Carla Kelly (47 page)

“I don't anticipate trouble from Uncle Karl's guests,” Della told her as they went downstairs. “I've never been to one of his holiday dinners, so this should be instructive at the very least.”
And maybe I'm a raving, hopeless optimist
, she thought, wondering again why she had accepted Uncle Karl's invitation. Maybe that corner of her heart or mind where twelve-year-old Della still lived, craved acceptance from hearts not inclined to give it.

They walked into the empty dining room, searching for their place names and found them next to Mr. Edwin Garland, another railroad lawyer, who was hard of hearing. Seated between her and Miss Clayson was an equally geriatric distant cousin of some sort who was only included in family occasions because Aunt Caroline held out the hope that he might keel over dead some day and leave some money to her daughters.

They went into the foyer to wait. When the dinner gong sounded—Miss Clayson jumped—the guests filed from the parlor on their way to the dining room. Della marched behind with her principal.

Perfect. The railroad lawyer was happy to ignore them, and the distant cousin focused his attention on Mrs. Mabry's renowned consommé, accompanied by olives, celery, and salted pecans. Interested, Della looked at the guests, pleased to see Samuel and Eveline Auerbach near the head of the table, engaged in animated conversation with her uncle.

Miss Clayson relaxed, to Della's relief. The roast goose that followed the soup practically crackled in its skin, and no one made better potato stuffing than Mrs. Mabry. Chicken croquettes with green peas came next. Maybe the guests were already full; maybe they were bored with holiday meals that left them stunned and groaning. Whatever it was, the conversation that had begun at one end of the table suddenly came their way, right when Della had a forkful of peas headed to her mouth.

“Della, my dear, Mr. Auerbach has been telling us about your students and their pictures of Winter Quarters,” Uncle Karl said, raising his voice to be heard above the clatter of silverware. “He said you used shirt cardboard.”

“I did. It's marvelous,” she said, putting down her fork. “It makes the best paper for art work.” She blushed when everyone laughed. “Well, it does.”

“Della is determined to stamp out ignorance in coal camps,” Aunt Caroline said. “We think it quite noble of her.”

“There's no ignorance in the canyon to stamp out,” she said, happy to discuss her friends. “I also help in the Wasatch Store library three nights a week. The most popular book right now is anything by Dickens.
A Tale of Two Cities
is especially pop—”

Aunt Caroline laughed, sending warning prickles down Della's back. “What, do you
read
to the miners too? Really, Della, amuse us some more.”

“They're quite literate,” she replied, the prickles in her back marching in rows now. She tried to laugh, but it stuck in her throat. “I mean, how many of you can read another language? You should see the variety of newspapers we subscribe to.” She felt the familiar dread again, when she had thought it was gone, banished forever by the new Della. “The ladies especially enjoy magazines like
McCall's
, and the men devour books like
Wealth Against Commonwealth
. They're very interested in corporate abuse … of power.” Her voice trailed away as she looked around at her well-fed, powerful audience.

Shut up and eat
, she told herself. She looked down at the peas on her plate, determined not to say anything else.

She wouldn't have, but Uncle Karl's law partner started to laugh. Some of the others joined in. Della kept her eyes on her plate.

“I wouldn't worry about the miners, unless little Miss Anders here is a fomenter of revolution, Salt Lake's own Mother Jones,” the lawyer said. “She'll have to prod them. Men with any brains or ambition would never toil in a mine for more than five minutes.”

Everyone laughed but the new Della just didn't see the joke. “They work in the mines because they are well-trained miners,” she said, maybe speaking louder than she should have, because Aunt Caroline sent a glance full of daggers her way. “They work harder than anyone at this table, and they keep you warm all winter. They work so hard because they love their children.”

Trust a lawyer to not let a good argument die. Uncle Karl's partner leaned toward the center of the table to see her better. “Why do you even bother to educate their children? They'll just go in the mines.”

“Some will, naturally, but we teach them so they will have a choice.”

Della looked up in surprise to see Miss Clayson on her feet, her eyes intense.

“Yes! If they choose to mine, they at least have a choice,” Della said, slowly rising to stand beside her principal. “That's what we are providing—a choice. I have learned a lot.”

“How to get coal stains off library books?” Aunt Caroline mocked.

“No, I …” She touched Remy Ducotel's brooch and looked around the table. “How many of you here take a bath every day? How many of you work
really
hard?”

“Della!” Aunt Caroline exclaimed. “Leave this table!”

“I will, Aunt Caroline,” she replied, utterly calm now. She thought of her lovely Finns and the ward choir. She looked from merchant to lawyer to doctor, probably all of them stockholders in Utah's mines, who never knew—or cared—that their quarterly dividends came at a high cost in lives. “Seriously, though. Miners bathe every day. They scrub off the coal dust that you take for granted, and they are the cleanest people I know. They read to their children, and they sing while waiting out a mine collapse, and bury their dead and hope for a better future. As a teacher, I couldn't be in a better place.” She took a deep breath. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

Aunt Caroline was on her feet now, even though Uncle Karl tried to pull her down. She shook off his hand. “This is what happens when you … you give someone with no gratitude a university education!”

“You never paid a dime of my university tuition,” Della said. “I came to you poor and sad, and I stayed that way.” She looked at her uncle, into his stricken, weak eyes and realized with full clarity that
her
father had been the strong one. “I'm leaving.”

She held her head up and looked around the table. “To spare her the bother, I'll finish what my aunt will probably say once I leave. My father was the family black sheep and he died in a mine. My mother and father were never married and she deserted him when I was a baby.”

“They already know all that,” her aunt said, triumphant.

“I thought as much. I'm sorry, Miss Clayson, that you had to hear this. I think I'll go home.”

She willed her rubbery legs to support her from the dining room. She made it into the hall, then sank to her knees.

Miss Clayson helped her up and held her until she was steady. “My offer still stands, Della. Come to Boise.”

“You must be ashamed of me,” Della whispered.

“On the contrary. I've never been so proud of a teacher as I am of you! Let's pack and get out of here before fifteen minutes pass.”

Miss Clayson helped her upstairs. Della heard doors opening and closing on the first floor, and she closed her eyes in shame. “What was I thinking?” she asked.

“Maybe that you have had a surfeit of wooden charity and misery,” Miss Clayson told her, calm now. “I was going to say ‘a bellyful,’ but I still have my standards, Miss Anders!”

Della smiled. “Thank you, Lavinia. Fifteen minutes.”

She packed as fast as she could, begging Heavenly Father to keep Aunt Caroline and Uncle Karl downstairs, because she had had enough barbs stuck in her raw flesh from her aunt and felt only disgust for her weakling of an uncle. “I'm going to thump you, Owen,” she said, then took it all back when she looked at the dragon spread out by the foot of her bed. The woodcarving of the Anders name went back in her suitcase. Next summer she would take it back to Colorado and leave it on her father's grave.

They left the house by a side door, and Della felt her spirits begin to rise. “I never have to go back, do I?” she said to Miss Clayson, who marched along grimly, the picture of indignation.

“Most certainly not! We shouldn't have a bit of trouble finding a downtown hotel. It's not that late and …”

She stopped speaking as a carriage came alongside, then she did something that endeared her forever to Della. Miss Clayson deliberately stepped in front of her, shielding her from whoever was driving by so slowly, ready to swing her suitcase if the door so much as opened a crack.

“Wait a minute, Miss Clayson!” came a familiar voice from inside the brougham. “Can Eveline and I interest you two in a place to stay the night?”

Della gasped out loud and put a restraining hand on her principal. “Mr. Auerbach! You're supposed to be eating dinner at my uncle's house!” She chuckled. “I ate the humble pie, but Mrs. Mabry makes wonderful cake.”

As they stood there by the curb, the coachman leaped down and took their luggage, stowing it in the boot of the carriage. He held the door open with a real flourish and helped them inside. Della sat across from Mr. Auerbach, looking from him to his wife. “I'm totally a pariah,” she said, doubtful. “Are you … are you sure you want to do this?”

“We've never been more positive,” Eveline Auerbach said. “I had no trouble pleading a headache.” She touched Della's hand. “Our leaving early will give them the chance to backstab the Jews too, so their evening won't be entirely wasted.”

Miss Clayson put her arm around Della when she burst into tears, and Mrs. Auerbach handed her a lace handkerchief. Soon everyone was sniffling, except Samuel Auerbach, who was made of sterner stuff, obviously.

“Goodness, ladies! Della, I have a proposition from Menswear. Mr. Whaley came to me in utter despair at closing time and begged for more help to get him through to Christmas. Will you help him? You'll be our guest and earn some money too.” He laughed. “An Auerbach couldn't make you a better offer, and on Christmas too.”

Della blew her nose and managed a watery chuckle. She nodded.

Mr. Auerbach took his wife's hand and kissed it. “I came here from Germany, my dears. Eveline was born in a gold mining camp in California. We understand immigrants and you are both precisely right. It
is
all about the children. Heaven bless you for understanding that.”

Della saw Miss Clayson off at the depot early the next morning, then took a streetcar to Auerbach's. Mr. Whaley nearly fell down at her feet when she put on her nametag and stepped behind the counter. She protested when Mr. Auerbach insisted she attend the annual employees’ holiday party later that week. She tried to remind him that she wasn't a full-time employee, but he wasn't buying it.

She sat next to Pekka Aho at the party, listening with huge delight and a little homesickness as he told her about his teacher at Westside School. “He does what you do, Miss Anders. We get a chapter a day after lunch, and two if we're really good.”

The few evenings left before Christmas Della spent in the Auerbachs’ parlor, listening to stories about Mr. Auerbach's early days in California mining camps, marriage to Eveline, and settlement in the City of the Great Salt Lake, opening an emporium with his brothers and having battles of wit—winning some, losing some—with Brigham Young.

At Mr. Auerbach's urging, she wrote a letter to the Knights, briefly describing what had happened. Amanda responded promptly and invited her to spend Christmas Day with them.

“Are you going?” Mr. Auerbach asked her over boiled eggs and toast on Christmas Eve. “We spend a quiet day here on Christmas, but I assure you that Mr. Whaley would be overjoyed to see you on December 26, for the dread inventory.”

“I'll stay here for that, if it's agreeable,” she said, shy. “You've been so kind.”

“And you've been so helpful! Very well, then—write to the Knights and tell them you'll see them December 27.”

Della debated long and hard and sent a telegram to Bishop Parmley, care of the Pleasant Valley Coal Company, asking if someone could help her with her luggage to Winter Quarters on December 27. She wanted to send that telegram to Owen, but even Aunt Caroline had raised her better than that.

She had the money to buy something nice for the Auerbachs’ for Christmas, but Della found a better way to express her gratitude. She stayed up late on Christmas Eve, drawing two pictures on shirt cardboard, one of Owen carving
Aho
on a coffin lid, as the men stood by the sauna with Matti's coffin. She drew the Christmas party, with her girls singing “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” She wrote a brief description on the back of each picture and carried them down to breakfast on Christmas Day.

“Happy holidays. More masterpieces for your art gallery. Mrs. Aho told me how she treasures knowing that Matti has a beautiful coffin lid, even if no one sees it except the eye of God.”

“Pekka won't mind seeing this picture in my art gallery?” Mr. Auerbach asked.

“No. He told me he wanted us remember his father. This is who we are,” she said simply.

The Auerbach's present to Della were gifts for the library, a copy of Jacob Riis's
How the Other Half Lives
and a little replica of the Statue of Liberty. Della winked back tears at their inscription in the book:
Dear Miners:
We have been where you are now. Courage and carry on. Samuel and Eveline Auerbach
.