The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bringing their loads of oak
and walnut from the country, as the slow-swinging oxen trailed them along
over the complaining snow, in the cold, brown light of early morning.
Lying in bed and listening to their dreary music had a pleasure in it akin
to that which Lucretius describes in witnessing a ship toiling through the
waves while we sit at ease on shore, or that which Byron speaks of as to
be enjoyed in looking on at a battle by one "who hath no friend, no
brother there."
There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and so connected with one of
those simple and curious superstitions of childhood of which I have
spoken, that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love for it.--Let
me tell the superstitious fancy first. The Puritan "Sabbath," as everybody
knows, began at "sundown" on Saturday evening. To such observance of it I
was born and bred. As the large, round disk of day declined, a stillness,
a solemnity, a somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for
work to cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life
passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should
sink again beneath the horizon.
It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul within that
the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to make itself most
distinctly heard,--so that I well remember I used to think that the
purring of these little creatures, which mingled with the batrachian hymns
from the neighboring swamp, was peculiar to Saturday evenings.
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