Beside Still Waters

by AnnaLee Conti

  “The children call me Grandma Cally.” They shook hands. “You can call me Cally.”

  The introductions completed, the Penningtons escorted Violet into the house and gave her a quick tour.

  “We have nine rooms.” Daniel led Violet and Mary into the living room.

  “The house belonged to Judge Delaney, the first judge of the Alaska District around the turn of the century. He also served as the first mayor of Juneau.” Mary straightened a crocheted doily on the back of an overstuffed chair. “It was the most spacious house we could find to rent.”

  “Because it had sat vacant for quite a while and was very dirty inside, the landlord offered to lower the rent to what we could afford if we did the work that was needed.” Daniel scrubbed his hands together. “With a lot of soap, elbow grease, and a few repairs, it now suits our needs just fine.”

  The living room was carpeted in a floral motif, but linoleum covered the dining room floor. A long trestle table with bench seats on either side nearly filled the space. A built-in china closet full of dishes ran the length of one wall. The airy kitchen had a farmhouse sink with running water and a huge wrought iron range capable of accommodating food preparation for a large group. Many loaf pans covered with clean dish towels sat in the warm spot on the shelf above the range. The aroma of yeast permeated the air.

  “Today is bread-baking day.” Mary lifted a corner of one towel and peeked at the dough rising under it. “Almost ready to go into the oven. We make eighteen loaves twice a week to feed our huge family.”

  A boy of about three or four dashed in from another room and screeched to a stop when he saw Violet. “This is our son, Ben,” Mary said. “Son, meet Mrs. Barston.”

  The boy, whose blue eyes and blond hair mirrored his mother’s, bobbed his head as Violet shook his hand. “How do! How do!”

  “Run on out and play now, Ben,” Daniel said. “Enjoy this fine weather. After we show the house to Mrs. Barston, we’ll all have cookies together. How’s that sound?”

  With a broad smile, Ben nodded and ran back outside.

  “What a well-mannered son you have!”

  “Thank you.” Mary directed Violet back to the living room and opened a door to a medium-sized room with a double bedstead of iron, painted white, a large chest of drawers, a rocking chair, and a writing desk piled high with mail. “This is our room. It used to be the parlor. Please forgive the mess. I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my correspondence.” She closed the door and led the way upstairs.

  Bunkbeds lined large bedrooms—one for the girls and one for the boys. All the beds were neatly made. From the boxes of toys in each room, Violet could identify which room belonged to the boys and the girls. She noticed a chamber pot in a curtained corner in the hallway. “So the children don’t have to grope their way at night through the dark house to the water closet next to the kitchen,” Mary whispered.

  As they passed a closed door near the stairs, Mary gestured to it. “Cally’s room. It was once the sewing room.”

  “Every space seems to be occupied. If I come to work here, would you have room for me?” Doubt tinged her tone.

  “Don’t worry about that.” Daniel had come up behind Violet. His voice boomed heartily. “We’ll finish the attic into a snug bedroom for you.”

  He opened a narrow door opposite the stairs and led her up a narrow, half-spiral staircase. At the top, sunlight filtered through tiny, square windows in either end of the A-shaped space. A few boxes were piled on the floor in one section. Otherwise, the board floor was bare but dusty. “I can build walls and make storage space under the eaves. A warm rug for the floor and a little cheesecloth and wallpaper tacked over two-by-four frames will transform this space into a room fit for a lady.”

  Violet chuckled. “So you use the same method of wall finishing as we do in the Yukon?”

  “We probably used it here first,” Daniel said. “Gold was discovered in Juneau at least ten years before the Klondike Gold Rush began.”

  “We can get your room all finished before you come. What colors do you prefer?” Mary asked.

  “What I miss most in the winter is flowers, so I’d say anything floral in shades of pink or blue or lavender. Bright—nothing too dark. I’m not fussy.”

  Daniel swiveled toward her. “The rest of the house is heated with coal. Heat from the furnace rises through floor vents to the second story. I’m afraid it won’t rise this far, though. We’ll need to put in a little potbelly stove.”

  “I’d like that. John had one in the pilothouse of the Yukon Belle. I’d feel right at home.” Violet realized she had spoken about John without the overwhelming pain she had come to expect whenever she thought about him. She looked around the space again. “I have a lot of books I’d like to keep. Would a bookcase be possible?”

  Daniel nodded. “That’s easy enough to build. Anything else?”

  “How about a little cabinet or shelves to display your treasured teacups?” Mary suggested.

  “That would be wonderful. And if you can locate a double bed, I’ll bring my bedding so you won’t have to worry about that.”

  “Sure. And we’ll keep our eyes open for a chest of drawers, a writing desk and chair, and a lamp.” Mary leaned close and whispered in Violet’s ear. “We’ll even create an alcove with a chamber pot and put in a small closet. Anything else?”

  “That sounds like everything to me!” Excitement tickled at the edges of her thoughts.

  Mary glanced at her watch pin. “I promised the children a snack before you leave. We’d better go back downstairs before we run out of time.”

  Back in the dining room, Mrs. Calebrand had set out a pot of hot tea for the adults, a pitcher of reconstituted tinned milk for the children, and a batch of freshly made snickerdoodles for all. After the children had washed their hands, they slid onto the benches around the table. The adults joined them on either end.

  Sipping her tea and munching on a cookie, Violet enjoyed watching the children as they gobbled up two cookies each and drank their milk. She was surprised that no one clamored for more. Perhaps this was a rare treat? Their chatter made adult conversation impossible, but soon they finished and ran back outside to enjoy one of the rare days when it wasn’t raining.

  After the children had gone, Cally began cleaning up while Violet and the Penningtons finished their tea. Mary shared more background stories. “As I’ve told you before, Violet, we started this home for children orphaned by the flu epidemic. A few parents who had lost their spouses asked us to care for their children so they could work.”

  “Several single fathers work in the mining camps or salmon canneries on the islands and can only get into Juneau maybe once a month, if at all, during the summers,” Daniel added.

  Mary set her cup down and lowered her voice. “Two little girls were brought to us a few weeks ago when their father came home from a mining camp on one of the islands and found them tied in chairs, sitting in their own excrement in a cold house, and crying from fear and hunger.”

  Anger rose in Violet’s throat when she thought how she had longed for a child to love. Moisture sprang into her eyes, and she hurriedly brushed it away. “How could a mother do that to her own children? To any children, for that matter?”

  “Their mother was an alcoholic, dear. Liquor is a scourge among the Natives. She’d gone off on a drunk. The father immediately brought the girls to us.”

  Daniel cleared his throat and coughed as though he had choked on his tea. His voice sounded rough. “He and all the other widowed parents pay for their children’s keep, but we provide for the orphans.”

  Was he trying to cover up his own emotional response? Violet wondered, but asked, “Where do you get enough money to cover all the expenses?”

  “Through donations from our supporting churches Outside.”

  Mary added, “And we pray a lot. God has often met our needs in supernatural ways.”

  “If I come to work in the home, perhaps I could get a teaching
job to help with expenses.”

  “Maybe so.” Daniel’s voice sounded more normal. “Cally does all the cooking, and the children do chores. If you help the children with their lessons after school and supervise them in the evenings when Mary and I are at the mission, that would take a big load off her.”

  “And there’s always mending and darning to be done,” Mary added.

  As they finished their tea, the deep booming voice of Violet’s ship sounded the half-hour-before-departure warning. They all rose and donned their coats for the drive back to the dock.

  As they stepped outside, one tiny Tlingit girl sidled shyly up to Violet and tucked her hand into hers. Gazing into the solemn dark eyes of the child, Violet was smitten. Her fears of loving someone again fled. How could she turn away from this needy little girl, who was about the age her Elizabeth would be had she lived? Violet opened her heart to the children.

  Just before boarding the ship, Violet promised the Penningtons, “I’ll be back—just as soon as I can sell my house and a replacement teacher can be found.”

  Chapter 27

  BACK ON THE S. S. PRINCESS LOUISE, slicing its way through the light chop of the Inside Passage, Violet felt a sense of excitement and anticipation she hadn’t experienced in years. The ship had been built to replace the Princess Sophia. This was the first summer it was in service. And Violet too was on the verge of a new chapter of her life. Perhaps all of her tragic experiences could serve some purpose after all.

  In Vancouver, she had to change ships—from the Canadian Pacific pocket liner to the Triangle Route that serviced Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia, and Puget Sound and would take her to Seattle. Instead of going directly to the other dock, she arranged for her luggage transfer and hired a taxi to take her to the home of Charlotte Childers, the schoolteacher she’d called in from the street in Whitehorse. She intended to ask Charlotte if she might suggest her name as a possible replacement for her for the coming school year. It was last minute, but maybe their chance encounter hadn’t been coincidence.

  When Violet slid out of the car and opened the gate in the white picket fence, she found Charlotte tending a bright array of flowers in the front yard of her cottage.

  Charlotte glanced up. When she recognized Violet, her face lit up, and she jumped to her feet. “Violet! What a surprise! How nice to see you! Come in.”

  As Violet stepped closer, Charlotte removed her gardening gloves and brushed debris from her knees.

  Violet took in the neat white cottage with black shutters surrounded by artistically arranged flowers in the small, fenced yard. Hot pink impatiens spilled out of a stone border at the base of the lamppost and lined the walk. In the center of the lawn, a decorative wheelbarrow overflowed with red and white Petunias and geraniums.

  Would Charlotte want to leave all of this? Maybe she should enjoy a short visit and forget about her idea. It was a long shot, anyway.

  The two of them embraced.

  “What a lovely yard you have, Charlotte! It looks like an English country garden.”

  “That’s high praise coming from you.”

  “Me? My yard is nothing like yours.”

  “It was the prettiest one I saw in Whitehorse. And I suspect it requires much more effort to cultivate than mine.”

  “I do have to start my seeds inside in March and transplant them when it gets warm enough.” Violet broke off when the hydrangea bushes ladened with huge blooms on either side of the cottage steps caught her eye. “What a gorgeous shade of lilac blue!”

  “Thank you.” An expression of delight suffused Charlotte’s face. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

  “I’m on my way to Seattle to visit my husband’s parents and thought I’d stop by to see you. Sorry for not writing first, but I decided on this trip at the last minute.”

  “I’m just happy you did. With school opening still a few weeks away, I have time on my hands.”

  Charlotte and Violet strolled around her garden. Rose bushes sporting a variety of colors ringed the fence, poking through on both sides. Violet examined one. “Your roses are exquisite.”

  Taller flowers filled each corner—foxgloves, lavender, coneflowers, and asters.

  “You must spend all your time out here.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Except when it rains—and we do get a lot of rain here along the coast, but I love flowers. It’s a great hobby. Gives me something to do during the summer when I’m not teaching.” Charlotte gestured toward her house. “Would you like to see inside? Have something to eat?”

  “I’d love to. My boat to Seattle doesn’t leave until four o’clock. I’m free until then.”

  “Let me fix you some lunch. We can eat on the back patio.” Charlotte led the way through her airy living room with a picture window facing the front yard into a cheery eat-in kitchen. “Have a seat at the table while I rustle up some food. Do you like tomatoes? I have some fresh from my vegetable garden.”

  “Oh, that would be a treat! I haven’t had a freshly picked tomato in years.”

  “I could stuff them with tuna salad. How does that sound?”

  “Lovely! What can I do to help?”

  “Why don’t you cut the tomatoes into tulip shapes while I make the tuna salad?” Charlotte handed Violet a sharp knife.

  They fell silent as they set about their tasks. Violet’s heart palpitated when she thought about bringing up the subject on her mind. Should she do it now? No. Better wait until after they’d eaten. She’d wait and see if an opportune moment arrived.

  When Violet finished cutting the tomatoes, she helped set the table on the patio and poured glasses of cold tea. Charlotte sliced homemade bread and carried it and a butter dish out to the porch. “I think we’re ready to eat.”

  They sat facing the vegetable garden. “I tuck marigolds and clumps of citronella around the garden to keep the mosquitoes and animals away, and my maple tree provides shade for the patio.” Charlotte offered grace, and they began to eat.

  When her stuffed tomato was gone, Violet swallowed some tea. Time was passing, and soon she must leave. If she didn’t broach the subject now, it would be too late. “Charlotte, I have something to ask you.” The words blurted out. “Have you ever thought of teaching in the Yukon—Whitehorse, more specifically?”

  Charlotte nearly dropped her fork. “Why do you ask?”

  “I can’t think it was coincidence how we met last month.” Violet told her about her visit with Mary Pennington the next day and the difference it made in her life.

  “I thought you seemed more at peace. The extreme sadness is gone.”

  “Mary invited me to move to Juneau to work in their children’s home. During the layover in Juneau, I visited them. Those children need me.” Violet choked back a sob. “I haven’t felt needed for a long time. For the first time since my family died, I feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. I want to move to Juneau as soon as possible. I wondered if you might like to take my job in Whitehorse for this year.”

  “Wow!” Charlotte sat back speechless.

  “I know it’s awfully short notice. I wanted to visit the Penningtons’ home before I quit my job. I thought if I could suggest someone to take my place . . . On the ship down from Juneau, I thought of you.”

  “I-I don’t know if I could even leave my job on such short notice.” Charlotte sat silent a few minutes before voicing her thoughts as they came to her. “I’ve always been interested in the Yukon. That’s why I took a trip there last month. But the winters are so long. I’m not sure I’d want to live in Whitehorse for good.” After another long pause, she brightened. “Maybe I could ask for a one-year leave of absence. I’d want to keep my house here.”

  “You could live in my log cabin rent-free. It’s all paid for. That way we would both have a year to decide whether to make the moves permanent. If you decide to come back to Vancouver, I could sell my house next summer. If you decide to stay, I’d give you a good deal on the purchase of it.” />
  “It just might work . . . I’d have to find a house sitter, though.” She thought a few moments. “I know! My sister is a nurse in Vancouver and lives in nurses’ quarters at the hospital. Maybe she’d like to move in.”

  Violet sat up straight and smiled. “Here’s an idea. I could start the year teaching until you can come.”

  Charlotte jumped up. “What time is it?” She started toward the kitchen to check her wall clock.

  Violet looked at her watch pin. “It’s nearly two o’clock.”

  Charlotte paused in midstep. “Why don’t I see if I can reach my principal and my sister on the telephone?” she called over her shoulder. “At least then we’d have an idea if our plan is possible.”

  Violet cleared the lunch plates off the table while Charlotte made her calls. Then she sat in a wicker chair on the patio and waited.

  Before long, Charlotte returned, smiling broadly, and sat down opposite Violet. “My principal said he has several new applications on his desk, and he tentatively approved a one-year leave of absence. When we decide, I can let him know. He thinks teaching in the Yukon is a great idea.” She chuckled. “It will broaden my experience and make me a better teacher, he says.”

  “What about your sister?”

  “She’s on duty until three o’clock. I left word for her to call me as soon as she gets off.”

  Violet stood up. “I need to call a taxi and get back to the dock. How about I stop by for another visit next week on my way back to the Yukon, and we can talk more? That gives you a week to think about it. As soon as I get home, I’ll talk to my principal and send you a wire.”

  “That sounds like a plan. I’ll call a taxi for you.”

  They returned to the kitchen, and Charlotte placed the call. She had no sooner hung up than the telephone rang—her sister. Violet listened to one side of the conversation and watched as Charlotte nodded her head and smiled. “Okay, we’ll talk more later. Bye, Sis.”

  Charlotte hung up the receiver. “She’s definitely interested.”

  “Good.” Violet hugged Charlotte. “It looks like it can all work out. And to think I almost didn’t ask. After I saw your beautiful home, I didn’t think you’d be interested.”