A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [127]
“Kids,” Bridget concluded gleefully to the other two as she reported the story. “Sometimes if you just leave them alone they’ll do the right thing in spite of themselves.”
But there was the hint of a shadow in Cici’s eyes as she congratulated Bridget. Although they had received dozens of phone calls from friends who still had phone service, apologizing for the road conditions and the necessity of missing the party and wishing them a Merry Christmas anyway, Cici’s own daughter’s good wishes were not among them.
Despite the frozen whitescape as far as the eye could see and the continual influx of regrets, Ida Mae continued to put tarts and casseroles in the oven and sauces on the burners, infusing the house with the heady aroma of cranberries, bourbon, cloves, onion, sausage, and sage. “Really, Ida Mae,” Bridget insisted, “there’s no need for all this. The party is canceled. You should take the day off.”
To which Ida Mae replied simply, “It’s Christmas, ain’t it? You gotta eat.” And she just kept cooking.
“You know,” Cici decided, and there was only a hint of wistfulness in her voice as she looked around at the gaily decorated house, “I’m sorry not to see all our friends, but the good thing about this Christmas party—even if it didn’t actually happen—is that we finally got our house put together. Just look at this place! It’s gorgeous. What we’ve been trying to do for almost a year we were able to finish in less than a month, thanks to this party. I say, good for us!”
Lindsay said, “That calls for a toast. Shall we open the wine now?”
Bridget pointed out dryly, “Even if it is the Party That Never Was, we’ve still got a lot of cleaning up to do. Work first, drink later.”
And then, shortly before noon, as they were putting away the last of the dishes they had stacked on the buffet table and were starting to pack away the wineglasses, they heard a peculiar chugging sound in the distance. Rebel started to bark. The sound grew closer, and they went to the window to see Farley’s beat-up blue tractor making its way down their driveway, the twin plow blades attached to its front pushing mountains of snow to either side of it. When the tractor curved around to their back door and stopped, the women rushed to pull Farley inside.
“Farley, what in the world are you doing out on a day like this?”
“How did you even get here?”
“Isn’t the highway closed?”
He stamped his feet free of snow on the mat, took off his camo hat, and spat politely into his soda bottle before replying, “You’re having a party, ain’t you? Thought you’d need your driveway cleared.” And he added, “No charge, being it’s Christmas.”
Ida Mae just gave them a smug look and went to take another casserole out of the oven.
And sure enough, before the hour was out there were other sounds along the road: ATVs roaring and SUVs churning and tractors belching black exhaust and a wagon filled with hay and cheering passengers drawn by two sturdy plow horses. They came wrapped in blankets and capes and red and green knitted scarves, bearing homemade cookies and cakes and gaily wrapped gifts and boisterous good wishes. “Lord, honey,” declared Maggie broadly, sweeping off her coat and her snow boots, “it’s gonna take more than a little blizzard to keep country folk away from a party!”
The ladies rushed to put on their shoes and reset the buffet and pour drinks and pass the serving trays, and in what seemed like less than an instant the gentle serenity of a snow-blanketed Christmas morning was transformed by laughter and chatter, by clinking silverware and sparkling candlelight, into a full-blown celebration. They came, and they kept coming, bringing with them gusts of icy air and roars of welcome, scattered snowflakes that melted on the heart pine floors, and small gifts: a framed black-and-white photo of their house from the 1920s, with the casual explanation, “Don’t know how I ended up with it, but thought you might like to have it.” A newspaper clipping about