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The day had been only moderately warm for the season, and the night was cool, though not cold. A soft east wind was blowing down from the distant Apennines, and all the trees were rustling gently. Up to the giant arm of a gnarled oak, fluttered an owl, which hooted noisily as the young man hurried beneath. The crickets were chirping.
The child, frightened by this woman who had suddenly risen in front of him, stood motionless before the bed. The hen had also come in, and frightened by the noise, had jumped up on a chair and was wildly calling her chicks, who were chirping distractedly around the four legs of the chair. Queen Hortense was shrieking: "No, no, I don't want to die, I don't want to! I don't want to!
Then, finally, getting far enough away to forget, songs and jokes took us chirping along, past objects which soon became our landmarks in the days to come. On we went, past estaminets, shrines and occasional windmills, down the long winding road for about four miles, until at last we reached our billets, where the battalion willingly halted and dispersed to its various quarters.
For the absent Cap'n Abe he appeared to feel a strong man's good-natured scorn for a weak one; but Louise saw him stand often before Jerry's cage, chirping to the bird and playing with him. And at such times there was moisture in Cap'n Amazon's eye. "Blind's a bat! Poor little critter!" he would murmur. "All the sunshine does is to warm him; he can't see it no more.
I slept in a little wickerwork cot placed near her bed, so that she could reach me if I uncovered myself in the night. She used to say I was like a bird, having something birdlike in my small dark head and the way I held it up. Certainly I remember myself as a swift little thing, always darting to and fro on tiptoe, and chirping about our chill and rather cheerless house.
In the calm of the twilight the little truffle-hunter goes abroad, chirping softly to encourage itself. It explores the soil, and interrogates it as to its contents, exactly as does the truffle-gatherer's dog. The sense of smell warns it that the desired object is beneath it, covered by a few inches of sand.
Hearing the parent bird chirping distractedly from a nearby limb, she turned and called: "Don't make such a row! I sha'n't keep him long." Cowperwood laughed trig in the morning sun. "You can scarcely blame her," he commented. "Oh, she knows well enough I wouldn't hurt him," Berenice replied, spiritedly, as though it were literally true. "Does she, indeed?" inquired Cowperwood.
At length the father came to the youngest son: "Thou, my dear chirping nestling, wert always the silliest and weakest; stay with me, the world has many rough, wicked birds which have crooked beaks and long claws, and lie in wait for poor little birds and swallow them.
But if you leave behind the din of streets for the sake of stepping forth from your work-table upon a soft lawn, or of looking out upon the old church steeple among the trees, while you hear nothing but bleating and chirping, you must expect some set-off against such advantages: and that set-off is the being among a small number of people, who are always busy looking into one another's small concerns."
One observer of the chirping of the cricket says that the pitch of the song varies with the temperature. He has even worked out a formula by which one can tell the pitch of the chirp, if he knows the temperature, or, knowing the temperature, can determine the pitch.
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