A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [101]
Cici said, “Well, we’ll need some blankets.”
And Lindsay added, “I’ll bring out a couple of those battery-operated lanterns we got in case of a power outage.”
Bridget caught each of their hands as they turned to go. Her eyes were glistening in the pale beam of the flashlight Lindsay had propped up against a crate on the opposite wall. “You guys . . . are the best. I know the sheep were my idea, and you didn’t even want them, and now . . . you’re just the best. Thank you.”
Lindsay put an arm around Bridget’s shoulders. “We might not be all that crazy about the sheep,” she told her sincerely, “but we love you. All for one and one for all, right?”
Cici slipped her arm around Bridget’s shoulders, too. “Oh Bridge,” Cici whispered, with genuine pain in her voice, “I am so sorry I can’t fix this.”
“Well, there ain’t no good in all of you just standing around here,” declared a harsh voice behind them. They broke apart to see Ida Mae standing at the door in her flannel-lined denims and barn coat, scowling. She held a steaming basin in one hand and a thermos in another. “You two.” She jerked her head at Cici and Lindsay. “Go on and get them blankets and lights. And when you’re done, get back inside and eat yourselves some supper. Nothing for you to do here.
“You.” She thrust the thermos at Bridget. “Drink this soup and move out of my light. This here poultice needs to be put on while it’s hot.”
Lindsay said heatedly, “Now wait just a minute—”
And Cici demanded skeptically, “What’s in that poultice?”
Ida Mae stared them down. “Either of you know anything about farm animals?”
When they simply looked at each other uncertainly, Ida Mae sniffed. “That’s what I thought. Now get on out of my way.”
Reluctantly, they stepped aside, and Bridget, still clutching the thermos she had automatically taken from Ida Mae, watched anxiously as she applied a greasy-looking yellow cloth to the open wound. “Do you think that will help?”
Ida Mae looked up at her sternly. “Better than doing nothing, ain’t it?” And when Bridget, swallowing hard, nodded, she turned back to her ministrations, muttering, “All this fuss about a damn sheep. Never seen the like in my life . . .”
For the next hour, Bridget moved back and forth between the house and the barn, fetching the sharp-smelling poultices that Ida Mae kept warm in a big speckled pot on the stove. Cici and Lindsay brought folding lawn chairs and lanterns and old blankets and more hay. It was good, for a while, to feel useful and empowered, but eventually there was nothing more to do but wait. Bridget was able to persuade Lindsay and Cici to go back to the house, and, reluctantly, they did.
Wrapped in a heavy scarf, hat, and gloves, Bridget sipped soup from the thermos and watched Ida Mae apply the last poultice to the wound. Then the old woman settled back in her lawn chair and the three of them—she, Bridget, and the sheepdog in the corner—kept vigil.
After a moment Bridget said awkwardly, “Thank you . . . for the soup.”
Ida Mae said nothing.
Time passed. They sat in an oasis of thin yellow light while the night stacked up in layers outside the building, as thick as cotton and as black as soot. Bridget thought she had never known a heavier stillness, a deeper silence. Nighttime in the country muffled every breath and swallowed everything that stirred. The living creatures who had sought shelter inside the big old barn seemed small indeed, and very fragile, in comparison to the vastness of the night that pressed down on them outside.
Bridget said softly, “Do you think . . . he has a chance?”
Ida Mae got up, made a fuss about rearranging the poultice, and sat back down, muttering, “Damn fool city women, coming out here thinking you know how to run a farm. What ever made you buy this place, anyway? You don’t belong here.”
Bridget closed her eyes slowly, releasing a breath. “You’re right. We don’t. I don’t know what we were thinking . . . what I was thinking. I guess . . . I don’t know, I guess I never realized before how used I was to, well, to being taken care