In praise of bells

Bells, I'm coming to think, deserve a slightly more vaunted place in the jumbled pantheon of musical instruments.

They seem to be assigned to, tacitly, or quietly, or thoughtlessly, a second tier: they occupy, I'd argue, a place on the same mental shelf as the mandolin, or the harmonica, or the sitar. Yes, we know they have their place, and their moments - but, really, bells? How many glockenspielers can you name?

But they deserve better, as a certain toddler is teaching me. Since we spent, a couple of weeks ago, a full half hour in a tiny, toddler-scaled wooden locomotive, ringing the stout brass bell at least 50 times, I've noticed that bells are much more common, in the fabric of our lives, than I'd imagined. And not only are are they consistently present: they almost always acquit themselves in style. The clock on the spire of Corpus Christi, across from my office at MICA? Its daily chime at 12:10 is a timeless reminder of larger concerns. Two small bells, brought back from Japan by thoughtful grandparents, sit on a counter in our West Virginia barn, awaiting the arrival of Cleo's small hands, in whose grasp they tinkle gracefully. A cow, in one of Cleo's board books, wears a bell, and the thought of its sound in the colorful meadow beyond brings no small pleasure. And then there's the light rail train, with its satisfying bell delicately heralding its bulking presence, as we take a sharp turn.

Violins, pianos, and saxophones all have their partisans, their odes. Toddlers, not yet drenched in the canon, openly admit the fascination of other sounds, as well.