Carla Kelly (12 page)

People nodded and murmured.

“We can't have her showing us a clean pair of heels because there's no place for her to live.” He looked over his people again. “Please consider your own homes and ask yourself if you have room for one medium-sized teacher. I can already testify that she is good with children, and she's a willing kitchen helper.” He leaned on the pulpit. “She even told my wee ones a bedtime story last night that made me stop and listen too!”

Laughter and more murmuring. “Just think about it, my dears. From September to May, you could help us keep a good teacher in Winter Quarters.” He nodded to the superintendent again. “That's all I have, Brother Hood. Let's send this lot to class.”

Knowing her place in the greater scheme of Sunday School, Florence hopped off Della's lap and followed her teacher. Mary Ann Parmley shouldered a sleeping William and gestured toward the smallest children, who followed her. Della sat alone on the row now, not sure where to go.

Owen Davis stood up and came back to her pew. “Theology meets in the basement, Sister Anders, perhaps because we're all such sinners,” he said, his eyes merry. “I owe you an explanation.”

“You are a dirty bird, Brother Davis,” she said softly.

Maybe he forgot it was Sunday. Owen threw back his head and laughed the kind of belly laugh that only a stone gargoyle could have resisted. Della glanced around as others started to laugh. More were staring in surprise, which puzzled her. Didn't his own ward friends know what a terrible tease he was?

“Well, you are! After what you said yesterday, I was quite resigned for the worst,” she told him as she followed him downstairs to the classroom.

“I couldn't resist.”

“You didn't even try!”

“Guilty,” he said cheerfully. “May I sit by you, or would you rather slap me silly and make me stand in the corner?”

“Oh, sit down,” she said, laughing. “I have to know: which of you gave the other the note to start off the sacrament hymn?”

“Neither of us,” he whispered back, his eye on the Sunday School teacher, who had finished writing the twelve sons of Jacob on the board.

“You just started singing? Do you mean to tell me that both of you have perfect pitch?” she asked, amazed.

It was Owen's turn to look puzzled. “Doesn't everyone?”

“Double dirty bird,” she said under her breath.

He was sitting close enough on the bench for Della to feel his shoulders shaking. She took a deep breath and resolved not to look at him until the lesson was over.

She tried to turn her attention to the lesson on the sons of Jacob, but all she could do was wonder where she had found the courage to speak to a man that way. Too many years with Aunt Caroline had conditioned her to silence, on the notion that if she never said anything, no one would notice she was there.

Deep in her own thoughts, Della jumped when someone tapped her shoulder. She turned around to see the bishop, who motioned for her to follow him.

“We have a ward member willing to offer you room and board,” he said. “Come into what I laughingly call my office.”

He opened the door for her and she found herself crowded into a small space taken up mostly with a desk probably meant for greater things but now hiding its light under a bushel in the Winter Quarters meetinghouse.

A small woman dressed in black rose when Della came in and held out her hand in a gesture as friendly as her smile. “I'm Mabli Reese, and I believe I have just the place for you,” the woman said. “You'll need to be a bit adventurous.”

They shook hands. “I never thought I was adventurous before I rode the flatbed into the canyon,” Della said.

“That story will make the rounds for a long time,” Mabli Reese said.

“Tell me why I need to be adventurous to board at your house, Sister Reese?”

“I cook at Mr. Edward's boardinghouse, which is hard by the Number One mine portal. I have a four-room house next to the boardinghouse and an extra room which I am offering you.”

“Dr. Isgreen told me to stay away from boarding houses,” Della said, giving the lady a regretful look.

“You will never be bothered, because not a single man in that boardinghouse wants to face the wrath of fathers with children in your class,” Mabli told her. “I'll charge you six dollars a month for the room. Board will be free, if you'd like to help me prepare breakfast in the kitchen.”

Della considered the offer. “What do you think, bishop?”

“It's a good offer from a lady I admire,” he told her. “There have been other offers, it is true, but no one except Mabli has an unoccupied room.”

“I'll do it,” Della said to Sister Reese. “I'm an early riser and I'll be happy to help cook for armies. For two summers, I was a kitchen flunky for a crew laying telephone lines in Cottonwood Canyon. I had to scare away a bear once.”

The bishop looked at her in frank surprise. “I'm amazed that your uncle would ever permit you to do such a thing.”

You'd be surprised the lengths my relatives went to, to get me out of sight and mind
, she thought, as her uneasiness returned. “He wanted me to be self-sufficient,” she said, wincing inside at how lame it sounded.

The bishop looked from Della to Mabli Reese. “Are we agreed?”

Della nodded.

“Aye,” Mabli said. “I'll need to rearrange a few things, but I'll be ready tomorrow.”

“Excellent,” he said, standing up. He ushered them out of his office and into the chapel, which was filling up with teachers and students.

“I hope the kitchen help is agreeable,” Mabli whispered. “I had a chore girl, but she married a miner in Castle Gate. Let's sit here.”

Mabli slid into the pew next to the man who had sung with Owen Davis. Della followed, her eyes lighting up when Angharad sat next to her, followed by her father, looking not even slightly repentant for his joke.

From his seat on the stand, the bishop leaned over and spoke to the superintendent, who nodded and stood up. “Good news. Sister Anders has agreed to board with Sister Mabli Reese, so there will be peace and the ABCs in the canyon.”

After a reminder from the bishop about sacrament meeting in two hours, the closing prayer came with French accent this time.

“Will you be at sacrament meeting?” Mabli asked.

“Of course.”

“Afterword, would you like to walk up the canyon with me to see my house?”

“I would. Thank you, Sister Reese. I promise to be a good tenant.”

“Sister Anders, if you're still speaking to me, would you care to join us Tuesday evening for choir practice?” Owen Davis asked, as he nudged his daughter along the row.

Della shook her head. “The last thing
this
ward choir needs is another alto.”

“Could I find a way to make you change your mind?” he asked. Angharad had him by the hand and was towing him from the building.

“I sincerely doubt it,” Della replied, picking up Florence.

Owen smiled at her over his shoulder as Angharad led the way. “I'm not through trying.”

Oh, yes you are
, she thought, amused at his persistence, when the choir obviously far outran her puny talents.

Dinner was sandwiches and soup, with William nodding to sleep from his high chair. Mary Ann took him away while Della helped Florence, who was tugging at her eyelids and yawning.

“I could use a nap,” the bishop said. “Haven't had one in years. What do you think of us, Sister Anders?”

“Outside of a few teases and scoundrels, I think you have a fine ward,” she joked.

He laughed at that. “I wondered if maybe Brother Davis had told you a stretcher about the quality of singing in our chapel. I was watching you when they started to sing. You looked fair gobsmacked.”

“I can't blame Brother Davis totally,” Della said. “Before I left Provo, my Uncle Jesse told me I should join the choir and gave me to believe they actually
needed
singers. He will hear from me! Owen … Brother Davis just compounded the felony.” She leaned her elbows on the table, since the bishop was doing the same thing. “But tell me: everyone looked so startled when he laughed so loud. Why is that?”

The bishop's expression grew wistful. “I doubt anyone has heard him laugh like that since Gwyna died. I honestly never thought to hear him laugh like that again. Maybe you're a tonic, Sister Anders.”

“Maybe I'm a good foil for a tease,” she retorted, pleased in spite of herself. “Now tell me something about Mabli Reese, if you have time, sir.”

“She's a widow from Glamorganshire, Wales, where a good number of my miners come from. Her husband died in a cave-in three years back, and she stayed on as a cook. The Reeses had no children, so she's alone.” He leaned back in his chair, appraising her in that way of bishops. “Mabli is a quiet lady who keeps to herself. I was a little surprised she offered her extra room to you.”

“It's much appreciated,” Della assured him.

“Maybe you're going to bring out the best in us.”

I rather think you people are going to bring out the best in me
, Della thought, as she got up to clear the table.

The bishop left a few minutes later to return to church. Della started the dishes while Mary Ann carried a sleeping Florence to her bed and admonished her older children to occupy themselves in a Sabbath manner.

“Whether they do so always remains to be seen, but I do enjoy a peaceful sacrament meeting,” she said as they started for the meetinghouse again.

There were few children in sacrament meeting. As Della looked around, she knew she would see Angharad there, seated by herself because the choir was on the stand this time.

“Would you mind?” Della whispered to Mary Ann, who nodded, seeing her intention.

She called to the little girl quietly, who saw her, then looked up at her father, who nodded. Angharad sat next to Della.

“My father sings second tenor,” she whispered to Della.

“You'll be up there in a few years.”

“I expect I will,” Angharad replied, completely assured in a way Della found endearing.

“I have much to learn,” she murmured.

“You're a teacher,” the child whispered. “You already know everything.”

You'd be amazed how little I know
, Della thought. Angharad settled in next to her. By the time to bless the sacrament, Angharad was leaning against her arm.
I hope her father doesn't think I am forward
, Della thought, as she eased her arm around the child, who sighed and nestled closer.

She was prepared for singing during the sacrament now, but this time it was a solo soprano voice, singing “Nearer, Dear Savior, to Thee,” so lovely and with such longing that Della felt tears in her eyes.

“Oh, my,” she breathed, as an alto joined the soprano on the chorus: “ ‘Take, oh take and cherish me, nearer, dear Savior to thee.’ ”

Cherish me
. Della tightened her grip on Angharad, remembering herself sitting so straight beside Aunt Caroline, who never in a million years would have thought to put her arm around her desperately lonely niece. She glanced down at Angharad, then looked up to see Owen Davis watching her.
No, I won't sing in your choir
, she thought,
but I am growing fond of your daughter
.

ella walked with Mabli Reese after sacrament meeting, breathing deep of the late afternoon air, cooler now in the canyon because there was only so much the sun could touch in such a narrow place. Everything smelled slightly sulfurous, but she heard the stream below the tracks because the tipple was silent. By the edge of the wagon road—maybe they had escaped—were thistles, deep purple and feathery. She remembered thistles like that by the Molly Bee.