It was quiet, so quiet, that the many little noises, made by unseen beings, pealed like tornadoes of sound. The snatch of laughter, coming from the tree-encircled farm-house behind us, was as the laughter of a multitude; the chirrup of that homeward bound bird was as a lofty, airy chorus; the croaking of the frog was as a grunting wail from many, many, who never get above the very ground. While we had sat staring holes into the air before us, evening had flown, and night, a gallant victor, had unrolled the standard of the stars. I know I cannot tell you my impressions, but even had I the gift and genius of a hundred of our greatest writers, I could not convey to you what a picture that night, my first night in God's country, left with me. It seemed to me that all and everything, before becoming wrapped in slumber, gave one praise-offering to Above. The corn of the field and the poor lowly flower by the roadside and even the tiny blade of grass, they all were straightened by one last, upward tremor before relaxing to their drooping doze. The birds of the air and the beasts of the ground, all sounded their evening song. With some it was a thrill of sweetest divine melody, with others it was but a grunt, but it all seemed like a thanksgiving for having lived and worked a day made by the Creator of all.
And from beneath all this, the silent attitude of prayer and the intoned evening hymn of creatures rose onward, upward, like an anthem to the sky, where brilliant orbs and shining, milky veils were interwoven in a web of glory, and peeping over the tops of hours into the birthing cradle of another day. It is a witching hour, this hour, when stars and nature in unison sing their evening song.
Where nature is grandest, man most likes to profane it.
The sublime, sweet spell held us enthralled. Not a word had been spoken by us. How long we had sat there we did not know. How much longer we would have sat there is a matter of unprofitable conjecture. As if turned loose from the regions of the arch-fiend, with howling screech, with snorting, rumbling, rattling, a train, looking like a string of toy-cars in the distance, clattered along the range of hills, the last drop of our scene. Spitting fire before it, leaving white streamers behind it, the iron disrespecter of nature's sanctity rushed into the very heart of the hills and took the haze of idealism with it.
The spell was broken, and we were not long in getting back to terra firma.
"Say," remarked Casey very pensively, "ain't it very quiet here?"
"Well, I should say so," hastened Dempsey to corroborate him. "It's so quiet you couldn't sleep here if you wanted to. This ain't no place for us. Let's go."
We started ahead and tumbled along the country road. All directions, as to our route, were, for the present, forgotten. We only had one purpose now, to get away from the haunting quiet. With every step our nerves became more unstrung. A rabbit scooted across the road and made us grasp each other's arms. The faint rustle of the leaves sent shivers down our backs.
Out in the open, we felt the hazy, vapory night air enshroud us, which showed every object in ghost-like mold. A dog barked far away, then it howled, and I can swear to it, we trembled.
It was not physical fear. It was the weirdness of the unaccustomed that played havoc with our reasoning powers. Some may doubt all this and mention as proof the "hoboing" tramps, who spend their most pleasing and profitable period of vagrancy in their country. I am not prepared to discuss this at all, but am quite sure that every tramp, at the beginning of his career as such, was similarly impressed on his first night in the country, provided he had not found shelter in a barn or haystack or had not been born and lived in the country before.