Free Francesca of Lost Nation by Lucinda Sue Crosby

shut.
    “We’ll be waiting by the truck.” With a toss of her head, she turned and strode back up the drive. I swear I heard her whistling.
    While Mr. Mosley was still about as amicable as a rattlesnake, he had turned out to be someone we could count on. That won him some points.
    He’d also stopped objecting to my driving the truck around the place. Even so, Babe and I avoided him as much as possible. Francesca, on the other hand … looked at him with an alert attention I didn’t like.
    We entered Lost Nation grandly in the Duisenberg. You should have seen the heads turn! For some strange reason known only to our resident flyboy, he’d insisted we take his car. I felt like the Lord Mayor of London heading up a parade, and by the time our “chauffeur” dropped us at Porter’s Emporium on Main Street, we had left a sea of gape-jawed Iowans in our wake.
    Matthew went on to visit his brother while we entered the general store. Porter's Emporium sold just about anything you could think of: canned goods and meat, clothing and paper products, treats and fresh-baked pastries (often whipped up by my mother). The heart of the place was a small wooden table surrounded by chairs, where the coffee pot was always full and the gossip flowed.
    The Porters had been in Lost Nation almost as long as the Pittschticks and much longer than the Schneiders, Grandpap’s people. 
    Chet Porter came from British stock. His house boasted several fine pieces of rosewood furniture and Royal Doulton china his forebears had brought over generations back. He was tall, skinny, sandy-haired and soft-spoken. And what beautiful manners! 
    His nose was exactly the same shape as Princess Elizabeth’s, and he insisted he was distantly related to the House of Windsor, which Francesca doubted.
    His wife, Emily, was just like a bird. She had fine features, glossy black hair and a pointed way of looking around that reminded me of Humphrey, the crow. She and Hunny Clack would have been co-winners of any enthusiasm contest anywhere, anytime.
    If you can imagine, Emily was the perfect cheerleader type and had actually been head Spirit Girl at Lost Nation High back in the early 1900s. She and Francesca had grown up together. They'd been best friends throughout school and shared a number of my grandmother’s wilder excursions, including one outing where they mooned the governor.
    They also bobbed one another’s hair and painted one another’s toenails, thereby driving both sets of parents to distraction. They loved the movies and agreed that Scarlett was a “silly twit,” as they put it, for not latching on to Rhett Butler with both hands.
    These days, the girlfriends weren’t so much in each others’ pockets, but there was a lively banter they shared that kept the connection between them strong.
    “Isn’t this a surprise? It is so nice to see you, Francesca. And Sarah!”
    “It's Thursday, Emily. I come to town every Thursday. It'd be a lot more surprising if I didn't.”
    “You'll cut yourself one day on that sharp tongue of yours.”
    “No doubt, but you'll be there to sew it back on again!” They laughed loudly and hugged.
    Francesca got out her list, and the two women began to gather up our order from the meticulously organized shelves, each product sorted alphabetically by brand name.
    “Sarah, dear, what do you hear from those world travelers?” Emily asked.
    “Daddyboys said New York is nothing but smells and sounds. He and Mommy took a hansom cab right through Central Park!”
    “Clay Morgan has a deep stretch to his soul. I always said so,” Emily replied.
    “You never said anything of the kind, Emily. I suppose you’re still out of bleach?” And on it went like that between the two of them.
    In one corner of the truly general store, Kett Purdy had set up a meat counter, a nicety that made shopping so convenient, it was a practice later adopted by the supermarkets.
    Kett was a medium man. He wasn’t thin or fat. He wasn’t short