Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, Vol. 33, August 1920

Planning to sleep out, I pushed on to find a convenient hill. First I sought water, & found it at a miner’s well, — dear cold water that put new life into me. As I went on I finally sighted a huge bare “hog-back” which I made my goal; an ambitious one I later found out. Concealing my wheel in some bushes at its base I took my luggage & set out to climb the “Mountain,” I perhaps never engaged a more difficult task and perhaps if I had known what was in store for me I might have lost my nerve; the whole lower half of the hill, or so I thought, was covered with vines, briars, & fallen limbs & tree trunks – a brief trial to right & left convinced me it was all alike so I went straight forward; and encumbered as I was with my heavy luggage, I had a sorry time of it stumbling, pulling, pushing aside branches, puffing & gasping & constantly shifting the burden from one hand to another. Occasionally thru the trees I managed to get a glympse of the sun, reddened by August haze;

Up, up & up I went endlessly; when I had about despaired of reaching the bare portion that had attracted me from the road, I suddenly saw above me a few dead trees, and after a final heartbreaking spurt, I reached the “hind-quarters” of the “hog” where I sank on a log to rest; The sun was disappearing in a gray-green bank to the west above a huge blue-green hill. A belated cicada sang, by his very song prolonging the heat of the day–  from far below the noise of fellows practicing base-ball came up to me.

A short climb took me to the summit, where I made my camp, which consisted merely of fixing a mosquito screen & spreading my blanket. Here I had the feeling of lonely evenings of childhood when I feared God – Above the top of the hill here, was a huge [51] hole in the clouded sky out of which poured in sulphurous yellow light that only affected the tops of hills, the valleys already taking on the gloom of night. From these same valleys now came the songs of katydids, and occasionally the whippoorwill – The moon already up, now commenced to glow, and a cool damp breeze blew out of the southeast. From far below the sounds voices of the ball-players, using jealously the last shreds of daylight, came up to me & proved a welcome sound. The last sounds attending dying day — the goodbyes of disbanding players; — the shout of one neighbor to another, a woman calling her boy — finally died away leaving the night in full power, with its insect pulsating song, and screech owl wail.

...Definite sounds now ceased; the town had fallen asleep, a train had roared thru the valley and died away; Now came the time of imaginary sounds. I wrapped myself in my blanket and lay looking up at a single star overhead. The slightest stirring of the wind became converted into alarming sounds that startled me out of any tendency to sleep.

Charles E. Burchfield, August 1920