Chapter 12

Robert scrubbed his hands in the back-kitchen and stirred. They were nice hands, large and dependable and strong. What they undertook, they finished. The animals on the farm loved them. People with whom he shook hands at market felt a kind of promise of protection in them, and they would have trusted him with their lives, or even their bank-books. They were hands that might have helped to make him a great surgeon. The local vet. had noticed them, and had offered to take him into partnership. But Robert refused. He …