Turn of the Wheel

By Mabel Harmer

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Chapter 4

Synopsis: Elsa Brienholt leaves her native Heidelberg for America. At the station she is bade goodbye by her mother and younger sister, Maria, as well as by Karl Ernst, a Church member who has recently come from Munich. In Salt Lake City, Elsa is met by the parents of Clay Knowlton, a member of the United States Armed Forces stationed in Heidelberg, who are sponsoring her.

The Knowltons drove through the downtown streets to give Elsa her first view of the city, and then out to their home in the southeast. The mountains seemed so close it looked as if she could almost reach out and touch them. They also looked extremely high and rugged.

At the house she was welcomed by fourteen-year-old Jean, and Burt, just turned seventeen. They were full of questions about their brother, whom they had not seen now for more than a year. Elsa had the feeling that they thought there was something more serious between her and Clay than was actually the case. She wished that she knew just what to do about it, but decided she couldn’t very well say, “Now, look here. I am not engaged to marry your brother. I probably never shall be.”

Burt at once constituted himself her escort and stand-in for his absent brother. “There’s a dance in the ward tonight,” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to go?”

“Thank you very much,” she said, “but, after riding on a bus for three nights I can’t think of a more inviting place to go than to bed.”

“I guess you’re right,” he agreed. “Well, there’ll be others. I told Clay that I’d look after you. Anyway, tomorrow is Saturday and no school, so we can go someplace. Do you like football?”

“I don’t know. What is it?”

“Boy! Didn’t you ever see a football game? That will be the ticket!”

It was indeed the “ticket” as far as Elsa was concerned. The cheering and wild enthusiasm from both sides of the stadium were something she never could have imagined. Burt tried to explain something of the intricacies of the game, but without too much success. She had no difficulty, however, in mastering a “hot dog” and, on the whole, found the afternoon highly exciting and enjoyable.

That evening Barbara Wilkins, from next door, came over to get acquainted. When they talked about Clay, Elsa couldn’t help but notice the girl’s heightened color and interest. She wondered how much, if anything, there was between them. Clay had never mentioned a girl back home who meant anything special to him, but that didn’t mean there couldn’t be one.

The next day Elsa went with the Knowltons to church. What a difference there was in the several hundred people in this ward and the few dozen at home! Everyone was very cordial, however, and made her most welcome. On the whole, she decided that she rather enjoyed the larger crowd.

She was very anxious to find work and wanted to start looking on Monday morning. Mrs. Knowlton tried to persuade her to wait for a few days and get acquainted with the city, but Elsa replied, “No, I may get homesick if I don’t get busy. And that will never do at this distance. The only way I could get back now would be by walking and swimming.”

Since her only experience had been as a saleswoman, she went to several downtown stores and registered. The only encouragement she could get was for work after Thanksgiving, when the holiday buying would begin, and that might be only temporary. Thanksgiving was a whole month away. She simply had to find something to do before then. She couldn’t impose upon the hospitality of the Knowltons much longer, although they were doing everything in their power to make her feel welcome.

She knew that she could go up to her uncle’s home in Idaho and, indeed, there was already an invitation to spend Thanksgiving with them, but she wanted very much to stay in Salt Lake City. “And I will,” she resolved. “There is certainly something I can do.”

It was not long before she began to suspect that there was something more to Burt’s constant offers of escort than an order from Clay to “look after you.” She knew, as any girl would, without undue vanity, that she was very pretty — had often been called beautiful. She knew, also, that a seventeen-year-old youth could be very impressionable, and it gave her additional reason for wanting to move away.

She decided that, if nothing else showed up, she would have to take housework. It was the last thing she wanted, since she would have to be so much alone and not be able to make the contacts she had hoped for. But it might have to do for a while, anyway. She decided not to go to any more games or even to MIA with Burt, unless others of the family were along.

Several times he had said, “As soon as there is enough snow in the mountains I’m going to take you skiing.”

“But, I can’t! I’ve never been on a pair of skis in my life,” Elsa protested.

“So what? Did you think the rest of us were born wearing them? There’s really nothing to it. You work on the bunny slopes for a few times and then zoom! you ride the ski lift up the mountainside and come zipping down.”

“Unless you catch your ski on a loose root, or hit a big rock,” said Jean. “Then you zip right headfirst into six feet of snow. But it’s worth it. Unless you break a leg, of course. Lots of people do. I never have.”

“I’m sure it must be worth the risk,” Elsa agreed. “Sometime when I feel that I can take a few weeks off to nurture a broken limb I’ll give it a try.”

“You can’t wait that long,” said Burt, “on account of that time never comes. You have to dare and do. Anyway, no one breaks legs any more — much.”

He was so insistent that she decided to go, thinking that Jean would also be along. It turned out, however, that she would have to use Jean’s togs and skis.

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of doing that!” she exclaimed. “That would mean that you have to give up your own day.”

“I didn’t plan to go anyway,” Jean replied. “I have a roller skating party on. You go ahead. You’ll love it.”

“Providing I don’t come back in an ambulance,” said Elsa.

They went in a station wagon with four other young people, and it did seem the start of an exciting day. Even though the others were all high school friends of Burt’s, they were fun to be with.

She was amazed at how quickly they reached the ski area at Brighton and how many hundreds of people were there. They seemed to be of all ages, ranging from tots of six or seven to their grandparents.

Burt parked the car and they all proceeded to put on their skis. He helped put on hers and then took her over to the practice slopes where the beginners were learning to stay upright on the “boards.”

The rest of their party quickly got in line for the ski lift. “You must join them, too,” she said to Burt. “I’m not going to ruin your day. Besides, I don’t want you around when I fall down.”

“I’ll come in mighty handy to get you upright again,” he retorted. “Especially if your skis come off and you can’t put them back on.”

He helped her a few times and she was surprised at how much she enjoyed it and how quickly she mastered the art of staying upright. She finally persuaded Burt to join the others at the ski lift and kept on practicing by herself. At noon they went into the lodge for a lunch of chili, buns, and hot cocoa. It was great fun, and she was more than glad that she had come.

She rested for awhile after lunch and then went back to her practice slopes. She longed to join the others, as she watched them gliding so effortlessly down the mountainsides, but she knew that it would take a lot more practice before she could tackle anything like that.

Burt came back again to help her, and just before it was time to leave, he said, “I think that you ought to go up on the ski lift just for the ride. The scenery is out of this world.”

“It is most certainly up from this world at any rate,” she agreed.

They went over to the platform, and she was fastened into one of the slowly moving chairs. It was exciting indeed to ride up above the snow-laden trees and to look over the rooftops of the lodges and cabins.

At the top of the lift she was swung out again by an attendant. Burt was in the chair just behind and he took her over to the edge of the platform to show her the lake and dam below. “This is Twin Lakes,” he said, “only it’s all one. Maybe the twin is over on the other side of the mountain, or something.”

“It must be beautiful up here in the summertime,” she said.

“It sure is. You’ll see. We come up here for picnics and outings all the time. It’s nice and cool.”

“It’s nice and cold right now. Maybe we’d better go back down.”

They walked back to the ski lift, and to Elsa’s consternation saw that it had stopped running.

“Golly, I didn’t know it was that late,” said Burt. “Well, it’s a good thing you’ve had all that practice. On account of you’re going to go down on top of the snow instead of over it.”

“Isn’t there a chance that we can get them to run it up here just once again?”

“None in the world. They know that somebody would keep them going all night if they came back at every call. Come on. We’ll make it all right. I’ll help you.”

As she looked down the steep slopes, Elsa was a long way from sharing his confidence. She would have given a great deal to be safely at the bottom again.

“Look,” said Burt, “you keep your skis on the inside, and I’ll put mine on the outside. We’ll go down together. I’ll hold on tight to you. If we take a spill, don’t worry. We’ll just get up again and keep going. You’ll be surprised how fast we’ll get down.”

It was fast, all right — and something of a nightmare. Her surprise was in getting down safely at all.

The others were watching with interest. “Quite a stunt,” said Mike. “I reckon you’ll be ski jumping next Saturday.”

“I reckon I’ll be home in a rocking chair knitting an afghan next Saturday,” said Elsa. “I’m so grateful to have come through this with my limbs intact, that I won’t tempt fate again in a hurry.”

“Nonsense,” scoffed Burt. “There wasn’t a thing to it. All you need is to be guided by a big strong man like myself.”

What we both need is to get going on separate paths in a hurry, thought Elsa. She couldn’t help wondering how much of this had been accidental. At any rate she wouldn’t put herself in line to share any more adventures with this youngster.

She was greatly relieved on Monday to get a call from one of the large department stores to report for work. It was in the gift department, and she felt very much at home among her beloved Hummel and Hutschenreuther figurines again. She touched some of them lovingly and would talk them up to every customer.

“How is it that all your sales are for the German figurines?” asked the department head in some amusement.

“Because I know them — and love them,” Elsa replied. “Anyway, I did sell one Royal Doulton yesterday. The lady has a collection and claims that she buys nothing else. Isn’t that a pity?”

Her next move was to find an apartment. She studied the ads in the newspapers, and when there was one listing a vacancy for a Latter-day Saint girl, she applied at once. It was to share an apartment with three other girls, and this suited her perfectly.

They were all working girls, June a schoolteacher, and the other two — Margery and Elizabeth, in offices. The schedule was worked out very carefully as to which tasks each girl would do in any given week and adhered to so strictly that one was not even allowed to take over the dishwashing, except in a case of emergency.

The only problem seemed to be closet space, since Margery was an inveterate seamstress who was always bringing home pieces of material that had caught her fancy. She had more than her share of the somewhat limited closet space and even had dresses hanging in cellophane bags in the kitchen storage closet.

“It could be worse,” said Elizabeth philosophically. “She could be a fancier of white rats — as my little brother is — or play jazz records all evening, as the girl did whose place you took.”

“Or even borrow our clothes and cosmetics as my landlady did before I came here,” added June.

Elsa went to church with them on Sunday and again found herself in a large congregation. She was warmly received, but felt that she could very easily be lost in the crowd. “Do any of you have a position in the ward?” she asked.

“June teaches a class in the Junior Sunday School, and Margery and I sing in the choir,” Elizabeth replied. “I guess that most of the jobs go to the members who have lived here rather permanently. The working girls, such as we are, come and go too frequently for them to pay much attention to us, I suppose. However, we are always welcome in the choir — or so I have found.”

Elsa joined them, since she was eager to be part of some organization and music was her first love anyway. One day she asked the director if it would be possible for her to practice occasionally on the organ. “I played for our branch at home,” she explained, “but I haven’t played an organ as large as this. Would it be all right for me to try?”

“Yes, indeed,” was the reply. “Come an hour before choir practice, if you wish. I’ll arrange for the caretaker to let you have the use of it.”

Elsa went to work with great pleasure and enthusiasm. She soon learned the use of the foot pedals and practiced first on the Church hymns and then on other music.

Early in December they began rehearsing for a Christmas cantata. There were extra practices, in addition to the regular choir rehearsals. One evening the choir director asked, “Sister Jennings has gone away for a couple of weeks. Do you want to try and take over?”

“I should like it very much,” Elsa replied. “I’ll practice on the music every chance I get this week.”

She worked hard and soon had the music mastered well enough to satisfy the director. That, with the extra holiday buying at the store, kept her busy enough to forget all about the homesickness she had been dreading.

Elsa had frequent letters from both Clay and Karl, besides weekly ones from her mother and sister, of course. Once in a while Clay’s and Karl’s letters would come at the same time, and it was always a problem to decide which one to open first. She solved it by shutting her eyes, turning the letters several times, and then reading the one that came out on top.

“If you don’t know which one you like best any more than that,” said June, “it means that you don’t love either one of them.”

“I haven’t said that I did,” agreed Elsa.

“Then what about them? Which one is in love with you?”

“So far neither one has offered me anything more than friendship.”

“Oh, dear, what a waste!” sighed June. “And here I was hoping to help solve an insoluble triangle. Anyway, I can still hope, can’t I?”

“Most assuredly. Along with myself, perhaps,” smiled Elsa.

On the last practice before presenting the Christmas cantata, Sister Jennings returned and took over as organist again. Elsa couldn’t help being disappointed, but she realized that it was only fair. Last year she had played the organ for the program at home. This had been her own choice. She could have been playing the organ at home instead.

(To be continued)