A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [38]
Cici said, “Shouldn’t we be washing the jars?”
Bridget’s face, for a moment, displayed absolutely no expression. Then she said, “Get dressed. We’re going to town.”
The little town of Blue Valley snuggled up against the base of a hillside that was awash in deep violet thrift, which made one wonder whether the town had been named because of the flowers, or whether the thrift had been planted to honor the town. It was the latter, in fact. The Mountain Gardenias Gardening Club had planted the thrift as part of the Centennial Celebration ten years earlier and the result had astonished even the originators. The bristly blue-flowered plant had dug in its roots and spread up and down the back side of Main Street, so that the impression, as one first came over the hill into town, was of a French watercolor.
The town was laid out in a T shape, with a single stoplight where one could turn right off of Main Street and be on Harrison Street, and left off of Main to be on Riker Street. On Main and Harrison, there was a white clapboard Methodist church with a steeple and a bell. Across the intersection on Main and Riker was an identical Baptist church. On Sunday mornings the cacophonous pealing of the two bells woke everyone within a five-mile radius.
Over the years, locals had begun referring to Harrison Street as “the Methodist side” and Riker Street as “the Baptist side.” The library, for example, was on the Methodist side. The quilt and notions shop was on the Baptist side. Jason’s Grocery was on the Methodist side, and Henry’s Bait and Tackle on the Baptist. Main Street was home to Harrison’s Fine Furniture, which took up two of the four blocks, Dana’s Family Clothing, Johnson’s Pharmacy, the Dollar Store, and Family Hardware and Sundries, established 1901.
Sundries was one of those ambiguous words that did not begin to describe the extent and variety of Family Hardware—the vast majority of which was not hardware at all. The sidewalk in front of the store was crowded with a display of wooden rocking chairs, porch swings, and hand-carved birdhouses. Inside, the wood floors were dark with age and barely visible amidst the shelves and stacks of merchandise that overflowed every available space. There were galvanized washtubs and vacuum cleaners, new and refurbished, alongside homemade soaps and hand-dipped candles, which were haphazardly displayed next to lantern globes and cotton wicks. There were stacks of cotton dish towels, electric skillets, rabbit hutches, wire traps, rodent bait, and fertilizer. Portable television sets were arranged on a shelf next to wheelbarrow tires. There were decorative crock butter churns, hand-painted flower pots, and plumbing supplies, in addition to light switches, junction boxes, and R-16 cable. There were chain saws and snowshoes, camping supplies, and antique dolls displayed in a glass case. There were music boxes, Burt’s Bees shampoos and hand lotions, and yes, glass canning jars.
“Look at this,” Lindsay exclaimed softly from behind a stack of hand-stitched quilts.
Cici, dragging herself away from the study of a rather nice original oil painting of sheep in a pasture, murmured, “It’s Aladdin’s cave.”
Bridget came around a corner laden with gardening gloves, lip balm, bath salts, and a bizarre-looking white wicker contraption that was shaped like a hoop with a platform in the center and a chain at the top.
“What in the world?” queried Cici.
“It’s an iced tea butler,” Bridget replied, pleased with herself. “It hangs from a beam on your porch, or from a tree limb, and you put your iced tea or lemonade on the platform, with the glasses in the little cup-holders here, and the napkins and teaspoons go underneath. Every cultured Southern lady should have one. And it’s only fifteen dollars!”
“Look,” repeated Lindsay, from the next aisle.
She was caressing an oak cabinet with a brass handle on the side that was squeezed in between an iron baby crib with peeling white paint and a stack of Black Kow garden manure. She moved aside several wicker