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.
The night proved endless –The hardness of my bed caused me to awaken every few minutes; ages seemed to pass. A passing train awoke me; a breeze that sent a chill thru me, I thought was the morning breeze, the moon was dying in a cloudbank to the west. I looked at my watch – it was only threeo’clock!The cricket chorus was still in full swing, the whip-poor-wills & the owls were still abroad and sound & more wind. The moon gone, it became dark, when I had expected light.
The next time I awoke, a cloud overhead had a pale light on its eastern side. I sat up; I seemed on the edge of a huge precipice, for at my feet land ended in a pure blue white area, that seemed like sky – only at its top were the tips of some hills to the south – a big bank of fog had come up in the valley – Long after the light on the clouds had turned the pink and then to salmon, and a group of huge thundering clouds had flared up & faded away to the north, this solid bank of fog concealed the valley; it was strange to hear the various early morning stirrings from the depths of that white mass. Gradually a few dead trees commenced to appear and then the uncompromising row of red factory houses.
Charles E. Burchfield, August 1920