[Illustration]
I sat on the grassy brink of a mountain stream in the gathering twilight
of evening. The shadowy woodlands around me became a great theatre. The
greensward before me was its stage.
The tinkling bell of a passing herd rang up the curtain, and I sat there
all alone in the hush of the dying day and listened to a concert of
nature's musicians who sing as God hath taught them to sing. The first
singer that entered my stage was Signor Grasshopper. He mounted a
mullein leaf and sang, and sang, and sang, until Professor Turkey
Gobbler slipped up behind him with open mouth, and Signor Grasshopper
vanished from the footlights forevermore. And as Professor Turkey
Gobbler strutted off my stage with a merry gobble, the orchestra opened
before me with a flourish of trumpets. The katydid led off with a
trombone solo; the cricket chimed in with his E. flat cornet; the
bumblebee played on his violoncello, and the jay-bird, laughed with his
piccolo. The music rose to grandeur with the deep bass horn of the big
black beetle; the mocking bird's flute brought me to tears of rapture,
and the screech-owl's fife made me want to fight. The tree-frog blew
his alto horn; the jar-fly clashed his tinkling cymbals; the woodpecker
rattled his kettledrum, and the locust jingled his tambourine. The music
rolled along like a sparkling river in sweet accompaniment with the
oriole's leading violin. But it suddenly hushed when I heard a ripple
of laughter among the hollyhocks before the door of a happy country
home. I saw a youth standing there in the shadows with his arm around
"something" and holding his sweetheart's hand in his. He bent forward;
lip met lip, and there was an explosion like the squeak of a new boot.
The lassie vanished into the cottage; the lad vanished over the hill,
and as he vanished he swung his hat in the shadows, and sang back to her
his happy love song.
[Illustration: LOVE AMONG THE HOLLYHOCKS.]
Did you never hear a mountain love song? This is the song he sang:
"Oh, when she saw me coming she rung her hands and cried,
She said I was the prettiest thing that ever lived or died.
Oh, run along home Miss Nancy, get along home Miss Nancy,
Run along home Miss Nancy, down in Rockinham."
The birds inclined their heads to listen to his song as it died away on
the drowsy summer air.
That night I slept in a mansion; but I "closed my eyes on garnished
rooms to dream of meadows and clover blooms," and love among the
hollyhocks. And while I dreamed I was serenaded by a band of mosquitoes.
This is the song they sang:
[Illustration]
"Hush my dear, lie still and slumber;
Holy angels guard thy bed;
Heavenly 'skeeters without number
Buzzing 'round your old bald head!!!"