At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [40]
“Well, look at that,” she said. “A ladybug.”
Lindsay smiled faintly. “That must mean spring is really here.”
“By the way,” Noah said, “got your peas and taters in the ground.”
“Now that means spring is here,” Bridget said. She barely suppressed a yawn. “Good day’s work, everyone.”
Cici rose stiffly, muffling a groan. “And I, for one, am ready for it to be over.”
A murmur of agreement went around the group and, one by one, they rose to follow her inside.
April Showers
A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
—GEORGE A. MOORE
8
Blackberry Winter
The floors finally dried, a post and wire fence was erected around the vegetable garden, and Lori and Bridget netted three hundred dollars for the fleece.
“It’s not exactly what I expected,” Lori admitted, trying hard to hide her disappointment. “But there weren’t quite as many pounds of fleece as I had counted on, by the time we cut out all the damaged parts, and apparently the price-per-pound figure is for retail, not wholesale, and I guess our sheep aren’t the highest quality wool producers . . .”
“Don’t feel bad,” Bridget tried to console her. “We had to shear the sheep, anyway, and three hundred dollars will go a long way toward paying for their hay this winter.”
“Besides,” Cici said, giving her daughter a bracing squeeze on her shoulder. “A determined entrepreneur doesn’t look at losses. She takes her profit—however small—and reinvests it, right?”
“Right,” Lori said, her expression brightening. She hugged her mother quickly. “Thanks, Mom!”
When she was gone, Cici shook her head and muttered, “I can’t believe I’m encouraging her.”
“Well, she did work awfully hard. And”—Bridget folded the bills and tucked them into her back pocket—“three hundred dollars is three hundred dollars.”
They moved the furniture back onto the gleaming golden heart pine floors, carefully arranging the piano over the blotch near the window. The newly cleaned draperies were rehung over sparkling, freshly washed windows. Cici carefully applied a coat of white gloss paint over the arched trim around each alcove, and then decided that what the alcoves really needed was portrait lighting to spotlight the paintings. While she went to the hardware store for the necessary supplies, Lindsay put the finishing touches on the guest room. Paul and Derrick were arriving the next day.
The four-poster mahogany bed had been found in the dairy loft before Christmas, along with the ivory velvet-upholstered scroll bench at its foot. The velvet—originally an ugly wine color—had been moth-eaten and worn, but was easily replaced. The bed was dressed in a fluffy feather mattress and an ivory and sage brocade duvet cover that reflected, but did not match, the pale sage curtains that were drawn back from the sunny windows. The cherry vanity Cici had helped her get down from the loft looked perfect in the corner, particularly when topped with a lace doily and an overflowing vase of yellow daffodils. Two tapestry wing chairs, which Lindsay had spent the winter reupholstering, were drawn up before the dainty marble fireplace, and between them was a fluted pie table that held a china tea service, a selection of teas, and a basket, which, as soon as Bridget finished baking them, would be filled with blueberry scones.
Lindsay stood back and surveyed her efforts with satisfaction. “We really could run a B&B,” she murmured to herself, and went forward to run her dustcloth, one last time, over the marble mantelpiece. That was when she noticed the crack in the wall.
Most of the bedrooms were covered with wallpaper; some of it, Lindsay imagined, as old as the house. But this room had apparently been redecorated within living memory, because the plank walls had been painted an inoffensive off-white, and the framed paneled wainscoting below it a glossier version of the same color.
The crack she noticed was really more like a seam that had been painted over, and when she applied gentle