A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [5]
The interior was cool and smelled faintly of milk products and sweet grass. Sunlight poured in from two overhead skylights and from the rows of windows that lined either side of the building, catching dust motes and soaring ladybugs in its beams and bleaching squares and rectangles on the flagstone floor. The building apparently had once been divided into partitioned sections, like stalls or small enclosed rooms, but some of the walls had fallen over and had been dragged to a pile in a far corner; others were sagging on their supports.
“It would take some work,” admitted Maggie, “but wouldn’t this make a darling guesthouse? And it’s solid as a rock. Well, it is rock, through and through!”
Lindsay walked carefully around the rubble, turning this way and that to observe the fall of light, and her face was filled with wonder. Both Cici and Bridget knew what she was thinking, but Bridget said it aloud.
“Well, here’s your art studio, Linds.”
Cici said, “You’d have to get electricity down here, but it probably already has plumbing. The dairy operators would have had to have some way to hose the place out.” She moved to test the sturdiness of one of the upright posts that had once framed an interior doorway, giving it a little shake. It crashed to the floor in a cloud of dust, causing everyone to jump back. “Not a problem,” said Cici, brushing off her jeans.
“You can fix that,” finished Bridget and Lindsay in chorus, and all three women shared a grin.
They walked back toward the house, intending to thank Maggie for her time and veer off toward the car. Instead, they started wandering, separately and together, around the overgrown lawn, through the house, over the porch. They peeked into the decrepit barn and pried open the door on an old potting shed. Standing on a slight rise behind the house, Maggie pointed out an orchard of peach, pear, and apple trees, now in such bad need of pruning they were practically unrecognizable, as well as a tangled hill of grapevines that had overgrown their support posts.
They found a wrought iron fence that enclosed absolutely nothing, and a moss-covered statue of a girl with a flower basket standing beside a black reflecting pool. They imagined white wicker furniture on the wide covered porch and a gazebo in the garden, and painted iron chairs with colorful cushions underneath the spreading oak tree. They meandered through the warren of downstairs rooms and the big sunny bedrooms upstairs, and speculated in wondering tones about the time in history when people could afford to lead such lives. Cici even went down to the cellar and came back, peeling cobwebs off her eyelashes, to report that not only were there copper pipes throughout, but the wiring wasn’t nearly as antiquated as one might expect. Morever, there was a stone wine cellar, and several other rooms that had no doubt been used for storage. The heating system, however, remained a mystery.
When they finally were ready to move back to the car, the sun was low on the late-summer horizon, and they spent a good ten minutes apologizing to Maggie for taking up her Sunday afternoon. “It’s a wonderful house,” Cici assured her. “But none of us is ready to buy yet, and even if we were, it’s way out of our price range.”
“Not a problem,” Maggie insisted. “You just remember what I said about referrals. I’m sure there are lots of people in Baltimore who are looking for the perfect family getaway.”
“Well, exactly,” said Bridget. “This is really a family house, isn’t it? No place for a single woman.”
“It’s so far away from everything,” agreed Lindsay.
“It certainly is quiet,” agreed Maggie. “But I love living out here. The community is so friendly and close-knit.”
“Well, we appreciate your time.” Cici offered her hand as they reached the car.
“We were really just looking,” Bridget apologized.
“Oh wait!” Lindsay untangled the camera strap from around her neck and handed it to Maggie. “Do you mind taking a picture of us in front of the house? We like to keep a photo journal of our vacations. Come on, girls,