sound

I wonder why it's so quiet here; not our house but the neigborhood itself - so much that I think if voices are raised indoors that someone outside could possibly hear them. Inside the house there are sounds of air vents, fans, electrical hums, creaks. It's not the cacophony of nocturnal noises that my grandparents, the Hardy's, house was but there is quite a symphony of sound in this old house.

In Rufus Hardy's house, there were constantly bangs and groans from things turning on or shutting down, compressors, motors, electrical hums, loud clocks, etc. The mechanics of older buildings are simple yet mysterious.

In Horace Crowe's house, the only sounds were TV or radio broadcasts. Even the old "baby-burner" furnace in the floor was silent because it relied on hot air rising to conduct the heat. Ceilings were high with open transoms above the doorways to help keep the building cooler at ground level in th summer. All of the noise in their dodgy, poor neighborhood came from outside the house, where there was always some sort of drama going on.