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Winters croons at her, she is being motherly. The effect produced is rather that of a sudden assumption of life and vicarious motherhood on the part of a small, brightly-painted porcelain hen. "Then they will be sending you over shortly, no doubt? Across the wide wide sea " adds Mrs. Winters archly, but Nancy is too tired-looking to respond to the fancy.
Or is Fionaghal the Fair Stranger this poorly dressed lass who boils the potatoes over the rude peat fire, and croons her songs of suffering and of the cruel drowning in the seas, so that from hut to hut they carry her songs, and the old wives' tears start afresh to think of their brave sons lost years and years ago?
Their abrupt knoll commands a respectable section of the Androscoggin Valley, rich meadow-lands, the humanities of church-spire and cottage, the low green sweep of the intervale through which the river croons its quiet way under shadows of rock and tree, answering softly to the hum of bee and song of bird, answering just as softly to the snort and shriek of its hot-breathed rival, the railroad.
"There's Nelly Nolan would dance after him to the world's end," said Shon McGann to Pierre one day; "and the Widdy Jerome herself, wid her flamin' cheeks and the wild fun in her eye, croons like a babe at the breast as he slides out his cash on the bar; and over on Gansonby's Flat there's "
The cotter's wife croons it over her sleeping baby; the lover sings it to his sweetheart; the child runs, carolling it, through the summer fields; finally, some world-honored prima-donna, some Patti or Nilsson, sings it as the final touch of perfection to a great feast of music, and hearts swell and eyes overflow to find that the nursery song of our childhood is a world-song, immortal in freshness and beauty.
Knife in hand, Paul Lanier is bending over the sleeping Bessie. Charles raises his loaded pistol, taking aim. The finger pressing lightly responsive trigger seems paralyzed. Raptly gazing at the child's innocent face, Paul softly croons some cradle melody.
She is colored like a panther flower and her limbs are heavy with taboo magic. But she is still imperial. In vain the mountebanks and burlesqueries of her court. Her lips place themselves against the hearts of the dancers on the cabaret floor. And she croons her ancient hymns. The hearts of the dancers give themselves to the saxophone. Their feet keep a rendezvous with the umpah umps.
Full of yearning over the worried, the distressed, the music itself seems to brood in sympathetic and soothing power, as a mother croons to her fretful child: "Why fret, why worry, No, no! rest, rest my little one, in the love of the all-Father," and many a weary, fretful, worried heart has found rest and peace while listening to this sweet and beautiful song.
They are on a level with those they serve, and the women embrace them, the men kiss their hands. Naturally there are no such things as tips; service is charged for in the bill. Elegance mingles with melancholy. Russians meet and talk endlessly, and sigh for Russia, and the Russian music croons the night long from the musicians' gallery or orchestra.
When I wake very early in the morning I lie in a drowsy sort of dream, trying to disentangle, one from the other, the various bird notes, trills, coos, croons, chirps, chirrups, and warbles. Suddenly there falls on the air a delicious, liquid, finished song; so pure, so mellow, so joyous, that I go to the window and look out at the morning world, half awakened, like myself.
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