Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 5, 1913

I went out-doors for a few moments just before Mother and Frances went downtown. [A typical August night. Cool, uncomfort­ably so. Dark starry sky with the milky way unusually clear; deep silence with the exception of the constant [rhythmic] chorus of a myriad tree-crickets, which sound like the steady thrum thrum of the human heart. What a feeling of loneliness they inspire! When I was a boy they made me imagine all sorts of direful things. Now they give me the “blues”—the inexplicable kind. They seem to keep perfect time with each other. By listening very closely we sometimes can imagine we hear one at odds with the others. But it is best to listen easily otherwise we miss that steady throbbing which is the best part. As I listen, their singing seems to send my senses in an up and down movement –up and down—up and down—constant and unending.

Perhaps the loneliness and desolateness we feel on hearing crickets sing is the fact that they are the earliest sign of approaching fall. Before they begin, things have been growing and developing towards ripeness. For a short while, in late June and early July nature is at her full growth flushed with a sense of full maturity, a perfect balance. Then the scales tip ever so slightly towards the decadence. The grass on the lawns begin to burn, the trees have lost their freshness, the leaves dried and some already falling; weeds had begun to see; finally one or two crickets lift a doubtful voice. A few others join them and encourage them and it is not long until the chorus is going at full tilt. Now and then we hear a katy-did* by day but it is not until later that we will hear them in great numbers. Occasionally a large yellow winged grasshopper will zigzag up from our feet but not in great numbers.]

Often I say to myself, “This is the best time of the year.” I say it every day the year thru. And it is true. Every season is the best. I cannot conceive of a true lover of nature “despising” winter but liking summer or vice versa.

*NOT KATYDIDS – BUT VARIUS KINDS OF SHORT-HORNED GRASSHOPERS - 

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 5, 1913