Francesca of Lost Nation by Lucinda Sue Crosby Read Free Book Online Page A

throat and took another sip of coffee.
    I could see Francesca “cogitating.” She was an independent woman and proud of it. But she wasn't stupid. 
    “When he’s healthy, does he look anything like you?” she asked.
    Sheriff Mosley laughed. “Well, most folks say he got the handsome in the family.”
    Francesca walked over to the kitchen sink and stared out the window.
    “I'll be expecting him this afternoon,” she said.
    A brooding, injured stranger was coming to visit. For how long, nobody knew. While I wondered what that would be like, Francesca was more concerned about where he would stay.
    The Main House at Home Farm was a rambling two-story dwelling with seven bedrooms and three bathrooms. Three of the bedrooms were rarely used, in an effort to cut down on housekeeping chores.
    “Why can't he use the downstairs guest room?” I asked. It was light and airy with an inviting featherbed atop an antique four-poster.
    Francesca said she thought he might need some privacy. “And it might not seem proper. You know how the townspeople are here, Sarah, nannygabbers, many of them. He may be Daniel Mosley’s brother, but he is, after all, an unmarried man. It might not look … appropriate,” she concluded.
    “Appropriate ” was a favorite word of Francesca's, especially when she was prepared to explain only half of something I wanted to know more about. It meant that no matter how I wheedled her, I couldn’t make her cough up the real skivvy. So I busied myself helping Francesca prepare the Bridal Cottage for our new houseguest.
     
    In the old days, it was customary for the Pittschticks to invite their newlywed children and spouses to live at Home Farm. Family was everything; the more the merrier is how they looked at it. So with each new marriage, a snug new home was built. When children came along, a room was added to the couple’s cottage. Of course, not everyone stayed, and as people moved or died, lodgings changed hands. Most of these “bridal cottages,” as they were called, had been sold along with the land after the Depression. But we still had one. It was located between Main House and Daddyboys’ garage. It hadn’t been used for years, so there was no telling how many pounds of spider webs and dust would have to be scoured away.
    Clay and Rachael and I had lived in the cottage from the time I was born until my grandfather, Cox, passed away. Francesca was lonely and had insisted we move into the big house with her to “take up some of the silence.”  
    The cottage drifted into neglect. My grandmother was convinced, however, that we could bring it back to life, just like Jesus did with Lazarus.  
    The rest of the day was spent lugging mops and pails and boxes of soap flakes through the rain. I’m sure we tracked as much mud in to the place as we mopped up. You could write your name in the dirt on the windows, which I did five or six times. We chased out some mice and cleared what seemed like a wheelbarrow of dried animal droppings. Some of the cobwebs were five feet long and made my skin crawl when I ran through them. But I did it just the same, screaming like a banshee from the nerve-tingling pleasure.
    “Sarah! The mice have gotten to this coverlet. Be a darling girl, and fetch me another from the linen closet.” This entailed running to Main House, which meant tracking in more mud, which then needed to be mopped up.
    It took about three more hours to get the cottage spic and span, but it was worth the effort. The woodwork fairly glowed. Francesca put her thin arms around my shoulders and hugged me as a reward for a job well done.
    Bark! Bark! Just as we finished up, we heard the unmistakable sounds of a dog. It was my little destroyer of heirloom roses, back for another assault! For some reason, it was running crazily around the yard in circles, yapping and yapping. As we ran to Main House, it followed us. Right up the porch stairs. Looking ever so bedraggled, it stood there wagging its