Page 4 of Ellen Found
October 12, 1903. I’m glad Gwen is with me. We’ll do fine in this double log cabin, one of several built earlier as a possible hotel. Gwen is happy with Mrs. McTavish, who lives in the other half with her husband and son. She will watch Gwen while I work. It’s a good arrangement. Gwen told me she wants to share a place with Miss Found.
THEY ARRIVED AT what Mr. Child called the Upper Geyser Basin ahead of nightfall. Ellie squinted into the gloom, seeing modest, crude buildings, all of them dwarfed by the behemoth, unfinished monster that must be the inn.
She had opened the carpetbag to give Plato some air. Before she closed it, he sniffed, then growled. “It’s sulfur,” she whispered to him. “Get used to it.”
“Do you always talk to your cat?” Gwen asked.
How to explain Plato to this child who had probably never felt the burden of loneliness or the reality that there was no human to help her? “He understands me.”
Gwen nodded, accepting her answer as a child would. She joined her father, following him in the dark toward a log cabin. Ellie realized that she had never inquired where she would be staying. All she’d wanted was out of Butte.
Mr. Child pointed toward a larger building. The new hires moved that way. When Mr. Child looked her way, she asked, “Where do I go?”
“This way. Mind your steps.”
She trailed after her employer. The path was slick with snow turning into ice. She saw small shacks and larger ones and something that looked like a machine shop. She sniffed the air and smelled freshly planed boards as they passed a larger structure .
“Take my arm.”
They made their way up shallow steps into a cavern. She looked up, squinting to see how tall the room was. She saw no end to it, not in the gloom of early evening. Imagine the place at midnight.
“This, Miss Found, is the lobby. It rises seventy feet or so. There are three floors, with rooms branching off from the main hall.” She heard his sigh. “There’s much to do.”
“At least it’s not snowing inside,” she said finally, which made Mr. Child laugh and tease, “That’s the best you can come up with?”
If he could joke, so could she, something she hadn’t attempted before, not with someone who had power to hire and fire. “It was short notice.” He chuckled, which she found gratifying.
“This was the big push during summer and autumn, to enclose this monster so we can finish the interior when snow falls.” He gestured toward a massive stone structure. “This fireplace has four sides and four hearths.” He gestured broadly. “It will be a great place to congregate. ”
“I imagine so,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound too dubious.
He lowered his voice. “I should warn you about Mrs. Quincy.”
Oh dear , Ellie thought. Please don’t let the cook be a silent smoker .
“My charming wife is a fine woman, but she has her moments. Don’t we all? Adelaide decided she wanted a French chef, so Mrs. Quincy finds herself here instead of in our kitchen back home. She isn’t particularly pleased.”
Ellie reasoned that this could be worse. She stayed close on his heels, afraid that the darkness would swallow her. Ahead she saw lights under a closed door and smelled food cooking. The familiarity calmed her.
“Here it is,” he said. “Mrs. Quincy will be fair, but she’d rather be back in our home kitchen.”
Mr. Child opened the door to the finest kitchen ever, with the same rustic look of the dark lobby. There were two Majestic brand ranges, both bigger than the poor excuse in the Mercury Street Café; shelves with white china cups and plates; tables and benches; wooden bins probably holding flour and sugar; a coffee-bean grinder; two sinks; bags of carrots and potatoes and tins of tomatoes, beans, and corn. Ellie sighed with relief. She knew kitchens.
A woman not much taller than Ellie stopped stirring a pot of what was probably stew and turned around, wiping hair curled by the heat off her forehead. She frowned.
Don’t complain yet , Ellie thought. Get to know me . “I’m Ellie Found,” she said. “I come with a mouser.”
The frown disappeared. “Very well, then,” the cook said. “Close the door after you on the way out, Mr. Child. Tell your ill-begotten crew that we’ll eat in half an hour.”
The door closed. Ellie had the distinct impression Mr. Child was happy to leave. “Come over here,” Mrs. Quincy said. “Let me see you better.”
Ellie did as directed and set down her carpetbag. Through lowered eyelids, Ellie did her own appraisal. Mrs. Quincy looked like someone who had never suffered a fool gladly in her life .
“You’re too pretty and the men will hang around,” she said.
“I am here to cook, same as you,” Ellie said, surprising herself. Hadn’t Mr. Child said to be firm? The job was hers, after all. “No one ever said I was pretty either.”
“You don’t own a mirror?”
Ellie shook her head. Maybe mirrors were mortal sins at St. Catherine’s. “I don’t own anything,” she said. “I have another dress and an apron. That’s it.”
“No one takes care of you,” Mrs. Quincy said, her tone not so forbidding.
Ellie shrugged. “I’m an orphan.”
“Is this your work dress?”
Oh, dear. Ellie’s chin went up. “It’s my best dress.” Something compelled her to stick out her foot. “These are my only shoes, Mrs. Quincy. But I can prep and cook, and you won’t be disappointed.”
“You’re forthright,” Mrs. Quincy told her, but without the accusing tone this time.
“I never was, before I answered Mr. Child’s ad,” Ellie said. “May I let out my cat? I think he’s the real reason Mr. Child tipped the balance in my favor. ”
“He’s in your carpetbag? You may.” Mrs. Quincy indicated a closed door. “That’s your room. When the inn is done, it will be used for food storage. I suppose your cat will come and go as he pleases. They do that, don’t they?”
Ellie picked up her bag and opened the door. She couldn’t help her gasp of delight at seeing a bed already made, with a patchwork quilt and a pillow. There was a bureau with a mirror and a stand for a washbowl, complete with towels. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said to Mrs. Quincy, who had followed her. “This is all for me ?”
“I have the room next to yours. I’d call this a bit of a come down.”
“Ma’am?”
“I was the cook in the Childs’ residence in Helena,” she said. Her voice hardened. “I cook plain food, and Mrs. Child wanted a French chef. I have been reassigned to outer darkness here.”
If this was Mrs. Quincy’s idea of outer darkness, she had obviously never set foot on Mercury Street in Butte. “It’s a nice room,” Ellie said cautiously.
“Our rooms are Mrs. Child’s experiment to decide what bedroom furniture and coverlets will look best in a wilderness environment. She thinks rich folks want rusticity.”
“It’s the nicest room I have ever seen,” Ellie said simply. She saw hooks for all the clothing she didn’t own, and a shoe rack for her one pair of shoes. One drawer in the bureau would suffice for her possessions. She could pull out the bottom drawer for Plato, who, like most cats, preferred hidden spaces.
“Does your cat like meat scraps?” she heard from the doorway as she lifted Plato from the carpetbag.
“He eats what I eat,” Ellie said, then took another chance. “That was the condition of our association.” She felt the need for this woman to understand her, if they were going to work together. “I took a thorn out of his paw and he wouldn’t go away.”
Mrs. Quincy smiled at that. “Set him down and follow me,” she said. “I’ll need you to scrape and chop more carrots for the stew. Potatoes too. Maybe an onion. We didn’t know how many more workers Mr. Child would dredge up. ”
Ellie set Plato on the bed. Mrs. Quincy returned to the cooking range for another stir and taste. Ellie got carrots from a sack and looked for a knife. Mrs. Quincy made a shooing gesture. “Don’t dawdle! They’ll be here before we know it!”
“I never dawdle,” Ellie said. “More potatoes and onions?”
“Yes, and when you’re done ...” Mrs. Quincy looked Ellie over again. “How’re your biscuits? I’ve been giving these miscreants pilot bread and they’re sick of it.”
“None finer,” Ellie said firmly, well aware that this was a test, one she intended to pass. “Just point me to the baking powder.”