A Snippet from “Rainbow Meadows” by Howard Gelmich

The following passage is an excerpt from the opening scene of Rainbow Meadows, by Howard Gelmich. Rainbow Meadows is a coming-of-age novel written for young people between eight and thirteen years of age. 

In the story telling tradition of Charlotte’s Web, Duncton Wood and Watership Down, the story takes Willow, a spoiled, stubborn and rather selfish young calf, on a perilous journey in search of a new home. 

Although the novel is set in the 1950s US mid-west, Willow’s quest in search of family, love and friendship highlights universal themes that transcend generations and cultures. 

Chapter 1: A Troubled Morning

The first purple-blue hues of the early morning had just begun to lighten the night sky. Jenny Caufield and her mother stood quietly by, while Father slammed the latch of the corral gate shut. Although, along with Father and Mother and Jenny, all of the animals on the Caufield farm had already been awake for hours, only the angry thud of the latch disturbed the hushed final moments before the dawn.

When the latch slammed shut, the cat, who was perched on the cedar gatepost, exhaled a short, sharp hiss of breath, and the already nervous and unhappy cows inside the meager enclosure began to shudder, and shuffle, and jostle against one another.

Speaking perhaps as much to himself as to Jenny or her mother, Father said, “There’s only one cow missing.” He rubbed his chin as his expert eyes surveyed the small herd, and it seemed to Jenny that the little turned down corner of Father’s mouth – where his pipe used to always be – twitched just ever so slightly. He said no more. There was no need. They all knew which cow was missing.

“Do you think that she’s hurt or drowned?” said Jenny.

“Not even Willow could drown in a foot of water,” said Father, “she’s escaped again. And, Jenny… this time that cow’s done too much.”

Father had a high intelligent forehead that shadowed his deep-set pale blue eyes. They were eyes that, to Jenny, never seemed to say one thing or another about the man inside, and even on this most horrible of mornings they betrayed none of the anger that Jenny was certain must be boiling within him. Father fished in the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a dirty, torn red ribbon. The ribbon had once been plush and velvety, the very kind that Jenny always tied around the fluffy tuft of sandy-brown fur that grew on the top of Willow’s head. “I found this at the switch house,” said Father.

Still, it only proved to Jenny that Willow had been by the shed, she could not believe that Willow would have ever smashed her way in. The young cow was not really strong enough to break the door, and she had no reason to do so. Neither had she any reason to play with the levers inside, and especially, she had no reason to flood the meadow.

Jenny shivered. Water had spilled in over the top of her rubber boots while she had helped to rescue the cows from the flooded pasture. It was only now, however, that she noticed how the water had soaked, cold and clammy, through her woolen socks.

Feathery wisps of Jenny’s fine golden hair, having escaped from being tied back into a hasty pony tail, hung loosely about the young girl’s knitted and worried brow. With a firm, but gentle hand, her mother brushed the hair away from Jenny’s eyes, only to have it fall back again. The strong, handsome lines of Mother’s face had softened as she attended to her daughter, and she finally left the hair to lie where it willed. Despite the gentleness in Mother’s eyes, Jenny knew that Mother would not defend Willow. Father had made up his mind.

Father said, “I’m left with no other choice. The irrigation channels were thrown completely open for hours. It will take days to pump the water back into the levy, and many days after that before the meadow is dry enough to turn the cows back to grazing. It’s time that I did something about Willow.”

Jenny shifted slowly from foot to foot, and, ignoring the little sucking sounds her wet feet made inside of her boots, she spoke up as strongly and as maturely as a ten-year-old girl is able.

“But Willow is a champion. She’s already won two blue ribbons.”

“She is trouble, Jenny, and has been from the day that she was born. I’m driving into Benny’s Auction later today. I’ll try to get Willow into the next available sale.”