The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1884-09-27
THE sONG OF THE KATYDID.

-WutcHH0n.
THE SONG OF THE KATYDID.
The orchestra was unusually strong
last night; tree-toad and cricket, a
droning beetle, one lone whip-poor-will,
a solitary owl over in the big chestnut,
two or three baying dogs just far
enough away to sound musical; sheep
belD that tinkled softly at intervals
down in the meadow; once there was
sleepy twitter from theAall larch where
the robins live, as though the birds
could only keep awake long enough to
sing one or two dreamy bars and then
fall asleep in the middle of a half-note;
it was a beautiful, audible stiffness, a
silence to which you could listen. This
is the silence of the still summer night
in the country. We never have dead,
awful, unbroken. voiceless silence oaat
here. The tuneful quiet of the summer
night here in the meadows and hills is
melancholy and depressing enough to
city ears sometimes; to some it is harsh
and discordant; some people hate it;
1t gives them the horrors, they say.
But come out and live in it; listen to it
night after night. until you learn to love
this melodious silence, and then, if you
can, go back to brick walls and paved
streets, and sleep to the crash and
glare and chatter of city streets and
noisy hacks and crashing trucks, police
whistles and the tap, tap, tap of club
and curbstone. You have to live in the
country to enjoy listening to its silence.
You must understand the words the
crickets and the tree-toads sing, as well
as the melody. Then you can enjoy
the music, and the night would seem
desolate without it.
In the autumn months it is melan-
choly, some sharp, cold night, to note
how meager is the orchestra; only a
few brave, hardy little musicians APP
pear, and they do not play great while;
they pack their instruments away in
their cases toward midnight, and seek
the warmest corners of the straw stack
and stubble field. The voices of the
soloists display great deal of painful
hoarseness. The performance is indeed
pathetic, for they sing OF the bright,
golden summer that is gone, and shud-
der with dread of the frosty nights
and the long cruel winter that is COM
ing on; they play dirges for their dead
comrades; they sing of the purple aster
and the royal golden rod, the imperial
banners of the dying naples, the pur-
pie iron weed in old meadows, the vel
low primrose on the hillside and the
ghostly thistle-down drifting over the
reedy marshes where the fire-f1ies died;
of grotesque shadows in the short twi-
light in the old stump lot; of cold winds
creeping with eerie low whispers across
the rustling fields where the corn stands
in ragged shocks with dead gray stiff
ened plumes; of wheeling colonies of
summer birds that flecked the bare fields
with restless shadows as they gathered
their tribes together and hurried away
to their winter resorts; of faded ferns
in the glen, and withered grasses on
the lawn and blighted flowers in the
homely ell garden, until at last the
voices cease, all the daughters of music
are brought low, the last soloist feebly
sings his little song with a quavering
wreck of voice, and goelh the way OF
all grasshoppers.
But happier he who lives to sing the
faded glories of the summer gone than
his Inflated comrade, who. with many
a song unsung, was yanked off the
sweet potato vine when the summer
days were high, by relentless fate with
a fan tail and big red wattles. Yes, the
closing days of our open air concerts
are melancholy. Yet, the grasshopper' s
little life of single summer has much
in it like our own. He loves, he sings,
he dances, he labors, he suffers, he
dies. From the boy in the farmhouse
10 the fowl in the barnyard and the
trout in the brook, he has enemies, and
like many men, he often saves his life
by using his legs.
Well, last night, just in the midst of
the overture-it was spirited passage
about the earthquake, and the tree-frogs
with their piccOlos were trying to show
how the ground trembled-the katydid
made his first appearance this season.
He wore the same green suit, with cut
away wings and light overcoat, and
as he struck his first notes of his tabor
cts. everybody exclaimed: "There's the
katydidr' He did not sing very long.
but his presence added strength and
harmony 10 the orchestra. The ever
popular baritone was here, and we were
glad to hear him again.
She does not sing. Katy herself is
voiceless. During the day she is shy
and timid, hiding away with her mas
ter among the leaves, dutiful, quiet,
housekeeping little Katy. At night
when her liege lord ascends to the
higher branches Of the trees and pro-
claims to the world that ''katy-did. !"
the wifely little mother of his little
Katies is silent. Never word does she
reply, though all night long he says she
did. Should she ever lose her temper
and patience and reply to his accusing
cong, what thrilling domestic revela-
tons might we not expect. In Grimm
alton and recrimination, in bill and
cross-bilI, re, olnder and sur-rejoinder,
plea and replication, it would all come
out. But calm and serene in conscious
innocence, she answers not a word.
Sometimes, in a lit OF impatience at
having his own uncontradicted way, he
declares that "Katy didn't man-like
choosing to contradict himself rather
than have no one with whom to quar-
rel. But after all l don't think she did
anything very dreadful. They live
together so happily, and he has his own
way so completely think it is only q
little joke OF his, threatening to tell the
world some little story OF their zen.
gagement days" or how she spoiled the
first t,ower-bud cake she tried to make
for company. Whatever IL il she never
contradicts him; she never sings with
ks- ~ Il q <.<,ld r,nfooliuU scalnaI tf,