A DOORSTEP SINGER 



ALMOST every pleasant summer night, as 

 a boy, I used to hear the mournful but 

 sweet and tender songs of the whip-poor- 

 wills from the wooded slopes around my 

 native town. I learned to love the sound 

 and to listen for it; and when I left home, 

 as a young man, and went to the city to 

 work, one of the things I missed most was 

 the plaintive lullaby of these singers in the 

 night. Even now, if I chance to hear the 

 note of the whip-poor-will in an alien place, 

 a feeling of the most intense longing and 

 homesickness comes over me, and it seems 

 as if I would give the world just to be back 

 in my boyhood's attic chamber, watching 

 the moonlight on the bare, rough walls, and 

 listening to that voice from the hemlock 

 hill. 



But it was not always at a distance that 

 I heard the whip-poor-wills in my boyhood 

 days or nights, rather. There used to be 

 124 



