Free A Promise for Ellie by Lauraine Snelling Page B

hidden, although she had to reach to pour the syrup on the dishes of ice cream.
    “Plain for me,” Ellie said.
    Elizabeth held the dish of scooped ice cream Thorliff handed to her.
    “I’ll take both. I make up for her.” Andrew grinned.
    “Andrew, I don’t know where you put it all.” Elizabeth poured a healthy dollop of each on his mound of ice cream. “So how does it feel to be graduated?”
    Ellie sat down across the table. “When I think of never going back to school, it makes me a bit sad. I have always loved school.”
    “I didn’t hate school,” Andrew put in, “but there are so many things that need doing around the farm, and now I’ll be able to catch up on some of them, along with getting our house and barn built.”
    “Did it come in?” Thorliff asked.
    “Not yesterday, and surely Penny would have told me had it come today. They said it might be an extra two weeks or more.”
    “Lot of people must be building houses.” Elizabeth picked up the fan lying in front of her on the table and waved it slowly in front of her face. She smiled at Ellie. “I’m looking forward to getting to know you. I’m sorry your wedding has to be postponed.”
    “She’ll probably be working for Penny at the store, since Astrid will be helping you.” Andrew swallowed a spoonful of ice cream.
    I can answer for myself, Andrew . The thought caught Ellie by surprise. Had Andrew always answered for her? She’d have to think back.
    “Really? That’s wonderful. For an only child like me, this big family is such a pleasure.” Elizabeth smiled.
    “Ja, Ellie will be one more Bjorklund woman to make trouble for us men,” Andrew said with a straight face.
    “Oh, you.” Ellie pushed at his arm. “You won’t let anyone else tease us, but that doesn’t seem to apply to you.”
    “Should it?” He paused midspoonful.
    Ellie rolled her eyes and exchanged smiles with Elizabeth.
    “I saw you and Toby pushing at each other.” Thorliff dished up another bowl of ice cream and handed it to Lily Mae, old Sam’s youngest. “There you go.”
    “You ’bout out?” Sam’s dark face shone with sweat.
    “No.”
    “Good. The ball players are on their way over.”
    “You want some help?” Ellie asked Elizabeth.
    “Sure. You hand the bowls to Andrew. He can dish while Thorliff unpacks the next freezer.”
    Laughing, cuffing, and sweating, the young men and boys lined up for their ice cream. “How come the Bjorklunds didn’t come play?” someone called.
    “Then who would have made the ice cream?” Thorliff answered.
    “The old men.”
    “Sure wish someone had told me that.” Thorliff handed out another dish. “See the women for syrup.”
    Ellie glanced at Elizabeth with a giggle. “Women? Guess you are but not me, not yet.”
    “I might be big as a house with baby, but I don’t think of myself as a woman either. I guess doctor took the place of woman . Now, I’ll tell you, I like wife .”
    “Is that so?” Thorliff wiggled his eyebrows.
    “Hey, Dr. Bjorklund, you sure did a good job sewing up my brother.” A young boy stepped up to the ice cream table. “Ma said that one was beyond her needle and thread.”
    “Thank you. My mother said I never learned to sew. You might write and tell her I did all right.”
    “The doctor in Grafton was too far away to go, bleeding like he was.”
    “Glad I could help.”
    “It sounds like you saved the boy’s life. What happened?” Ellie poured the last of the chocolate syrup.
    “The boy ended up on the wrong end of an ax. Slipped and fell. Had his brother not put a tourniquet around his arm, he’d have bled to death. I’m so grateful he has the use of his arm. I prayed so hard for that one. It could have been useless. And thank God there was no infection.”
    Ellie thought back. “Maybe if you had been here, Agnes might have lived longer.”
    “Maybe. But Ingeborg and I talked about that. From the sound of it, Agnes had cancer, and while I might have been able