The Meadow

THE MEADOW CHAPTER ONE Huntersville,VT, 1970 On a spring morning around five o’clock, if you ride out our way on Murray’s Flats, fog will be hugging a hundred-acre piece of land we all call “the meadow”. The meadow mist lays motionless and silent as a cloud. Underneath the white hazy cover the land sleeps, waiting for the sun and the rain, waiting to burst from its winter’s rest—waiting to grow whatever seeds are nestled in its warm soil. Passing by with the window rolled down, all you’ll hear is the muffled echo of a milking machine pump. It’s a soothing sound, seeming as though life has put on a big smile. But as Cooner Clapton, the wisest uneducated man I know, says, “There’s a heap of change comin’ and it ain’t goin’ to be good.” He’s referring to Uncle Bill being sick, and having to sell his cows last year. My grandfather, Thad Murray, wants to sell his cows, too, because he complains, “There ain’t no money in milkin’ just twenty-five head.” Cooner works for Grandpa Thad and lives in the farmhouse with his wife Addie and me. To make matters worse, Buster Erickson, the biggest sleaze-bag in town, is eyeing to buy Uncle Bill’s meadow. Now, how can I, Dusty Murray, just a kid thirteen years old, stop change?