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Updated: May 15, 2025
That evening hush that early summer knows, between the day's full-throated orchestration and the night song of whippoorwills, held the world in a bated stillness, and the walnut tree stood as unstirring as some age-crowned priest with arms outstretched in evening prayer. Hand in hand the two sat in the open window.
I shore do miss old Pine Mountain and the rocks and trees; the jingle of the bells as the cows at evening hasten homeward from the timbered hills; the big, open fireplace with its light and glow of burning oak and chestnut where we huddled in happy talk and kinship; the darkness of the night where even the moon came slowly over the mountain and peeped timidly through the trees; the stillness of the night when all in the house might hear Susie whispering her prayers and the whippoorwills calling in the thickets.
"And now," said Grandma, "it is bedtime for two little folks who will have to be up bright and early in the morning. You know the train leaves at eight o'clock." "Good-night, katydids and whippoorwills," murmured Don a little drowsily. "We shall come back to hear you sing again next summer."
Minutes passed without her return; soon he would go in search of her; he would find her ... in the dark house.... He shut his eyes for a moment, and opened them with an effort. The whippoorwills never for a moment ceased their melancholy calling; they seemed to draw nearer to him; then retreat, far away. His head fell forward upon his breast.
Before she could ask her unexpected guests any further questions, the cry of a whippoorwill was again heard three times. She listened with a startled, frightened manner. The sounds were repeated, and she seemed satisfied: "Isn't it rather late in the season for whippoorwills?" asked Annie, uneasily, for this bird's note, now heard again, seemed like a signal.
It seemed very pleasant, after wandering in the Old World and the New, to be in my own home once more, surrounded by the grand trees I so dearly loved; to see the gorgeous sunsets, the twinkling fireflies; to hear the whippoorwills call their familiar note, while the June bugs and the mosquitoes buzz outside the nets through which they cannot enter.
The whippoorwills, the frogs and crickets, were silent, and the sharp, sweet song of a mocking bird throbbed from a hedge. It was dark in the valley, but, high above, the air was already brightening with the sun; a symmetrical cloud caught the solar rays and flushed rosy against silver space. The valley turned from indistinct blue to grey, to sparkling green.
He was taught that hooting owls were very jealous of their night hours and whenever they hooted near a field of workers they were saying: "Task done or no done night's my time go home!" Whippoorwills flitted about the woods in cotton picking time chattering about Jack marrying a widow. He could not remember the story that goes with this.
So the only way I can keep them out is to pen them up. Don, you may carry water for the little pigs and they will need plenty, too, because it is so warm." That pleased Don, and he began at once to fill the trough which Grandpa had placed in the pen. That evening, Grandpa and Grandma and the children sat on the porch, listening to the chirp of the katydids and the call of the whippoorwills.
Satterlee, the minister, found them there, and they went in and stood reverently in the little chamber on the right of the door, which had been Cynthia's. Long Wetherell lay awake that night, in his room at the gable-end over the store, listening to the rustling of the great oak beside the windows, to the whippoorwills calling across Coniston Water.
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