Bartle Clunes - Chapter 15
El Dorado County 1949 - Clunes Family Christmas
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New ventures popped up like snowdrops for the Clunes' in the month of December. Everyone was busier than a one-legged cat in a sandbox. Ayla liked working at the old General Store and Hardware with Lonnie, waiting on the customers, gossiping. The two told their histories to each other over time as they unpacked cartons, stocked shelves, filled coolers. They shared silly jokes, learned about each others' strengths and failings and elaborated on their dreams. One day Ayla was up on a ladder with a feather duster. Lonnie kissed her ankle as he walked by. She didn't say anything about that.
And, as it turned out, Louvina was indeed becoming The Pie Queen, if not of all El Dorado County, surely of The Crossing. The Riles' store, the exclusive purveyor of Louvina's pies, sold her all the ingredients she needed at their cost, which was a very helpful arrangement. She could manage about twelve pies a week among all her other chores. They sold so fast she could scarcely keep up. The pie money, which she kept in a green MJB can, started adding up. Bartle encouraged her every once in a while by calling her “Queenie”, and patting her backside.
On a Friday morning about a week before Christmas, Louvina was in the kitchen pulling four lattice-top apple pies from the oven, when a large moving van with a Sacramento address painted on the side came lumbering up the drive to their house. She and Ayla watched out the window as it approached.
“That truck is surely lost,” said Louvina. “Bartle, come in here a minute, will you please?” she called. They all went to the front door together, as three big men alit from the truck, pulled open its screeching double back doors and lowered the ramp with a loud scrape and a thump. “What do you reckon they are up to?” asked Louvina.
“It is something I got for you for Christmas, Louvina. It’s arrived a bit early I guess.”
The men wrangled two wooden crates, a huge one and a smaller one, down the ramp and carried them to the front door of the house. As the men pried the crates apart with crowbars, Louvina and Ayla stood by like two impatient children, wondering what it could be.
“Merry Christmas, Louvina,” said Bartle, as the contents were revealed. It was a vintage Bush and Gerts upright piano, slightly worn, but magnificent in Louvina's eyes.
“Well, I’ll be, darned!” she said, running her hands over the walnut surface. It came with a box full of vintage sheet music, a stool, and a wind-up metronome.
“It is about time for your talent to come out of hiding,” he told her, giving her a kiss and hugging her to him. “How we will love to hear you play of an evening.”
Louvina, eyes sparkling, clung to her husband. The movers gathered up all their mess and left as quickly as they had come, wishing the family a happy holiday. Bartle began moving furniture about to make room for this new acquisition. “Bartle, you are so good to me. I resolve right this minute to try to deserve it.” Then she added, “Why did I not marry you sooner!”
The day before Christmas brought with it the first real snow of the season. With perfect timing, the yard transformed itself into a glittering tableau. Louvina set candles in the front windows for the evening. Bartle sacrifices a small creek-side evergreen bush especially for Ayla's sake. It was not quite a tree, but almost. They had spent the evening together as a family stringing popcorn and raw cranberries, fabricating decorations. They cut lightly lopsided snowflakes from white note paper and attached them with twine. Louvina found ten small white hand-crocheted doilies in the cedar chest and hung them from the branches as well.
The little house was filled with the fragrance of mulled cider, juniper berries, candle wax, damp dog and pie as they prepared for Christmas day. Lonnie was coming for dinner to be part of their family, as his father was still away.
Christmas morning, Bartle presented Ayla with a box of water-color paints and a set of six good brushes. Louvina, having spent some of her pie money, gave Ayla a pink wool sweater. She handed her husband a fine Stetson Buffalo Nickel felt hat, hoping maybe he would leave off wearing the old, dusty worn-out one. She knew he probably wouldn't, but figured it was what a good wife might try.
Ayla's gifts to her family were water-color portraits, one of Louvina, one of Bartle, in matching frames. Her father hung them over the piano so that they would be facing each other. “Ayla, you have such a talent,” said Louvina, giving her new daughter a motherly hug. “These will be in our family forever – they’ll become our heirlooms. Thank you so much.”
“Now we need a self-portrait to add to the arrangement,” said Bartle. “And maybe one of Maggie as well.” The dog, dozing in his usual place by the stove, opened one eye and swished his tail on the floor a few times on hearing his name mentioned. That evening they spent an hour around the new piano entertaining themselves, singing holiday songs to which they knew only one verse, about King Wenceslas, a little drummer, Rudolph, and other heroes of the season.
Right after Christmas, Ayla and Lonnie took a ride south to Jackson in Amador County with the intent of visiting the small lapidary shop there. It was her first opportunity to identify the minerals she had found along the creek on her birthday walk. The lapidary placed her nine stones on a piece of felt and examined them with his glass.
“Well, these are nice little pieces you have found, young lady,” he said kindly. “You have a good chunk of pink quartz here, two small garnets, a flake of obsidian, a small serpentine and a red jasper. Not bad for one day out, I’d say. They are all good examples and pretty little finds. Sorry to say, though, they are of no real value.”
“However,” he added, “you have found something else here that is very unusual to find in California – it is a diamond.” He dropped it into Ayla's hand, and she gasped. “It’s most uncommon to find a diamond in the foothills of the Sierra,” he said, “though not unheard of. I remember reading in the Journal that about three hundred or so have been recorded since the turn of the century, and most of them were found in or near the placer mines of Cherokee Flat in Butte County and also in Amador County at Jackass Gulch. I personally do not know of any mention of diamonds being found in El Dorado County though.”
Ayla held her breath as he weighed and measured it. “It appears to be under two carats, but that is just an estimate,” he said. He was not sure of the actual value. “I am guessing it might be worth maybe $30, but I cannot say for sure. It depends on how fine it is - the clarity and the color and all that.” This, of course, was a small fortune for a young woman in 1949 and Ayla's heart skipped more than a few beats. Lonnie put his arm around her shoulders. The lapidary recommended a jeweler in Auburn who could tell her exactly what she had and who might be interested in buying it. She couldn’t wait to get back home to tell her family.
Eureka! What a find.
I feel like a guest in their home.
And, I spent some time searching the Cherokee Flats area for that “lost diamond mine.” Might have been 1974?
Thank you for the beautifully woven tales