What the Cricket Heard

The thoughts which would not be stilled repossessed his mind, and drove
him out-of-doors again,--through a side door, so that he would not have
to speak to his father and Ethel, whose voices he heard in low
conversation on the front porch. They ceased for a moment, as though
the speakers had heard the sound of his footsteps, and paused to listen.
The night was still, so still that the chirp of a cricket under the
piazza sounded loudly. It was a cheerful little note, and Donald hated
it for its cheer, and started hastily away toward the beach.

High above, to the south, the moon was sailing through a sea of clouds,
in silent majesty. Moonlit nights he had seen aplenty since that one in
the Cumberlands, four summers previous, when he had climbed the
mountain, impatient to see once more the strange, smiling child who had
so stirred his imagination. In the old days he had loved the soft and
majestic radiance. Now he hated it. Had he not lived long in war-ridden
France, where every clear night illumined by that orb, which once had
been the glory of those who loved, had meant merely the advent of the
Hunnish fiends, whose winging visits brought death and devastation to
the sleeping towns below?

He had fled from the darkness of his room, but now he craved the
darkness again, for, perchance, it might blot out the memory of other
nights, beautiful as golden dreams, or hideous as nightmares, when the
moon had shone as it did now.