More Than a Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

on the Creamery and the new equipment they’d recently installed.
    ‘‘Here you go. And thanks for coming by. Mr. Warren liked your piece, by the way.’’
    ‘‘Tell him thank you for me.’’ Thorliff touched the brim of his hat. ‘‘Have a good day.’’ Out the door and back onto the bike, he headed for the Rogerses’ house, the envelope with the advertising copy in the basket attached to the handlebars and weighted by a stone. The rain the night before had washed all the dust off the leaves, so the maple, oak, and elm trees that dappled the street with shade wore a patina of green so sparkly he needed the shade of his straw boater to protect his eyes. Eyes that matched the blue of the skies, Bjorklund blue as they called them at home. He waved to two small children playing in a front yard and ignored a small dog trying to sound like a big one while being protected by a newly painted white picket fence. A boy in knickers and a flat hat raced him, keeping a hoop rolling in front of him with the regular application of the stick in his hand.
    ‘‘You have to go faster than that.’’ Thorliff pulled ahead, turned the corner, and rode into the Rogerses’ drive. The two-story brick home was set back from the street with the front yard shaded by oak and maple trees taller than the house. Roses and honeysuckle perfumed the air, a yellow-and-black butterfly flitting from blossom to blossom. Thorliff leaned the bike against the back porch railing and leaped the three steps to knock on the screen door.
    ‘‘Come in,’’ Cook called.
    Thorliff did as told and sighed in relief. ‘‘Ah, so nice and cool in here.’’
    ‘‘Not if you come near this stove.’’ Cook, who never had regained her robustness since before the measles attack the winter of ’94, smiled in spite of her brusqueness, which Thorliff knew by now to be a put-on to cover a tender heart.
    ‘‘I’ll stay away from it then. Smells like you’ve been baking up a storm.’’ He inhaled the scents of ginger, lemon, and pork roast, all overlaid with the aroma of freshly baked bread.
    ‘‘It is our turn to bring cookies for the after-church social. And you know how they like my lemon bars, but Pastor put in a special request for gingersnaps, so I made those too. Here’s some of each for the office.’’ She handed him a wrapped packet and a covered basket. ‘‘And here’s your dinner. What this world is coming to when a man is too busy to come home to eat is beyond me.’’
    ‘‘We’re starting on my book this afternoon.’’
    Cook stopped and shot a firecracker smile over her shoulder. ‘‘Now, don’t that beat all. Congratulations, young man. That is an honor certainly earned. I want a copy of my own, you hear?’’
    ‘‘I hear. I’ll save you the first one off the binder.’’
    ‘‘No, the second. You keep the first one for yourself. That is a milestone known by only a few.’’
    ‘‘You’re right. Thank you for the reminder. Miss Elizabeth studying?’’
    ‘‘From dawn to dark and thereafter.’’ Cook handed him several gingersnaps. ‘‘I say if she hasn’t got it by now, she’s not going to get it.’’
    ‘‘She wants top grades, hoping that will make a difference at some of the medical schools she’s applied to.’’
    ‘‘It would make a difference if she were a man instead of a woman. Those men in charge don’t know up from down. She’s already a good doctor, thanks to Dr. Gaskin. What does she need them for anyway?’’
    Thorliff took the safe path and kept his opinions to himself. Not that he didn’t think Elizabeth would make a good doctor—he knew she could do anything she set her mind to—but still, real doctoring seemed to be a man’s profession. After all, what man would want a woman doctor operating on him?
    Not that he’d want anyone cutting on him, but if an operation were necessary . . . He thought back to Agnes Baard, who’d had something growing in her belly for the last years.