FAMILIAR RURAL SOUNDS. 
By ArruHurR F, Rice. 
Dwellers in cities have to tolerate, if not to 
love, the sounds of brawling traffic; the rattle 
of horse cars and rumble of beer wagons ; the 
puffing of engines and the screaming of steam 
whistles. In these noises they are pleased to 
recognize energy, progress and thrift, and very 
properly consider them the exponents of bustle 
and activity, and the legitimate accompaniment 
of our money-getting proclivities. But these 
are artificial sounds, and neither appeal to our 
emotions and sensibilities nor have power to 
elevate and soothe our minds. Natural sounds, 
like natural manners, are best, and the city is 
not the place to hear them. The throat of the 
city sparrow seems choked with dust. The 
oriole and the thrush need purer air and less 
noisy competition in order that they may pro- 
perly express themselves in song. _ There are 
few sounds to which we are more pleasantly 
susceptible than that of moving waters; but 
the surge of the traffic-stained tide against de- 
caying piles and malodorous docks can never 
convey to us the same meaning that comes with 
the musical drip and spatter of a forest cascade, 
or the whimpering of a meadow brook, where 
** Silver sands and pebbles sing 
Eternal ditties with the spring. 
In the town a thousand discords greet the 
ear. Above the din of machinery, the strident 
saw and the clanking cog-wheel, one may hear 
the groan of whipped horses, the beggar’s cry, 
the yelp of. dogs kicked from the door, and the 
savage words of men in strife with each other. 
In the country a man may wander all day 
through field and forest and never hear a sound 
more harsh than the rattle of the kingfisher or 
the tapping of the woodpecker. 
Winter’s reign in the country is a quiet one, 
for snow is a universal muffler of sound, and as 
there is less for our eyes to see, so there is less 
for our ears to hear; but there is a sort of ro- 
bustness and virility in such sounds as do come 
to us. The winter birds are a hardy race, and 
there is independence and self-reliance in their 
calls. The bluejay’s clarion note is a defiant 
challenge to the cold. The crows, too, disdain 
to seek the luxury of a warmer clime, and 
change their voices no more than they change 
their coats under northern skies. The snow 
birds, it is true, have the gentle twitter of their 
summer cousins, but they seem the natural ac- 
companiment of the fresh, soft snow, and their 
complacent notes of greeting seem to indicate 
that they are on the best of terms with Jack 
Frost. 
The merry jingle of the sleigh bells and the 
creak of polished runners on the hard, dry 
snow, are winter sounds dear to the country- 
born, recalling many a drive over the white- 
mantled hills. From the open doors of gener- 
ous harns along the road comes the tune of the 
flails upon the threshing floor, and in the forest 
near at hand the ring of the woodman’s axe is 
heard. And now there comes up from the val- 
ley a sound which sends a thrill to the sports- 
man’s heart; faint at first and far away, ceasing 
and then heard again in fuller cadence, the 
music of the hounds! Who with a drop of 
hunter's blood in his veins can hear it and not 
yearn to be on the “runway,” with a chance to 
stop that wild and graceful courser, the red 
fox, in his flight? What matters the cold, 
though the trees, ‘‘ keyed up by the frost,” snap 
and crack in the winter air, and the wind 
whistling through the hemlocks sifts down the 
snow into our faces ? 
There is one winter sound not often heard, 
and still less frequently understood, namely, the 
rifting of the frozen earth under the tremendous 
tension of the contracting cold. It is like a 
subterrene clap of thunder, muffled but start- 
ling, jarring like an earthquake, and leaving a 
big crack in the earth, which gradually closes 
up in the spring as the ground thaws out and 
is expanded under the rays of the sun. The 
voice of the pine tree, always sad, is even more 
so in winter than at other seasons. Who shall 
translate its mournful meaning? What has it 
been sighing about for a thousand years? 
Shall we manufacture a little mythology, and 
say that some earthly maiden was sought by 
the gods and evaded them by turning herself 
