thumbed Deseret Sunday School songbooks.

“We usually just call for suggestions,” Brother Evans explained to Della as he handed her a book. “We sing a special number twice a month in sacrament meeting.” He turned to Della. “Since you're our newest member, you choose a hymn, my dear.”

“That's easy,” the new Della said promptly, getting into the spirit of the rehearsal. “Since you are picking on Brother Davis, how about ‘Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words’?”

“Excellent choice,” Brother Evans said, as the basses and tenors hooted. He looked around. “Silence, ye fiends! Do you miscreants want a note or not?”

And so it went all evening, to Della's amazement and delight, as the choir sang and teased and argued about what to sing on Sunday. She had never heard anything like it, and she was sorry when it ended.

Or almost ended. After a glance at her, Owen raised his hand. “One more, Richard,” he said. “Just Sister Anders and me, if she will.”

“Oh, but …”

“ ‘Did You Think to Pray?’ We sounded nice the other night. Here's your note and the beats.” His hand was already moving, not giving her a chance to protest further.

I'm being railroaded by a master. Thank goodness he's not a bully
, Della thought, as she sang with him, timidly at first, but strong by the chorus, because he was easy to sing with. When he gestured, she left her place between Tamris and Claudie and stood beside him. When they finished, everyone applauded, which made her blush.

“Perfect,” Brother Evans said. “You two can sing in Sunday School during the sacrament. Any other business?”

Della held up her hand.

“We won't take no for an answer,” the choirmaster told her.

“I wouldn't dare object,” she said tartly. “I just want to know why no one uses the piano. Don't tell me it's because no one needs it.” She looked around at the friendly faces. “I'm the secretary, and maybe I should ask those things, since
no one else
has anything for me to do.”

“It's badly out of tune and we can't afford to hire the piano tuner from Provo,” Tamris said. “I wish we had a piano too.”

“Maybe we need a fund-raiser. You know, a little here, a little there. It will add up to a piano tuner eventually.”

“What do you have in mind?” Brother Evans asked. “We're challenged in the wallet.”

“A pie auction. Every household makes a pie or a cake and we auction them, either by the pie or the slice.” Della looked at the ladies. “We did this in Colorado, where my father mined. We were challenged in the wallet too, but we pooled our resources.”