Sitting in the Sun (first draft)

from Busy in the Sun: a Big Old Garden story

In a grassy flower meadow in a big old garden beside a big old house lived the oldest meadow vole in the world. He was very, very old for a meadow vole. He was older than the oldest meadow vole any person has ever met. His name was Reuben, and he was three years old.

If you had seen Reuben nosing his way through the sunny spaces in the Big Old Garden, you might have mistaken him for a mouse. He was about the size of a plump mouse, and he had a pointed nose with very long wiggly whiskers. He also had quiet, clever feet and used his front paws to hold his food when he ate.

But meadow voles are not mice, and while a mouse would have had a white throat and a fuzzy white belly, Reuben’s soft, grayish-brown coat wrapped all the way around him. His tail was shorter and furrier than a mouse’s long bare tail, his ears were smaller and furrier than a mouse’s ears, and his black eyes were smaller than a mouse’s eyes (but just as shiny).

The old vole had spent a chilly hour before sunrise munching pleasantly on tender grass shoots. Now the pale morning light had warmed to a golden glow, and he wanted to settle into his favorite spot beside the gravel path, watch his neighbors going about their business, and let the spring sunshine warm him all the way to his old bones. He nosed his way over the stubbly meadow, between the stems of summer snowflakes and primroses, and under the frilly canopies of daffodils.

THUMP! WHUMP! THUMP! WHUMP!

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