Thus swept into the unity of a dominating mood, the woods sometimes gain a voice of their own. I heard it first on a stormy night when I was walking along the wood road to meet Jonathan. It was a night of wind and rain and blackness—blackness so dense that it seemed a real thing, pressing against my eyes, so complete that at the fork in the roads I had to feel with my hand for the wheel ruts in order to choose the right one. As I grew accustomed to the swish of the rain in my face and the hoarse breath of the wind about my ears I became aware of another sound—a background of tone. I thought at first it was a child calling, but no, it was not that; it was not a call, but a song; and not that either—it was more like many voices, high but not shrill, and very far away, softly intoning. It was neither sad nor joyous; it suggested dreamy, reiterant thoughts; it was not music, but the memory of music. If one listened too keenly, it was gone, like a faint star which can be glimpsed only if one looks a little away from it.
As I had listened that night I began to wonder if it was all my own fancy, and when I met Jonathan I made him stop.
"Wait a minute," I begged him, "and listen."
"I hear it. Come on," he had said. Supper was in his thoughts.
"What do you hear?"
"Just what you do."
"What's that?" I had persisted, as we fumbled our way along.
"Voices—I don't know what you'd call it—the woods. It often sounds like that in a big rain."
Jonathan's matter-of-factness had rather pleased me.
"I thought it might be my imagination. I'm glad it wasn't," I said.