, the light grew
stronger and the breeze rustled the treetops loudly; a cow bawled and
the whole barnyard answered. The guineas were clucking, the turkey
gobbler strutting, the hens calling, the chickens cheeping, the light
streamed down straight overhead and the bees began to hum. The air
stirred strongly, and away in an unseen field a reaper clacked and
rattled through ripening wheat while the driver whistled. An uneasy
mare whickered to her colt, the colt answered, and the light began to
decline. Miles away a rooster crowed for twilight, and dusk was coming
down. Then a catbird and a brown thrush sang against a grosbeak and a
hermit thrush. The air was tremulous with heavenly notes, the lights
went out in the hall, dusk swept across the stage, a cricket sang and
a katydid answered, and a wood pewee wrung the heart with its lonesome
cry. Then a night hawk screamed, a whip-poor-will complained, a belated
killdeer swept the sky, and the night wind sang a louder song. A little
screech owl tuned up in the distance, a barn owl replied, and a great
horned owl drowned both their voices. The moon shone and the scene was
warm with mellow light. The bird voices died and soft exquisite melody
began to swell and roll. In the centre of the stage, piece by piece
the grasses, mosses and leaves dropped from an embankment, the foliage
softly blew away, while plainer and plainer came the outlines of a
lovely girl figure draped in soft clinging green. In her shower of
bright hair a few green leaves and white blossoms clung, and they fell
over her robe down to her feet. Her white throat and arms were bare, she
leaned forward a little and swayed with the melody, her eyes fast on
the clouds above her, her lips parted, a pink tinge of exercise in
her cheeks as she drew her bow. She played as only a peculiar chain of
circumstances puts it in the power of a very few to play. All nature had
grown still, the violin sobbed, sang, danced and quavered on alone, no
voice in particular; the soul of the melody of all nature combined in
one great outpouring.

At the doorway, a white-faced woman endured it as long as she could and
then fell senseless. The men nearest carried her down the hall to the
fountain, revived her, and then placed her in the carriage to which she
directed them. The girl played on and never knew. When she finished,
the uproar of applause sounded a block down the street, but the
half-senseless woman scarcely realized what it meant