Summer of Dreams Read Online Free Page A

He had the dreams and ambitions to go after exactly what he wanted, and for a few weeks, it would be a wonderful adventure to work right beside such a man.

    “Tell me everything you can about Evelyn White,” Clyde said as he tightened the top hinge on the newly installed screen door to Smitty’s modest three-room house. Smitty sat on the front stoop, still wearing his janitor’s uniform and handing Clyde tools as needed.
    “Why do you want to know about Evelyn White?”
    Because she’s a stunner. Because she’s smart and funny and I’ve never met a girl whose good opinion I’ve craved as much as hers. “I’ll be doing a bit of work at General White’s house over the summer,” he hedged, reluctant to reveal how deeply he had already fallen for the general’s daughter. When she’d opened the door to him this afternoon, the sight of her had driven the oxygen from his lungs. She had glossy dark hair and high cheekbones that set off her intelligent eyes. Despite her calm demeanor, she seemed the most alive, intense girl he’d ever met. And when she’d spoken about the properties of hydraulic pumps and atmospheric pressure, he’d fallen for her swiftly, plunging inescapably down like an anchor flung overboard . . .but he had no desire to save himself. Rather, he wanted to fulfill her every request. If she wanted electricity in her greenhouse, he’d bring it to her like Prometheus carrying fire down from the mountaintop.
    He didn’t have much to offer a girl like Evelyn, so he needed to know everything about her, from her family background to the kind of tea she liked to drink. Knowledge was power, and there was no better source for information than Smitty Jones.
    As the janitor for three decades at West Point, Smitty had his ear to the ground and knew more about the happenings on campus than any officer or cadet. Nothing escaped Smitty’s attention, and he was the first person to notice when a cadet with nowhere to go over the long Christmas holiday had taken to hiding in the library overnight. It had been Clyde’s plebe year. When the dormitories had closed in mid-December and all the other students headed home, Clyde hadn’t known what to do. He would eat nails before confessing he had nowhere to go and no money for lodgings, so he holed up the library, hoping no one would notice the lone student who lingered in the book aisles after closing.
    Smitty noticed, and he invited Clyde into his home until the dormitories reopened in mid-January. Clyde didn’t have a dime to compensate Smitty for his hospitality, so he offered to install gutters on the janitor’s modest clapboard house. While on the roof, Clyde had spotted some rotting shingles and replaced those, too.
    The arrangement worked well for them both. Smitty was a childless old widower who welcomed a younger man’s company over holidays and summer break, but no matter how kind he was, Clyde refused to accept Smitty’s hospitality for free. The summer of his plebe year he’d painted the house and repaired the crumbling front porch. The following summer, he’d installed running water to the kitchen and washroom, making Smitty’s house one of the finest in the neighborhood. Today he wasworking on adding a new screen door while Smitty handed him tools and filled him in on Evelyn’s background.
    “Her mother died when she was only a toddler, and General White wasn’t in a position to care for a child. The girl was farmed out to other family members around the state. She seems bright. I see her at all the public lectures on campus, and she must have fifty books checked out from the library.”
    “Is there anyone special in her life? A man?”
    “She won’t look twice at a cadet,” Smitty warned him. “Plenty have tried, but rumor has it she is chillier than an arctic wind. Any man who approaches her risks frostbite, hypothermia, and certain failure.”
    “She didn’t seem chilly to me.”
    Smitty gave an ironic smile. “I’ll bet you