Dorothy Garlock Read Online Free PDF

Joe. You’ve got your land and a good start while he’s s-still working at home with his pa. His dream of p-playing baseball blew up, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.”
    “I know he was disappointed. But hell, Doc, we all have disappointments. That’s no excuse for trying to drown them in booze.”
    “He was shaken up when Ruby b-broke off with him and started going out with a fellow who has a g-good job with the electric company.”
    “Jack had his chance with Ruby. She’s been crazy about him since they were kids in school. I don’t know why they broke up, but I suspect it had something to do with his drinking. Her folks are churchgoing people, and she was probably getting stomped on at home.”
    Doc stood in the doorway as Joe crossed the porch. “Hurry up and get s-sick, Joe,” he called. “I’ll need the money to pay my new nurse.”
    “If I get sick, I’ll head for the vet over in Mason. At least he knows enough not to pull my teeth if I have a bellyache.”
    Doc chuckled and closed the door.
    Joe rode his horse the two blocks to Main Street, then turned into the alley behind Hannity’s, the pool hall where Jack usually hung out when he was in town. After tying his horse, he walked between the buildings to the front door.
    He heard his brother before he saw him.
    “Dammit, This. I’ve a notion to bend this cue stick around your scrawny neck.”
    “You’re a poor loser, Jack.”
    Jack was playing pool with This and That, the redheaded Humphrey twins. Their names were Thomas and Thayer but they had been called This and That since they were babies, and most folks thought those were their real names. They still resembled each other but not as much as when they were younger.
    The twins were strong, hardworking boys, as were all the Humphreys. They had been working with a harvest crew, but that job played out. They were home now and, like hundreds of other young men, looking for work.
    “What’re you doin’ in town? Come to see about the prodigal son?” Jack bent over the pool table to line up a breaker shot.
    “Came to see Doc.” Joe took a cue stick from the rack on the wall and set up the balls on the other table. “How about a game, That?”
    “What are we playin’ for?”
    “Nickel.”
    “Lord, you’re cheap,” Jack snorted. Joe knew his brother was on his way to being drunk. “Play the boy for a quarter.”
    Jack wasn’t as tall or as heavy as his older brother. Thick light brown hair sprang back from his wide forehead. His smile was engaging. Until lately he had been the prankster in the family.
    Jack made several plays before he spoke again. “Why’d you go see Doc? Is Jill all right?”
    “Yeah. I went to tell him that his new nurse is out at the farm.”
    Jack straightened up and chalked the end of his cue stick. “What she doin’ out there?”
    “Waitin’ for you and me to pull her car outta the mud.” “Tonight?”
    “No. In the morning.”
    “I told Corbin I’d come by in the morning and help him grease his printing press.”
    “It won’t take but an hour or two. We can take Pa’s team.” “What’s she look like?” This asked.
    “Well”—Joe reached for the cube of chalk and studied the balls on the table—“you remember that teacher you had in high school who was so ugly she’d make a freight train take a detour through the woods?”
    “Holy Moses! Not like her!”
    “She’s a very nice lady. She can’t help what God gave her.” Joe moved to the end of the table. “Doc isn’t known for picking good-looking women.”
    “Hell,” Jack said. “This one can’t be uglier than the last one he had.”
    “You’ll see.”
    “Doc got a new nurse?” The question came from a man who stood beside the cue rack.
    “Yeah. How’s things at the hardware, Fred?”
    “Slow. Not like it was when I first came here back in ’23. Business was booming then. That fellow Hoover about ruined the country.”
    “He didn’t do it by himself. No man