MYSTICAL PASTURES 237 



cedars and barberry bushes, the forests of sweet 

 fern and the fox paths that wind among the berry 

 bushes, with invisible fays and sprites. Only the 

 tiniest of these could have such shrill tenuous 

 voices. Having heard them in all their uproar 

 it is even then difficult to hold your attention on 

 them, more difficult than with any other pasture 

 or woodland creatures I know. There will be 

 times when the ear refuses them and it seems as 

 if blank silence had settled on the whole field, 

 then after a little it will all come pulsing back to 

 you. 



How dependent these disembodied voices are 

 upon the sun is seen toward nightfall, when the 

 shadows beg^n to grow long. Where these fall 

 across the grasses there grow triangles of silence 

 which travd fast. Oftentimes as the point of 

 one of these progresses you may locate a chirper 

 by the sudden ceasing of his chirp and find him 

 in the tip of shadow, already numb. The black 

 crickets keep up their tune longest, singing from 

 beneath sheltering stones and bark or fallen 

 , leaves. With the direct sun vanish also other 

 summer pasture people who have made the 

 warmth of the day beautiful. Under an old ap- 



