THE trees began softly to sing a hymn of twi-light.The sun sank until slanted bronze rays struck the forest.There was a lull in the noises of insects as if they had bowed their beaks and were making a devotional pause.There was silence save for the chanted chorus of the trees.
Then, upon this stillness, there suddenly broke a tremendous clangor of sounds.A crimson roar came from the distance.
The youth stopped.He was transfixed by this terrific medley of all noises.It was as if worlds were being rended.There was the rip-ping sound of musketry and the breaking crash of the artillery.
His mind flew in all directions.He conceived the two armies to be at each other panther fashion.He listened for a time.Then he began to run in the direction of the battle.He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be run-ning thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid.But he said, in substance, to him-self that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.
As he ran, he became aware that the forest had stopped its music, as if at last becoming capable of hearing the foreign sounds.The trees hushed and stood motionless.Everything seemed to be listening to the crackle and clatter and ear-shaking thunder.The chorus pealed over the still earth.
It suddenly occurred to the youth that the fight in which he had been was, after all, but perfunctory popping.In the hearing of this present din he was doubtful if he had seen real battle scenes.This uproar explained a celes-tial battle; it was tumbling hordes a-struggle in the air.
Reflecting, he saw a sort of a humor in the point of view of himself and his fellows during the late encounter.They had taken themselves and the enemy very seriously and had imagined that they were deciding the war.Individuals must have supposed that they were cutting the letters of their names deep into everlasting tablets of brass, or enshrining their reputations forever in the hearts of their countrymen, while, as to fact, the affair would appear in printed reports under a meek and immaterial title.But he saw that it was good, else, he said, in battle every one would surely run save forlorn hopes and their ilk.
He went rapidly on.He wished to come to the edge of the forest that he might peer out.
As he hastened, there passed through his mind pictures of stupendous conflicts.His accumulated thought upon such subjects was used to form scenes.The noise was as the voice of an eloquent being, describing.
Sometimes the brambles formed chains and tried to hold him back.Trees, confronting him, stretched out their arms and forbade him to pass.
After its previous hostility this new resistance of the forest filled him with a fine bitterness.It seemed that Nature could not be quite ready to kill him.
But he obstinately took roundabout ways, and presently he was where he could see long gray walls of vapor where lay battle lines.The voices of cannon shook him.The musketry sounded in long irregular surges that played havoc with his ears.He stood regardant for a moment.His eyes had an awestruck expression.He gawked in the direction of the fight.
Presently he proceeded again on his forward way.The battle was like the grinding of an immense and terrible machine to him.Its com-plexities and powers, its grim processes, fascinated him.He must go close and see it produce corpses.
He came to a fence and clambered over it.
On the far side, the ground was littered with clothes and guns.A newspaper, folded up, lay in the dirt.A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm.Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company.A hot sun had blazed upon the spot.
In this place the youth felt that he was an invader.This forgotten part of the battle ground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.
He came finally to a road from which he could see in the distance dark and agitated bodies of troops, smoke-fringed.In the lane was a blood-stained crowd streaming to the rear.
The wounded men were cursing, groaning, and wailing.In the air, always, was a mighty swell of sound that it seemed could sway the earth.
With the courageous words of the artillery and the spiteful sentences of the musketry mingled red cheers.And from this region of noises came the steady current of the maimed.
One of the wounded men had a shoeful of blood.He hopped like a schoolboy in a game.
He was laughing hysterically.
One was swearing that he had been shot in the arm through the commanding general's misman-agement of the army.One was marching with an air imitative of some sublime drum major.
Upon his features was an unholy mixture of merriment and agony.As he marched he sang a bit of doggerel in a high and quavering voice:
