Carla Kelly (53 page)

he next morning, right after arithmetic on the board and a short review of the natural habitats of bears, Della sat next to Billy Evans while her students read aloud. She watched his face, noted his intensity, and decided he had been ready to read for a long time.
She
was the one who hadn't been ready, maybe even more unready than Owen.

Yesterday's letter had changed everything. As she lay in bed the night before, peaceful as never before, she thought that someday she might ask Martha or Richard if they had been giving both of them advice on patience. She decided she needn't bother; she knew what their answer would be.

“Angharad, I have a message for you to give your father,” she said as she buttoned her student's coat at the end of the day. “Will you do that?”

Angharad nodded.

“Here's the message: ‘Get the broom.’ ”

“ ‘Get the broom’?” Angharad repeated, obviously mystified.

“That's the message.”

His face expressionless, except for a lurking gleam in his eyes that seemed to be part of the Welsh national character, Owen picked up the broom the next day after he came out of the mine and cleaned up. “Time for the drastic step?” he asked. “You're certain?”

“Positive.”

“Give me two days.”

She nodded. “As long as you need,” she teased back.

“For the broom, the broom,” he retorted. “You've turned into a smart aleck overnight.” He perched on the edge of her desk. “You obviously don't appreciate the planning, the cunning, the …”

“… Welsh balderdash,” she filled in, which made him laugh.

“Seriously, miss, I have been planning. I've asked his mam to put a slight hem in little Billy's trousers.”

“Ah.”

“What I want you to do in a few days is to remark that he seems to be growing. In another day, I'll ask Margarad to hem up another inch. You'll notice it, and then tell him a few days later it's time to measure against the broom. Make sense?”

“Completely. You are a shrewd man, Owen Davis.”

“
Someone
has to be to kiss Della Anders,” he said. “I'm leaving nothing to chance.” He tipped his hat to her and left her classroom. She fanned herself with the day's theme on “The Coming of Spring and Why We Like It.”

Two days later, she remarked to Billy in an offhand way that he seemed to be growing. “Your legs look a little longer,” she told him.

He grinned at her, pleased. “That's what my mam said too.”

After the weekend, Della found the broom waiting inside the door of her classroom when she arrived early. Owen had obviously left it before the early shift, because there was a note for her made with his wooden letters: “Della, oh Della, curly haired Della.” She blushed and tried to take off the letters before anyone could see them, except that Israel Bowman stood in her doorway, laughing.

“Go away!” she exclaimed, removing the letters as fast as she could, before the children arrived.

“Della, oh Della, curly haired Della,” she heard him sing as he walked toward his classroom.

She took a good look at the broom handle, impressed. Owen had cut off more than three inches, but only someone who knew that could detect it, she decided. He had sanded the cut edges until they looked smooth from years of use. A little stain matched the rest of the broom. Smiling to herself, she put the broom in the closet.
I wonder what kind of a kisser he is
, she thought, and her cheeks flamed predictably.

When Billy arrived for school with his brothers and sisters, she welcomed him into her classroom. “Billy, have you grown again?” she asked, her eyes wide.

He nodded, pride showing on his face. “My mam thinks I'm fair astounding.”

“So do I.”

He looked at her expectantly, and she knew he wanted her to get out the broom. Owen was right; better to let him wait a few more days and think about it. Let him remind her.

“He's primed and ready,” Della whispered to Owen before choir practice that night.

“Spring it on him tomorrow then.” He hesitated. “You're sure he's ready?”

She looked him in the eye until it was his turn to blush. “I
know
he is.”

“Ahem,” Richard Evans said, tapping on his music stand. “Will the second tenor and lower alto pay attention?”

“June's coming. It's Eisteddfod business,” Owen said promptly.

“Liar, liar pants on fire,” Della said under her breath, which sent the alto next to her into a coughing fit that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

Della walked home after practice with Magarad and Dafydd Evans. “I'm going to measure your Billy next to the broom tomorrow,” she told them. “I know he's finally ready to read.”

“Owen's been a real help to you there now,” Magarad said. “He's good to do this. Why, do you think?”

“I suppose he's just interested in helping the school,” Della told her.

“That's not the rumor I've heard,” Dafydd said. “ ’Course, my rumor comes from the mines, and what do we know?”

She left it at that, changing the subject to the growing rumor about a US Navy contract, which interested Dafydd. It only earned her a measuring look from Magarad, one of the women who had nursed Angharad almost seven years ago, and who knew Owen Davis pretty well. Magarad squeezed her arm and mouthed “Good luck,” as they said good-bye on Mabli's doorstep.

Della spent extra time that morning fussing over her hair, ready to be pleased instead of dissatisfied. The face that gazed back at her from the mirror was calm and had full lips, that handsome nose no one else had in Winter Quarters Canyon, and glorious hair. “This is my mother's face,” she said to her image. “She was lovely and she loved me. Possibly, someone else loves me too.”

She wore her favorite dark blue skirt and the shirtwaist with blue and white flowers on it. Remy's wheat sheaf pin went on next. She wore her red-and-white striped stockings. No one would ever see them, but they had been her favorite purchase at Auerbach's during the holiday break.

The wagon road was dry enough to walk on, finally. As she went down the hill toward school, she gathered children as she walked. Some were Finnish, others were the children of the Scots, the Cornish, the Welsh, the German, but they all knew “Daisy Bell,” and knew it at the top of the lungs. Della waved to mothers standing in their doorways, watching her traveling circus.

Della, the Pied Piper of Winter Quarters, led her singing class past homes and mechanical buildings and the fire station and another boardinghouse to the school, where Miss Clayson stood on the front step, almost smiling. When they finished singing, they all dashed behind the school to the playground.

“You'll have to have them sing for our district leaders,” Miss Clayson said. “They'll be here sometime in May.” The familiar frown came back. “Perhaps there will be time for them to learn something slightly more elevated than ‘Daisy Bell.’ ”

“Perhaps,” Della agreed. She brightened. “We already know ‘The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.’ ”

Miss Clayson flinched and looked over her spectacles at Della. “My dear, there are times when you are regrettably lowbrow.”

“I know,” Della said, happy to agree. “How about ‘America Forever’? I'm teaching them that for our Dewey Day celebration on May 1.”

“What a relief! I'm in favor.”

When she released her students for midmorning recess, Della planned to ask Billy Evans to hang back for a few minutes. As it turned out, she didn't need to. As the others trooped out, he came to her desk.

“Miss? I think I'm ready.”

“I believe you are too, Billy. Let's take a look at the broom anyway, just to make sure.”

He nodded and went to the closet. She watched as he held it next to him. “Miss! Miss!” Billy's eyes were wide as he measured himself. “I am so much taller now!”

“I believe you are, Billy,” Della said. She took the broom from him. “Let's make certain.”

She measured the broom against the back of Billy's head and put her hand at the top, which was level with the little boy's ears now. “Billy, you are taller than my broom. Go pick out the book you want to read to me.”

He put the broom back and went to the bookshelf. Decisive, he pulled out
David Copperfield
, which she had spent all winter reading to the class. She sat with him in the small circle of chairs she used for each class's reading recitation. He opened to chapter one, cleared his throat in an obvious but probably unconscious imitation of her, and began.

“ ‘Chapter One, I Am Born. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.’ ”

He read carefully, but he did not hesitate. When he finished the first paragraph, he looked at her for approval. “Aw, miss, don't cry,” he told her. “I'm tall and I can read.”

Della hugged him.

“Aw, miss!”

“Well done, Billy. Will you take your turn reading out of McGuffey after recess?”

He nodded. “As long as I can sit next to you, miss.”

“As long as you need to, Billy. Better hurry outside now. I'd hate for you to miss recess.”

With a blinding smile that Della knew she would store in her heart forever, Billy darted out the classroom door. Della closed her eyes and folded her arms. So much for the separation of church and state; so much for the Rules for Teachers—she thanked the Lord for Billy Evans and his amazing growth spurt that turned him into a reader.

Since the weather was so mild for March, Della easily convinced her youthful escorts to let her walk home alone. Billy lingered long enough to check out
Ragged Dick
from her classroom library, then ran after the others.

She was entering arithmetic grades into her gradebook when she heard someone humming, “Daisy, Daisy, Give Me Your Answer True,” in a remarkably fine tenor voice.

“Come in if you're not too dusty,” she said without looking up.

“I went home and took a bath. Well, do you have a new reader in your class?”

She stood up and met him halfway up the aisle, delighted. “Owen! He's marvelous! He read the first few paragraphs of
David Copperfield
to me and checked out one of Horatio Alger's little potboilers after school.”

Owen grinned at her, his enthusiasm easily matching hers. “Did he even need the broom?”

“I'm not sure. It was all his idea, as you thought it might be. I think what impressed him most was the way he grew out of his trousers.”

They looked at each other. “Well?” Della asked finally, when he seemed unable to move.

“I'm glad.”

“Glad? You have a reward coming, I believe.” Her face felt uncomfortably hot for an early spring day, but there he stood, taking not one step closer.

“Owen, what am I going to do with you?” she said finally. She took those three steps closer, put her hands on both sides of his face, and kissed him.

His arms went around her then; he pulled her closer until Aunt Caroline, Miss Clayson, and probably even the long-absent and frisky Miss Forsyth would never have approved. Never mind—none of them were there in her classroom, only Owen Davis.

She had probably had more recent experience kissing than Owen. After all, she had spent that summer before university in a canyon with telephone linemen, some of whom were her approximate age. What he lacked for in recent experience, he more than made up with technique. She hadn't noticed any women in the canyon with full lips like hers, but he made the most of her abundance, even catching her lower lip in his teeth in a provocative way that made her breathe a little faster. Whatever the length of his dry spell, Owen Davis hadn't forgotten a thing.

He broke away first, holding her off at arm's length and looking at her. “My word.”

“Beginner's luck,” she said, breathless. “Sort of.”

He laughed out loud, which she stopped with another kiss. Same result, except this time she was the one hauling him close. He offered not a single objection, other than a guttural sound in his throat that didn't sound like a complaint.

It was her turn to pull back. “I'm really glad Billy Evans was ready to read.”