Page 79 - 1923 VES Meteor

cJV{ETEOR,
\'01.. VII JUN8, J!l23 No.4
a~tunp in Retteries 1. A TRIP
In the course of the year I make Se\'CI'al trips from noan- oko to Lynchburg. After tho train passl's Bedford, and the last peaks of the Blue Ridge are behind, I fall to musing and
usually into a state of melancholy.
I think that the country tbat creeps by is the main reason
for these moods. To one born among the monntains and used to sceiug them on all sides nothing can Lc moTe depre::;sing than an unbroken horizon with bleak, bare, brown £elds and dismal pine woods between. Even the regular horizon of the ocean is more interesting. The train is a slow one and there is ample time to take in the details of the melancholy scene. The low clouds, a hard, streaked grey, as cold as the snow they hold, seem only one more touch in the already dis- mal landscape.
There is something intensely saddening in the joint effect of grey clouds, dusky pines and blackened grass on the bare fields. The still, cold air is nature's umuistaknble silence before the ·cold, dry flakes cover the expectant ground.
Kow we cross a tt·estle and the dull roar also is in keeping with the day, the conntry, and my mood. A stream splashes on the rocks bclmY; the ice forming in clusters on the stones nud half-subrnrrged branches. The whistle moans in a long dull note; the great engine sohs like a sick child as it meets the grade. All the cars creak aud groan under thc.strain.