Shadows of the Summer Solstice

It is high summer in 1872. Farmers toil in the sweltering heat to harvest what promises to be a bumper crop. They work six days a week, sometimes sixteen hours a day. Wives and children participate in the intense labor. On Sunday, they feed their livestock, themselves, and then attend church. On June, 23, their reliable routine is shattered. The bones of this story are true. It was inherited from the author's father whose grandparents, Fred and Kate, were next-door neighbors to a thirteen-year-old girl named Mary. The decisions they participate in are destined to soak through four generations. Old Phil reflects on the happenings from his room in The Golden Meadows Home nearly sixty years later: "The whole world's been operatin' fer too long on 'bite and be bitten in return.'--Duck Legs Phil. What kinds of animal behavior will civilized individuals resort to to survive? What effect will gas lighting have? What is the legal role of Judge Lynch, of karma?