70 CHICKAMAUGA. 



of blue smoke rose among tlie trees. The 

 Dyer house, in a direction nearly opposite 

 the Snodgrass house, stood broadly in the 

 open, with an orchard behind it, and dark 

 savins posted here and there over the outly- 

 ing pasture. 



Even at noonday the air was full of 

 music : first an incessant tinkle of cow-bells 

 rising from all sides, wondrously sweet and 

 soothing ; then a continuous, far-away hum, 

 like a sawmill just audible in the extreme 

 distance, or the vibration of innumerable 

 wires, miles remote, perhaps, — a noise which 

 I knew neither how to describe nor how to 

 guess the origin of, the work of seventeen- 

 year locusts, I afterward learned; and then, 

 sung to this invariable instrumental accom- 

 paniment, — this natural pedal point, if I 

 may call it so, — the songs of birds. 



The singers were of a quiet and unpreten- 

 tious sort, as befitted the hour: a summer 

 tanager ; a red-eyed vireo ; a tufted titmouse ; 

 a Maryland yellow-throat, who cried, " What 

 a pity ! What a pity ! What a pity ! " but 

 not as if he felt in the least distressed about 

 it; a yellow-throated vireo, full-voiced and 

 passionless ; a field sparrow, pretty far off ; 



