<I>There is no night so dark, so black as night in the country.</I> And while the people dream of daytime things, the nighttime world awakens. Owls swoop, a rabbit patters, and in the yard an apple falls -- <I>pump!</I> -- from the tree. <P>Listen. Go to the window. Across the field a light glows. Who else is up so late? Who else watches and hears the sights and sounds of night in the country -- the many stirrings of silence, the many colors of the dark? <P>Lyrical text and velvety pictures present a very different kind of nighttime: a mysterious, moving night that will lull small children to sleep.