Sparkling Walls

Hilda Larson was setting the table for dinner when her father came in and said to her, “Put the old dishes away, Hilda. We’re having company.”

“Who is coming, John?” asked Hilda’s mother.

“Two of the men I have been working with today on the temple,” he replied. “Heber Kimball and Brigham Young.”

Hilda smiled, glad to know Brother Young was coming to dinner. She liked most of the men her father had worked with since they moved to Kirtland, Ohio. But she especially liked Brigham Young who told such interesting stories.

Hilda and her mother went into a small room where the china dishes were kept in a tall cupboard behind heavy glass doors. Although they were used only for company or special holidays, Hilda was familiar with every piece.

There was the set of eight beautiful plates with matching cups and saucers, a gravy boat, and a large soup tureen made of delicate Dresden china. Around the edge of each piece was a willow branch pattern in dainty blue.

As her mother handed the dishes to her, Hilda held each one carefully.

“This set of china,” her mother explained, “belonged to your great-grandmother. She wrapped every piece in quilts when she sailed from England in 1770. She worried every time there was a storm on the ocean for fear her dishes would break.”

Hilda thought how happy her great-grandmother must have been when the dishes were unwrapped. Not one was broken then but Hilda’s grandmother had dropped a saucer when she was a little girl. And Hilda’s mother often told about how she, herself, broke the sugar bowl after the dishes were given to her for a wedding present.

“I really cried,” she said. “That bowl was my favorite.”

Hilda walked very slowly carrying the fragile china into the kitchen. After the table was set, Mother brought in a lovely blue pitcher that Hilda could remember the family using only a few times. She placed the pitcher in the center of the table. “There,” she said. “Doesn’t everything look nice?”

Putting his arm around his wife, Hilda’s father said, “It is beautiful, Sara.” But his voice was sad. “I’m glad you have a chance to show off the porcelain pitcher. It may be the last time.”

Hilda didn’t understand. Why would my mother stop using the pitcher? she wondered.

She remembered once when she had been allowed to hold it up carefully to the window to see how the light shone through. Her father had explained to her that fine porcelain china was translucent and that his mother brought the pitcher with her from Holland many years ago.

In answer to a knock, Father opened the door and welcomed the two distinguished men who stood outside. “Our guests are here,” he called, and Hilda and her mother hurried to welcome them.

During the meal Hilda enjoyed listening to her father talk with the two men. They spoke of how the Kirtland Temple they were building was nearly completed.

“All the Saints in Kirtland have helped,” Brother Kimball said.

“We may be few in number,” Brother Young agreed, “and poor, but we are rich in faith. While the men labor on the building, the women spin and weave cloth for our clothes.”

Brother Kimball picked up the china cup that was beside his plate. “And now the women give their precious dishes,” he said, looking at her mother. Then he pointed to the beautiful porcelain pitcher.

“That, too, Sister Larson?” he asked.

“Yes, Brother Young,” her mother nodded. “If it is needed.”

After the men had left, Hilda helped wash the dishes and put them back in their cupboard. As her mother closed the glass doors tears ran down her cheeks. Hilda wished she knew why everyone seemed so sad about the dishes.

The next afternoon Hilda was surprised to see her father come home early. He usually worked on the temple all day unless he had a cabinet-making job in Kirtland. He spoke quietly to Hilda’s mother, “We are ready for them, Sara.”

“Come, Hilda, I’ll need your help,” Mother said, and guided her into the room where the dish cupboard stood. A large box was on the floor beside it.

“We must pack the china into the box, Hilda,” her mother told her. “The dishes are needed to help build the temple.” Hilda could not imagine how china dishes and the priceless porcelain pitcher could help build a temple. She watched her father lift the box of dishes into the back of a pony cart. Then they rode to the bluff where the temple was being built.

Hilda climbed off the cart and followed her father toward a large vat where a workman was stirring something inside.

Bending down, Hilda’s father said over the noise, “We’re making stuccoed plaster for the outer temple walls. We have discovered that broken china helps hold the plaster together. Also,” he added, “the walls look very beautiful with the sparkling bits of china and glass shining through.”

A man nearby said, “Nearly all the Latter-day Saint women have given their best china for the temple.”

Hilda could hardly believe it when she saw her mother take the lovely Dresden china from the box and hand each piece to a man who stood beside the vat. He put them on a flat board, broke them into bits, and scraped the shattered pieces into the vat.

When the blue porcelain pitcher was broken and stirred into the stucco mixture, Hilda began to cry.

“Don’t feel badly, Hilda,” Mother said, putting an arm around the sobbing girl. But all the way down the hill in the cart, with the empty box rattling in back, Hilda was quietly crying.

One evening after the temple was finished, Hilda walked with her father and mother up the road toward the beautiful building. The sun was setting and Hilda saw the temple walls. They sparkled and shimmered in the sunlight.

“Oh, Mother!” she exclaimed, her heart suddenly full and happy. “Do you see that sort of blue brightness beside the front door? Only Grandmother Larson’s porcelain pitcher could sparkle like that!”