April 3. Friends will not only live in harmony, but in melody.[230]
April 4. Sunday. The rattling of the tea-kettle below stairs reminds me of the cow-bells I used to hear when berrying in the Great Fields many years ago, sounding distant and deep amid the birches. That cheap piece of tinkling brass which the farmer hangs about his cow's neck has been more to me than the tons of metal which are swung in the belfry.
They who prepare my evening meal below
Carelessly hit the kettle as they go,
With tongs or shovel,
Out of this hovel
It makes an Eastern temple by the sound.
At first I thought a cow-bell, right at hand
'Mid birches, sounded o'er the open land,