ntleman took the watch-paper carefully from her, replaced
it, turned away and walked out, holding the watch in his hand. I
saw him pass the window a moment after with that foolish white hat
on his head; he couldn't have been thinking what he was about when
he put it on. So the schoolmistress and I were left alone. I drew
my chair a shade nearer to her, and continued.]

And since I am talking of early recollections, I don't know why I
shouldn't mention some others that still cling to me,--not that you
will attach any very particular meaning to these same images so
full of significance to me, but that you will find something
parallel to them in your own memory. You remember, perhaps, what I
said one day about smells. There were certain SOUNDS also which
had a mysterious suggestiveness to me,--not so intense, perhaps, as
that connected with the other sense, but yet peculiar, and never to
be forgotten.

The first was the creaking of the wood-sleds, bringing their loads
of oak and walnut from the country, as the slow-swinging oxen
trailed them along over the complaining snow, in the cold, brown
light of early morning. Lying in bed and listening to their dreary
music had a pleasure in it akin to the Lucretian luxury, or that
which Byron speaks of as to be enjoyed in looking on at a battle by
one "who hath no friend, no brother there."

There was another sound, in itself so sweet, and so connected with
one of those simple and curious superstitions of childhood of which
I have spoken, that I can never cease to cherish a sad sort of love
for it.--Let me tell the superstitious fancy first. The Puritan
"Sabbath," as everybody knows, began at "sundown" on Saturday
evening. To such observance of it I was born and bred. As the
large, round disk of day declined, a stillness, a solemnity, a
somewhat melancholy hush came over us all. It was time for work to
cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life
passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun
should sink again beneath the horizon.

It was in this stillness of the world without and of the soul
within that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to
make itself most distinctly heard,--so that I well remember I used
to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled
with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, WAS PECULIAR
TO SATURDAY EVENINGS. I don't know that anything could give a
clearer