Cows in the Meadow

     Yep!  They’re still here.  Those last six cows (seven counting the old one Sherry is keeping as a pet) are still wandering around Oysterville.  Numbers of people have commented and are asking “how come?”  Darned if I know.
     I do know that a visitor is said to have reported to Sherry that the cows had wandered into the yard behind the Andrews Garage.  The rumored response was, “Well, they’re grown-up cows.  They can find their way home.”  Another story on the street is that Bud is being fined $200 a day unless he cleans up behind them – and that there are several days’ worth of clean-up to do in the cemetery, alone.
     I really can’t verify any of this recent batch of stories but I can say that I’ve seen several of the cows with my own eyes in that open space south of the church on the east side of Territory Road – the area called “The Meadow.”  Truth to tell, it was nice to see the cows there.  In the early twentieth century, that acreage was part of my grandfather’s cattle ranch.  Even though Papa’s cows were long gone before I came on the scene, Bud’s cows in the meadow reminded me of a story my mother loved to tell involving herself, Willard, cows, a fence, and that very piece of property.
     When my mom and her siblings were growing up, that area was actually called the “little meadow” and it was where my grandfather raised hay for his cattle.  South of it and separated from it by a fence was the “big meadow” where the cattle grazed.
     In those days, it was thought that Willard had a rheumatic heart.  The doctor had recommended that he spend the summer outdoors as much as possible, rather than staying indoors to read or write or draw which were his usual preferences. So his folks devised a scheme.  They decided that the fence between the two meadows would be taken down and Willard and younger sister, Dale (my mom), would ride the erstwhile fence line to keep the cows out of the hayfield.
     Willard, spying an abandoned bateau at the high tide line in the lower part of the meadow, went about fixing up the area under its deck and stocking it with books and a flashlight.  Bribing Dale by letting her ride his horse (“a better one than my old plug” she remembered), Willard convinced her to do all the patrolling while he sequestered himself in his dark, dank hideaway.  Mama and Papa soon became aware of the deception, the fence was re-built, and the children were put to work pulling weeds in the beet patch near the house.
     Obviously, what’s missing in Oysterville these days is a kid or two to ride Bud’s fence lines!