Carla Kelly (23 page)

Della looked up. “My goodness, Mari, you were leaving Finland. Was it hard to leave?”

Mari leaned toward Juko her interpreter, who whispered in her ear. She shook her head and whispered back. Della nodded to Juko, who cleared his throat.

“She said, ‘Not so hard. Heikki was here.’ ”

Angharad handed in her drawing last, and there was no overlooking the worry in her eyes, even though Della was certain her father had told her not to be concerned about using a lot of red. “My goodness,” she said again.

The red dragon of Wales glared back at her, but he rested on a table, where two people—one a young girl, and the other a man with a thin blue scar on his neck—were looking down at him, the girl holding a crayon.

“Da said you wouldn't mind if he helped me. He draws figures better than I do. And I'm still sorry about all that red,” Angharad said.

“You drew the dragon, I am certain,” Della told her. “Colors are to be used. No fears.”

“Aye, miss. Da said you would tell me that, but it's still a prodigious amount of red.”

Only the greatest force of will kept Della from laughing, wondering how often Angharad's father used that word. “Prodigious, yes, but I never argue with artists. Do be seated, my dear.”

Della looked at her class, everyone seated now, most of them with their hands clasped on their desks, as she had requested at the beginning of each day. She saw no fear on anyone's face this morning, the second day of class.

Della stood by her desk, amused to see the little girls’ eyes on her shirtwaist and skirt, reminding her of the way she had observed her own teachers in the mining camps, wondering how they could afford such lovely things. She had made the light-blue shirtwaist herself, and the skirt came from ZCMI's bargain aisle, a reject because there was a tear easily mended.
They're admiring me as I used to admire my teachers
, she thought and stood a little taller.

“I
was
going to start this morning by handing back your arithmetic and reviewing it,” she said, duly noting the disappointment. She held up her hand. “However, I believe we should turn our attention first to these marvelous works of art. Agreed?”

“Agreed!” everyone said.

On her direction, each student came to the front, took a drawing, and explained it, while Della stood in the back of the classroom to observe. The range of expertise varied from stick figures to an accomplished drawing of a girl kneading bread as her mother watched. Mary Parmley's drawing of a girl gathering wildflowers told her worlds about a Parmley summer.
When I was her age, I was washing dishes in a boardinghouse
, Della thought.

Bryn Lloyd stood with his picture, a boy standing by his father in the mine.

“Bryn, that's interesting, but you were supposed to draw me
your
summer, and not your brother's,” she said.

The other children tried not to giggle. Della thought they were laughing at Bryn first, but realized they were trying not to be impolite and laugh at their teacher. She looked closer at the picture. The boy was Bryn. She could tell by the way his black hair curled around his ears, wearing a too-big miner's cap with a wick lamp. He was eight years old and he was in the mine with his father. He was also one of the students with a slate from Bishop Parmley.

“I was wrong, Bryn. That's you, isn't it?” she said. “What are you doing in this picture?”

“I'm a boney picker, miss,” he said, and there was no disguising the pride in his voice. “I pleaded to help my family, and my da finally said aye.”

Della, say the right thing
, she told herself, swallowing. “You're a fine lad to help your family. What is a boney picker?”

The children looked at each other, as if amazed there was an adult in the world who didn't know something that simple. Della laughed at their expressions. “You have to help me! Remember, I sold shirts and socks to gentlemen last summer!”

She had given them permission to laugh at her ignorance, and they obliged her. Bryn stood by his desk and hushed the others with one hand.
I see a leader
, Della thought, waiting.

“I pick out the rock from the coal that Da mines,” he explained.

“You do this in the … the pit? Isn't that what you call it?” she asked, interested.

“Pit. Colliery. ’Tis the same,” he said in his musical Welsh way. “Any road, the checkers and weighers give Da more money when the rocks are gone.”

Another hand shot up. She called on Roderick Farish, who stood beside his desk now, his eyes eager. “Next year, t'bishop says I can be a gate holder in the summer, and open and close the mine doors.”

“My goodness. You'll be nine then, and in Mr. Bowman's class,” Della said.

He nodded.

“Doors where?”

“On the Farish level,” he said proudly, looking around. “My papa and his brothers mine that level, and so shall I someday.”

“You have your own level?” Della looked around her classroom. There was no disguising the look of admiration on the students’ faces.

“Aye, miss. We Farishes are that good!”

Heavenly Father, let me teach them all I can, but oh, let me learn about families from them
, Della thought. She admired the line of cardboard shirt drawings telling the whole story of Winter Quarters canyon, then pointed to the horses.

“Whose is this?” she asked. “Horses in the mine?”

“I feed and curry them when they come out, miss,” Juko Warela said. “There's a barn by the Number Four mine. Isä—Papa—mined in Rock Springs before we moved here. I learned about cowboys and horses there.” He glanced at Mrs. Luoma. “When I grow up, I am going to be a cowboy
and
a translator.”

Della clapped her hands. “I think you should!”

She turned back to the drawings. To choose only one or two would be sheer silliness, she decided.

“I am going to send all of these drawings to Mr. Auerbach,” she announced. “I'll hand them back now. Write your name on the back, and a short sentence about what you're doing in the picture. Tell Mr. Auerbach what your fathers do too.” She noted their skeptical expressions. “I can promise you that he doesn't have the slightest idea what happens in a mine. It will be your job to educate him.”

“Please, miss, so far, all I can write is my name,” Angharad said.

“Six-year-olds, come to my desk, and I'll help you.” She looked at the older students. “Turn your desks together and help each other. Sing out if you get stuck, and don't be too noisy.”

The children did as she said, bending to their work, talking softly, laughing a little. When the Parmley girls and Myfanwy Evans finished, they went to her desk and offered to help the little ones. By the time the bell rang for recess, the drawings were done and lined up in the chalk trough again. After they left the room, Della looked at what they had written on the back of the cardboard. Margarad Llewellen had even written a recipe for oatcakes, promising Mr. “Owback” she would make him some, if she ever went to Salt Lake City. “They're best with butter, but butter is dear,” she wrote. “Sometime Mama takes lard from Da's lamp and we use that.”

Della blinked back tears at that one, nodding to herself. She would write a letter to Mr. Auerbach and attempt to explain these modest lives to a man who lived in a mansion. Clarence Nix probably had a small box in the Wasatch Store, one just big enough for the whole story of Winter Quarters.

She looked through the drawings again, fascinated and maybe even envious. Except for Mari Luoma's picture, every picture had more than one person in it. Victor Koski had crowded six blond children sitting close together onto his magic cardboard. They appeared to be sitting in clouds or steam. All she could see were faces with sweat pouring down in big drops, bare legs and feet.

Curious, she turned over the picture and laughed out loud. “Is sauna and we are getting clean,” Victor had written. “Come to Finn Town. You get clean too.”

“Mr. Auerbach will think I have lost my mind,” Della murmured to herself as she wrote the day's arithmetic lesson on the chalkboard.

“I already think you have.” She turned around to see Israel Bowman lounging against her open door.

“No, no, it takes more than two days of class for that,” she joked back. “Look at the wonderful drawings.”

“The ones my class is going to judge?” he asked.

“Changed my mind. I'm sending them all to Mr. Auerbach.” Della dusted off her hands. “What do you think?”

“Magnificent,” he told her.

“Do you ever find yourself learning more from your students than you teach them?” she asked.

“Every doo-dah day,” he replied quietly. “Don't tell Miss Clayson. She'd call us derelict in our duties to these poor miners’ children.” He nudged her arm. “You're already under their spell? That's some sort of record. It took me a whole week.”

“I had a head start,” she told him and took a deep breath. “I'm a miner's daughter.”

“I wondered,” he said. “Something you said on the train made me think you were. You already know how hard it is. Why are you here? Come to think of it, you're the lady with more advantages than all of us put together, aren't you?”

“Think again,” she said. She knew she had said too much, and she prayed for the bell to ring to end recess. When it did, she couldn't help her sigh of relief. “And that's all I'm saying. Shoo! Back to your class.”

When the warning bell rang hours later, Della looked up in surprise.
You'd think I was a first-year teacher and hadn't a clue about pacing myself through the day
, she scolded herself. “Where does the time go, William Perry?” she asked the little boy finishing his arithmetic on the board.

Puzzled, he looked at the clock. “It's right there, miss,” he pointed out.

“Of course.” She clapped her hands. “Tidy up your desks. We look like ragbags.” It touched her to see they looked as interested at three o'clock as they had at eight thirty in the morning.

She cupped her hands around both ears. “What is it you're supposed to remember that we learned this afternoon?”

“Do not touch blasting caps!”

“Louder. I couldn't hear you.”

“Do not touch blasting caps!” everyone shouted.

“Excellent. Scram now. It's a lovely day out there.”

They left in a good-natured jumble, slowing down immediately when they saw Miss Clayson standing just outside her door.

Miss Clayson just stood there.
What have I done now?
Della asked herself.

“We were rather loud this afternoon,” Della said tentatively.

Miss Clayson came into her classroom and marched to the closet, flinging it open to see Franklin Rainbow Colors neatly lined up, all of them with a child's name.

“What game are you playing, Miss Anders?”

Della opened her mouth, but she could tell from Miss Clayson's frigid expression that the principal didn't want her to talk.

“All the students could talk about was the pictures you had them draw on … on … magic paper!”

“Cardboard liners from men's shirts,” Della said, stung by Miss Clayson's lack of imagination.

“And these crayons! Everyone was talking about those too. We use pencils and pens in this school, Miss Anders, and while I'm at it, don't let them call you just ‘miss.’ It's a British Isles affectation, and I'm trying to root it out. Here you are
Miss Anders
. If I heard them say ‘aye, miss,’ to you once, I heard it a hundred times! And why on earth would you tell them to ‘scram’? Miss Anders, must you bring vulgarisms into my school?”

Della was silent.

“What do you have to say for yourself?”

Della looked at the floor, suddenly twelve again and under the thumb of someone else who didn't want her. She willed her mind to go blank, as it used to go blank, but something had happened. Maybe it was Brother Hood's kindly blessing Sunday night. Maybe it was the children's pictures of their brave little lives with parents who loved them, drawn on magic paper. Maybe it was Angharad's red dragon, fierce and bold, or the blue scar down her father's neck, or even the rough French and German boarders, determined to keep her safe on lonely walks.
If I cannot be as brave as my students and these miners, I don't deserve to be here
, she thought suddenly.

It took all her strength to look into Miss Clayson's angry face. This was usually where she mumbled and apologized to Aunt Caroline, but maybe there would always be Aunt Carolines.

“Well?”

“I'm not sure where to begin, with so many accusations,” Della said. “I do know this: I have been assessing this year's second grade pupils, and Miss Forsyth did them a great disservice. So did whoever else tried to teach them last year. The third grade pupils have not progressed either.”

Della paused and made a discovery: Bullies don't like to be challenged. “Magic paper, crayons and ‘aye, miss’ aside, Miss Clayson, I intend to reintroduce the third graders to the essentials. I'll bring along the first graders, who seem quite bright to me. We'll have a meeting of the minds in the second grade level and see where that gets us by December.”