A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [121]
Throughout the afternoon they listened to the dire predictions from the Weather Service of the storm that was scheduled to arrive later that evening, with winds up to forty miles an hour, snow accumulations of at least a foot, and temperatures below zero. Outside their windows, however, the snow had stopped with little more than a pretty lace-work of white left on the ground and the trees.
“Maybe it will miss us,” Cici decided, stirring rum into the eggnog with a wire whisk. “Or fizzle out before it gets here.”
“Maybe,” Lindsay agreed, looking uneasy. “But just in case, I think I’ll go ahead and put Bambi in the barn.”
“Maybe I’d better get the sheep in, too,” Bridget said, going for her coat. “Just in case.”
Twenty minutes later Lindsay returned, her cheeks red with cold and her hair tangled by the wind. She shivered and stomped her feet as she shrugged out of her coat. “The temperature is really dropping,” she told Cici, warming her hands before the flames of the kitchen fireplace. “The thermometer on the porch says twenty degrees.”
“Where’s Bridget?” Cici had become quite adept at folding one-handed, and she looked up from the stack of napkins she had almost completed.
“Oh, that stupid dog. I guess he was mad because Bridget wanted to bring the sheep in early. Every time one of them would try to go through the gate he’d chase it off. We finally got all the sheep in the barn but then the dog ran off. She’s out there calling him.”
Cici looked at Ida Mae, who was rolling out piecrust dough into a big circle. “If it does get below zero, like they say, and with the wind and all, do you think the sheep will be all right in the barn? They won’t freeze, will they?”
Ida Mae sniffed. “What’re you going to do? Bring ’em in the house? It wouldn’t surprise me none, come to think of it.” She dusted a cookie cutter in flour and began to cut Christmas tree shapes in the piecrust. “Sheep don’t freeze, but people do. If I was you, I’d bring in some more firewood before the wind blows snow all over it.”
Resignedly, Lindsay reached for her coat again. “You’re probably right.”
“I’ll help you,” Cici volunteered. “I can’t carry it, but I can stack it.”
Lindsay filled the rolling cart with firewood from the shed and pushed it across the yard to the cellar door, fighting the wind all the way, where she dumped it for Cici to stack inside by the furnace. With the third load, she caught Cici’s good arm and, shouting a little to be heard above the rising wind, said, “You’ve got to see this.”
She pulled Cici outside and pointed toward the mountains—except that there were no mountains. There was only a solid sheet of blackish gray as far as the eye could see.
“Good God,” Cici said, astonished. “There is a storm.”
They hurried to finish stacking the last load of firewood, but an early dusk enveloped them before they were halfway through. They had to turn on the overhead light to see the furnace as Lindsay added fresh logs and opened the damper for more heat. They locked the outer door against the storm and hurried upstairs.
“Can you believe it?” Lindsay demanded, stripping off her gloves as they came upstairs. Ida Mae had already turned on the lamps and the overhead chandelier, and the Christmas tree glittered like a sky alive with starlight. “I mean, can you believe it? It’s Christmas, for Pete’s sake! We give one party a year. We’ve worked twenty-four/seven for almost a month. We have two tons of food that’s going to go bad. Everyone we know is supposed to be here and we’re in the middle of a freakin’ blizzard!”
“Come on,” Cici said. “The roads could be fine by tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure they have snowplows here.” She started toward the kitchen. “Bridget?”
Ida Mae was taking two bubbling fruit pies with Christmas tree crusts out of the oven as they came in. “For heaven’s sake, Ida Mae, stop cooking,” Lindsay said irritably. “There’s a blizzard coming. No one is going to make it to the party.”
Cici said, “Where’s Bridget?”
“Ain’t here.” Ida Mae took a handful of sugar