CHAPTER XLVIII.
THE HARVEST MOON.
The day was nearly gone now, dying over fir-clad hills; but yet, before it went, poured a last flood of rich, red light, such as only the mountains and the valley boast, upon the beautiful sloping meadow, stretching its green and dewy sea in front of Apple Orchard.
As the sun went away in royal splendor, bounding over the rim of evening, like a red-striped tiger--on the eastern horizon a light rose gradually, as though a great conflagration raged there.

Then the trees were kindled; then the broad, yellow moon--call it the harvest moon!--soared slowly up, dragging its captive stars, and mixing its fresh radiance with the waning glories of the crimson west.
And as the happy party--grouped upon the grassy knoll, like some party of shepherds and shepherdesses, in the old days of Arcady--gazed on the beautiful spectacle, the voices of the negroes coming from their work were heard, driving their slow teams in, and sending on the air the clear melodious songs, which, rude and ludicrous as they seem, have yet so marvellous an effect, borne on the airs of night.
Those evening songs and sounds! Not long ago, one says, I stood, just at sunset, on the summit of a pretty knoll, and, looking eastward, saw the harvesters cutting into the tall, brown-headed, rippling wheat.
I heard the merry whistle of the whirling scythes; I heard their songs--they were so sweet! And why are these harvest melodies so soft-sounding, and so grateful to the ear?
Simply because they discourse of the long buried past; and, like some magical spell, arouse from its sleep all the beauteous and gay splendor of those hours.

As the clear, measured sound floated to my ear, I heard also, again, the vanished music of happy childhood--that elysian time which cannot last for any of us.

I do not know what the song was--whether some slow, sad negro melody, or loud-sounding hymn, such as the forests ring with at camp-meetings; but I know what the murmuring and dying sound brought to me again, living, splendid, instinct with a thoughtful but perfect joy.

Fairyland never, with its silver-twisted, trumpet-flower-like bugles, rolled such a merry-mournful music to the friendly stars! I love to have the old days back again--back, with their very tints, and atmosphere, and sounds and odors--now no more the same.