Free Carla Kelly by My Loving Vigil Keeping

calm and order in the empty room crowded out the distress of her first encounter with her principal. She looked toward the front of the room with its blackboard and the usual portrait of George Washington above it. There was an American flag in the corner and a Regulator clock ticking next to George. If Owen Davis was right, somewhere in the room were hand-carved alphabet letters. She stood up, straightened her dress, and walked to the front of the class, counting the desks—twenty-five desks, five to a row. In another week there would be pupils in here, some of them eager, some of them reluctant, and maybe some knowing no English. It would be a class much like the one she had taught on Salt Lake's west side.
    She glanced out the windows. Three windows. She had enough construction paper to make autumn leaves for the windows. She would make a few and her students would make more, following her lead because she was their teacher and meant to give them her knowledge, her skill, and her heart. So what if there was a gargoyle living in the basement? Della had signed her contract and she would teach.
    Decisive now, she went to the cabinets on the interior wall, opening one after the other to see books in neat rows. Her heart slowed to its normal rhythm as she read the familiar spines and felt her confidence returning— American Speller ; McGuffey's Eclectic Reader Grades One through Three ; Our Amazing World ; Arithmetic for Elementary Grades . She reached further into the cabinet and pulled out a poster that made her eyes widen. “ ‘Black powder and blasting caps are dangerous! Do not touch!’ ” she murmured out loud. An attached note read, “Display in all classrooms in Carbon County, by order of Gomer Thomas, Utah Inspector of Mines.”
    Very well , she told herself. These will be the first words we learn .
    She looked in the top drawer of her desk, found a thumbtack, and tacked the poster to the cork board next to the blackboard. “Miss Clayson is dangerous!” she whispered and chuckled. “Avoid at all costs!”
    She opened another cabinet and sighed out loud. “My stars, you are a wonder, Brother Davis,” she said. He must have built the boxes too. A smile on her face, Della lifted out seven wooden boxes, each with four compartments, and set them on an empty table by the cabinets. Each compartment was divided in half, with lowercase and uppercase letters carved simply. She held one up. It would be easy to see from any place in the room.
    She looked closer, enchanted to see a tiny carved lion on each piece. She had noticed the lion on the carving over his door, along with flowers. Who has this kind of patience? she asked herself as she touched the letters.
    Della looked in the cabinet again and pulled out a flat board, sanded and painted white, with wooden pegs in even rows. “You thought of everything, Owen Davis,” she said as she propped the board on the blackboard trough. It would be an easy matter to put up the alphabet for learning, and then simple sentences and more complex ones later on. This was an elementary teacher's dream come true, all from a Welsh coal miner who loved wood.
    She had come into the school with a light heart, until Miss Clayson scared away her helpers and bruised her ego. As she looked at the letters, the bruise faded. Humming to herself, Della found the letters for her name and attached them to the board: Della Anders. She started to go to the back of the room to see the effect, then stopped, returning to the board and moving her last name down several pegs. She found the letters for Olympia and attached them underneath Della, then went to the back of the room.
    Perfect. “Della Olympia Anders,” she said.
    She left the letters on the board and went in search of the broom and mop. There was a pump out back, so she filled the pail in the closet and carried it inside, pouring in some of the industrial powders that every schoolhouse in Utah probably had in its custodial closet. The