Chapter One, Light Summary

Old Jack is standing on his porch listening to Mat call to his cows. He hears some wagons start to move in the distance and his mind is drawn back to the time when they were drawn by mules. He remembers a team of mules he bought when he was young, shortly after he took possession of his family's house. He was quite proud of them; they were expensive, but it was somewhat of a present to himself. The day after he brought them home, Ben Feltner and his son, Mat—then only five years old—came by. Ben married Jack's sister Nancy, who had been a kind of surrogate mother for Jack after his mom died when he was five. Though his father did not die until years later, Ben was also a kind of surrogate...