The California Birthday Book
by
Various
Part 3 out of 5
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
JUNE 17.
Of all the old grandees who, not forty years before, had called the
Californias their own; living a life of Arcadian magnificence,
troubled by few cares, a life of riding over vast estates clad in silk
and lace, _botas_ and _sombreros_, mounted upon steeds as
gorgeously caparisoned as themselves, eating, drinking, serenading at
the gratings of beautiful women, gambling, horse-racing, taking part
in splendid religious festivals, with only the languid excitement of
an occasional war between rival governors to disturb the placid
surface of their lives--of them all Don Roberto was a man of wealth
and consequence today.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _The Californians._
JUNE 18.
The house was a ruinous adobe in the old Mexican quarter of Los
Angeles. The great, bare, whitewashed room contained only the altar
and a long mirror in a tarnished gilt frame; one, the symbol of
earthly vanity; the other, the very portal of heaven. All the carved
mahogany furniture had long since gone to buy food and charcoal or a
rare black gown.
AMANDA MATHEWS,
in _The Old Pueblo._
All sorts of men came here in early days--poor men of good family who
had failed at home, or were too proud to work there; desperadoes,
adventurers, men of middle life and broken fortunes--all of them
expecting everything from the new land, and ready to tear the heart
out of any one who got in their way. * * * Of course, there are
Californians and Californians.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _A Whirl Asunder._
JUNE 19.
Beneath the surface--ah, there lie a numerous host, sad relics of
bygone times. In our cities in poverty, wretchedness, and, alas! too
often in dissipation, or, happier fate, in canyon or on hillside where
woodman's axe is heard, one may find men wearily, sadly, often
faithfully performing their daily labor who were born heirs to leagues
of land where ranged mighty herds of cattle and horses--men who as
boys, perhaps, played their games of quoits with golden slugs from the
Indian baskets sitting about the courtyard of their fathers' houses.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Some of Our Spanish Families._
JUNE 20.
Jameson's cord led out to the Spanish quarter. Some old senoras, their
heads covered with shawls, their clothes redolent with the smell of
garlic, from time to time shambled across his pathway. They were heavy
old women, in worn flapping slippers and uncorseted figures. * * *
With them, this saying, "It is time to be old," to throw down the game
like some startled player, and cast one's self on the mercies of the
Virgin, had come twenty years or so before it should.
FRANCES CHARLES,
in _The Siege of Youth._
A JUNE WEDDING.
The sweetheart of Summer weds today--
Pride of the Wild Rose clan:
A Butterfly fay
For a bridesmaid gay,
And a Bumblebee for best man.
CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in _Out West, June_, 1902.
JUNE 21.
They went to a one-room adobe on the plaza. A rich, greasy odor came
out from it with puffs of the onion-laden smoke of frying things which
blurred the light of the one candle set in the neck of a bottle. * * *
In the centre of the floor a circle of blackened stones held a fire of
wood coals, on the top of which rested a big clay griddle. Cakes of
ground corn were frying there, and on the stove were _enchiladas_
and _tamales_ and _chili-con-carne_ being kept warm. The air
was thick with the pungent, strong smells.
GWENDOLEN OVERTON,
in _The Golden Chain._
JUNE 22.
The homely house furnishings seemed to leap out of the darkness; the
stove, the littered table, and the couch, the iron crucifix, and the
carved cradle in the corner--all his long life Juan will see them
so--and 'Cencion turned; the dusky veil was blown and rent like the
sea mist, revealing--Holy Mother of Heaven! her father, Cenaga, the
outlaw! Juan Lopez fell on his knees below the window, the smoking
rifle clattered from his broken grasp, and the missile sped, aimless
and harmless, high into the adobe wall.
GERTRUDE B. MILLARD,
in _An Outlaw's Daughter, S.F. Argonaut, Nov._, 1896.
IN HUMBOLDT.
Dim in the noonday fullness,
Dark in the day's sweet morn--
So sacred and deep are the canyons
Where the beautiful rivers are born.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
JUNE 23.
The glow of the days of Comstock glory was still in the air. San
Francisco was still the city of gold and silver. The bonanza kings had
not left it, but were trying to accommodate themselves to the palaces
they were rearing with their loose millions. Society yet retained its
cosmopolitan tone, careless, brilliant, and unconventional. There were
figures in it that had made it famous--men who began life with a pick
and shovel and ended it in an orgy of luxury; women, whose habits of
early poverty fell off them like a garment, and who, carried away by
their power, displayed the barbaric caprices of Roman empresses.
The sudden possession of vast wealth had intoxicated this people,
lifting them from the level of the commonplace into a saturnalia of
extravagance. Poverty, the only restraint many of them had ever felt,
was gone. Money had made them lawless, whimsical, bizarre. It had
developed all-conquering personalities, potent individualities. They
were still playing with it, wondering at it, throwing it about.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _Tomorrow's Tangle._
JUNE 24.
Menlo Park, originally a large Spanish grant, had long since been cut
up into country places for what may be termed the "Old Families of San
Francisco!" The eight or ten families that owned this haughty precinct
were as exclusive, as conservative, as any group of ancient families
in Europe. Many of them had been established here for twenty years,
none for less than fifteen. This fact set the seal of gentle blood
upon them for all time in the annals of California.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _The Californians._
JUNE 25.
John Bidwell, prince of California pioneers, was my chief in a
memorable camping trip in the northern Sierras. What a magnificent
camper was Bidwell! What a world of experience, what a wealth of
reminiscence! What a knowledge; what unbounded hospitality! Not while
life lasts can I forget the gentle yet commanding greatness of this
man, whose friendships and benefactions were as broad as his spreading
acres of Rancho Chico.
ROCKWELL D. HUNT,
in _Camping Out in California, Overland Monthly,
September_, 1907.
JUNE 26.
The average stage-driver merits one's liveliest gratitude. He is the
essence of good nature and thoughtfulness. His stories, tinctured by
his own quaint personality, ward off the drowsy wings of sleep and
materially shorten the long hours of the night. * * * To the
households scattered along his route he is the never-failing bearer of
letters, and newspapers, and all sorts of commodities, from a sack of
flour to a spool of cotton. His interest in their individual needs is
universal, and the memory he displays is simply phenomenal. He has
traveled up and down among them for many years, and calls each one by
his or her given name, and in return is treated by them as one of the
family. He is sympathetic and friendly without impertinence, and in
spite of your aching head and disjointed bones, you feel an
undercurrent of regret that civilization will soon do away with these
fresh and original characters.
NINETTA EAMES,
in _Overland Monthly, January_, 1888.
JUNE 27.
When the June sunshine gladdened the Sacramento Valley, three little
bare-footed girls walked here and there among the homes and tents of
Sutter's Fort. They were scantily clothed, and one carried a thin
blanket. At night they said their prayers, lay down in whatever tent
they happened to be, and, folding the blanket about them, fell asleep
in each other's arms. When they were hungry they asked food of
whomsoever they met. If anyone inquired who they were, they answered
as their mother had taught them: "We are the children of Mr. and Mrs.
George Donner." But they added something which they had learned since.
It was: "And our parents are dead."
C.F. McGLASHAN,
in _History of the Donner Party._
JUNE 28.
This cart was gaily decorated with a canopy which was in fact an
exquisitely embroidered silken bedspread. The background was of
grass-green silk, embroidered over the entire field with brightest red
and yellow, pink and white roses, with intertwining leaves and stems,
making the old _carreta_ appear to be a real rose-bower blooming
along the King's Highway. From the edges hung a rich, deep, silken
knotted fringe. Beneath the heavy fringe again hung lace curtains.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
A half-naked beggar will find a dirty ribbon out of an ash-barrel to
ornament himself, if he happens to be a she. * * * We women are such
striking guys without our first little aids to the ugly.
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
JUNE 29.
During this unsettled period (1849), the "judge of first instance," or
alcalde, sat each day in the little school-room on the plaza of San
Francisco, trying cases, and rendering that speedy justice that was
then more desirable than exact justice, since men's time, in those
early days of 1849, was worth from sixteen dollars to one hundred
dollars per day. The judge listened to brief arguments, announced his
decision, took his fees, and called up another case; hardly once in a
hundred trials was there any thought of an appeal to the Governor at
Monterey.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in _Mining-Camps._
JUNE 30.
Like the senators Cineas found at Rome, they were an assembly of
kings, above law, who dealt out justice fresh and evenly balanced as
from the hand of the eternal. In all the uprisings in California there
has never been manifested any particular penchant on the part of the
people for catching and hanging criminals. They do not like it.
Naturally the law detests vigilance because vigilance is a standing
reproach to law. Let the law look to it and do its duty.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Popular Tribunals._
AMONG THE MARIPOSA BIG TREES.
Older than man or beast or bird,
Ancient when God first spake and Adam heard--
We gaze with souls profoundly stirred
And plead for one revealing word.
But the great trees all are silent.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
JULY 1.
VINTAGE IN THE GOLDEN LAND.
O fruit of changeless, ever-changing beauty!
Heavy with summer and the gift of love--
Caressingly I gather and lay you down;
Ensilvered as with dew, the innocent bloom
Of quiet days, yet thrilling with the warmth
Of life--tumultuous blood o' the earth!
The vital sap, the honey-laden juice
Dripping with ripeness, yields to murmuring bee
A pleasant burden; and the meadow-lark
With slow, voluptuous beak the nectar drinks
From the pierced purple.
* * * * *
How good it is, to sense the vineyard life!
To touch the fresh-veined leaves, the straggling stems,
The heavy boughs that bend along the ground;
And like a gay Bacchante, pluck the fruit
And taste the imperial flavors, beauty-wild
And singing child-songs with the bee and bird,
Deep in the vineyard's heart, 'neath the open sky--
Wide, wide, and blue, filled with sun-flooded space
And the silent song of the ripening of days!--
Eternal symbol of the bearing earth--
Harvest and vintage.
RUBY ARCHER.
JULY 2.
Whatever you believe when you are alone at night with the little imp
of conscience seated on the bedpost and whispering to you what to do,
whatever you believe to be best for yourself and best for your city at
that time, you do that thing and you won't be far wrong.
ANDREW FURUSETH.
JULY 3.
Above an elevation of four thousand feet timber is quite abundant.
Along the river-bottoms and low grounds the sycamore is found as
clean-limbed, tall and stately as elsewhere. The cottonwood, too, is
common, though generally dwarfed, scraggy and full of dead limbs. A
willow still more scraggy, and having many limbs destroyed with
mistletoe, is often found in the same places. The elder rises above
the dignity of a shrub, or under-shrub, but can hardly be found a
respectable tree. Two varieties of oak are common, and the alder forms
here a fine tree along the higher water-courses.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
JULY 4.
A WESTERN FOURTH.
Here, where Peralta's cattle used to stray;
Here, where the Spaniards in their early day
Rode, jingling, booted, spurred, nor ever guessed
Our race would own the land by them possessed;
Here, where Castilian bull-fights left their stain
Of blood upon the soil of this New Spain;
Here, where old live-oaks, spared till we condemn.
Still wait within this city named for them--
We celebrate, with bombshell and with rhyme
Our noisiest Day of Days of yearly time!
O bare Antonio's hills that rim our sky--
Antonio's hills, that used to know July
As but a time of sleep beneath the sun--
Such days of languorous dreaming are all done!
MARY BAMFORD,
in _Fourth of July Celebration, Oakland_, 1902.
JULY 5.
THE LIVE-OAKS.
In massy green, upon the crest
Of many a slanting hill,
By gentle wind and sun caressed,
The live-oaks carry still
A ponderous head, a sinewy breast,
A look of tameless will.
They plant their roots full firmly deep,
As for the avalanche;
And warily and strongly creep
Their slow trunks to the branch;
A subtle, devious way they keep,
Thrice cautious to be stanch.
A mighty hospitality
At last the builders yield,
For man and horse and bird and bee
A hospice and a shield,
Whose monolithic mystery
A curious power concealed.
RUBY ARCHER,
in _Los Angeles Times._
JULY 6.
FATE AND I.
"Thine the fault, not mine," I cried.
Brooding bitterly,
And Fate looked grim and once again
Closed in and grappled me.
"Mine, not thine, the fault," I said,
Discerning verity,
And Fate arose and clasped my hand
And made a man of me.
HAROLD S. SYMMES,
in _The American Magazine, April_, 1909.
JULY 7.
THE BROTHERHOOD OF TREES.
Dear brotherhood of trees! With you we find
Robust and hearty friendship, free from all
The laws of petty gods men travail for.
No wrangle here o'er things of small avail--
No knavery, nor charity betrayed--
But comrade beings--'Stalwart, steadfast, good.
You help the world in the noblest way of all--
By living nobly--showing in your lives
The utmost beauty, the full power and love
That through your wisdom and your long desire
Thrill in your vibrant veins from heart of earth.
Open your arms, O Trees, for us who come
With woodland longings in our pilgrim souls!
RUBY ARCHER.
JULY 8.
The scene was a ravine that had been cloven into the flank of a mighty
mountain as if by the stroke of a giant's axe. For about half a mile
this gash ran sharp and narrow; but at the upper end, the resting
place of the travelers, it widened into a spacious amphitheatre,
dotted with palm trees that rose with clean cylindrical boles sixty to
eighty feet before spreading their crowns of drooping leafage against
the azure of a cloudless sky--a wonderful touch of Egypt and the East
to surroundings typical of the American Far West.
EDMUND MITCHELL,
in _In Desert Keeping._
The noblest life--the life of labor;
The noblest love--the love of neighbor.
LORENZO SOSSO,
in _Wisdom for the Wise._
JULY 9.
THE LIVE OAKS AT MENLO PARK.
The road wound for some half mile through a stretch of uncultivated
land, dotted with the forms of huge live-oaks. The grass beneath them
was burnt gray and was brittle and slippery. The massive trees, some
round and compact and so densely leaved that they were impervious to
rain as an umbrella, others throwing out long, gnarled arms as if
spellbound in some giant throe of pain, cast vast slanting shadows
upon the parched ground. Some seemed, like trees in Dore's drawings,
to be endowed with a grotesque, weird humanness of aspect, as though
an imprisoned dryad or gnome were struggling to escape, causing the
mighty trunk to bow and writhe, and sending tremors of life along each
convulsed limb. A mellow hoariness marked them all, due to their own
richly subdued coloring and the long garlands of silvery moss that
hung from their boughs like an old, rich growth of hair.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _Tomorrow's Tangle._
JULY 10.
MADRONA.
No other of our trees, to those who know it in its regions of finest
development, makes so strong an appeal to man's imagination--to his
love of color, of joyful bearing, of sense of magic, of surprise and
change. He walks the woods in June or July and rustles the mass of
gold-brown leaves fresh fallen under foot, or rides for unending weeks
across the Mendocino ranges--and always with a sense of fresh interest
and stimulation at the varying presence of this tree.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Trees of California._
JULY 11.
THE WOODS OF THE WEST.
Oh, woods of the west, leafy woods that I love.
Where through the long days I have heard
The prayer of the wind in the branches above,
And the tremulous song of the bird.
Where the clust'ring blooms of the dog-wood hang o'er--
White stars in the dusk of the pine,
And down the dim aisles of the old forest pour
The sunbeams that melt into wine!
* * * * *
Oh, woods of the west, I am sighing today
For the sea-songs your voices repeat,
For the evergreen glades, for the glades far away
From the stifling air of the street,
And I long, ah, I long to be with you again
And to dream in that region of rest.
Forever apart from this warring of men--
Oh, wonderful woods of the west!
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
JULY 12.
The Mohave yucca is a remarkable plant, which resembles in its nature
both the cactus and the palm. It is found nowhere save in the Mohave
Desert. It attains a height of thirty or forty feet, and the trunk,
often two or three feet in diameter, supports half a dozen irregular
branches, each tipped with a cluster of spine-like leaves. The
flowers, which are of a dingy white color, come out in March and last
until May, giving off a disagreeable odor. The fruit, however, which
is two or three inches long, is pulpy and agreeable, resembling a date
in flavor.
ARTHUR J. BURDICK,
in _The Mystic Mid-Region._
JULY 13 AND 14.
Throughout the coast region, except in the extreme north, this Live
Oak is the most common and characteristic tree of the Coast Range
valleys which it beautifies with low broad heads whose rounded
outlines are repeated in the soft curves of the foothills. Disposed in
open groves along the bases of low hills, fringing the rich lands
along creeks or scattered by hundreds or thousands over the fertile
valley floors, the eyes of the early Spanish explorers dwelt on the
thick foliage of the swelling crowns and read the fertility of the
land in these evergreen oaks which they called Encina. The chain of
Franciscan Missions corresponded closely to the general range of the
Live Oak although uniformly well within the margin of its geographical
limits both eastward and northward. The vast assemblage of oaks in the
Santa Clara Valley met the eyes of Portola, discoverer of San
Francisco Bay, in 1769, and a few years later, Crespi, in the
narrative of the expedition of 1772, called the valley the "Plain of
Oaks of the Port of San Francisco." Then came Vancouver, Englishman
and discoverer. Although he was the first to express a just estimate
of the Bay of San Francisco, which he declared to be as fine as any
port in the world, nevertheless it is his felicitous and appreciative
description of the groves of oaks, the fertile soil (of which they
were a sign), and the equable climate that one reads between his lines
of 1792 the prophecy of California's later empire.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Silva of California._
JULY 15.
Huge live-oaks, silvered with a boar of lichen, stretched their boughs
in fantastic frenzies. Gray fringes of moss hung from them, and
tangled screens of clematis and wild grape caught the sunlight in
their flickering meshes or lay over mounds of foliage like a torn
green veil. * * *
For nearly two miles the carriage drive wound upward through this
sylvan solitude. As it approached the house a background of emerald
lawns shone through the interlacing branches, and brilliant bits of
flower beds were set like pieces of mosaic between gray trunks.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
JULY 16.
The Yellow Pine is the most abundant and widely distributed tree of
the forests of California and is particularly characteristic of the
Sierra Nevada, where it attains its finest development. The largest
trees most commonly grow along the ridges and it is the ridges which
the trails ordinarily follow. Here the traveler may journey day after
day, over needle-carpeted or grassy ground, mostly free of underbrush,
amidst great clean shafts 40 to 150 feet high, of really massive
proportions but giving a sense of lightness by reason of their color,
symmetry, and great height. No two trunks in detail of bark are
modeled exactly alike, for each has its own particular finish; so it
is that the eye never wearies of the fascination of the Yellow Pine
but travels contentedly from trunk to trunk and wanders satisfyingly
up and down their splendid columns--the finest of any pine.
W.L. JEPSON,
in _Silva of California._
JULY 17.
MENDOCINO.
A vast cathedral by the western sea,
Whose spires God set in majesty on high,
Peak after peak of forests to the sky,
Blended in one vast roof of greenery.
The nave, a river broadening to the sea:
The aisles, deep canyons of eternal build;
The transepts, valleys with God's splendor filled;
The shrines, white waterfalls in leaf-laced drapery;
The choir stands westward by the sounding shore;
The cliffs like beetling pipes set high in air;
Roll from the beach the thunders crashing there;
The high wind-voices chord the breakers' roar;
And wondrous harmonies of praise and prayer
Swell to the forest altars evermore.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
JULY 18.
They were passing an orange-grove, and they entered a road bordered
with scarlet geraniums that wound for a mile through eucalyptus trees,
past artificial lakes where mauve water-lilies floated in the sun, and
boats languorously invited occupants. Finally they came upon a smooth
sward like that of an English park, embellished with huge date-palms,
luxuriant magnolias, and regal banana-trees. Then they passed a brook
tumbling in artificial cascades between banks thick with mossy ferns,
and bright with blossoms. The children led their companion beneath fig
and bay trees through an Italian garden; all of this splendid luxury
of verdure had sprung from the desert as the result of a fortune
patiently spent in irrigation.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
JULY 19.
Some men have an eye for trees and an inborn sympathy with these
rooted giants, as if the same sap ran in their own veins. To them
trees have a personality quite as animals have, and, to be sure, there
are "characters" among trees. I knew a solitary yellow pine which
towered in the landscape, the last of its race. Its vast columnal
trunk seemed to loom and expand as one approached. Always there was
distant music in the boughs above, a noble strain descending from the
clouds. Its song was more majestic than that of any other tree, and
fell upon the listening ear with the far-off cadence of the surf, but
sweeter and more lyrical, as if it might proceed from some celestial
harp. Though there was not a breeze stirring below, this vast tree
hummed its mighty song. Apparently its branches had penetrated to
another world than this, some sphere of increasing melody.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
JULY 20.
You will think the gentlemen were fine dandies in those Mexican days,
when I tell you that they often wore crimson velvet knee trousers
trimmed with gold lace, embroidered white shirts, bright green cloth
or velvet jackets with rows and rows of silver buttons and red sashes
with long streaming ends. Their wide-brimmed _sombreros_ (hats)
were trimmed with silver or gold braid and tassels. * * * Each
gentleman wore a large Spanish cloak of rich velvet or embroidered
cloth, and if it rained, he threw over his fine clothes a
_serape_, or square woolen blanket, with a slit cut in the middle
for the head.
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in _Stories of California._
JULY 21.
ON THE PLANTING OF THE TREES AT THE PACIFIC THEOLOGICAL
SEMINARY, OAKLAND.
And what shall be the children's tree,
To grow while we are sleeping?
The maple sweet; the manzanete;
The gentle willow weeping;
The larch; the yew; the oak so true,
Kind mother strong and tender;
Or, white and green, in gloss and sheen,
Queen Magnolia's splendor?
One wan, hot noon. His path was strewn,
Whose love did all love quicken,
With leaves of palm while song and psalm
Held all the world to listen.
For His dear sake, the palm we'll take--
Each frond shall be a prayer
That He will guide, whate'er betide,
Until we meet Him there.
CHARLES J. WOODBURY.
JULY 22.
The landscape, glazed with heat, seemed to faint under the unwinking
glare of the sun. From the parched grass-land and the thickets of
chaparral, pungent scents arose--the ardent odors that the woods of
foot-hill California exhale in the hot, breathless quiescence of
summer afternoons. * * *
The air came over it in glassy waves, carrying its dry, aromatic
perfume to one's nostrils. On its burnt expanse a few huge live-oaks
rose dark and dome-like, their shadows, black and irregular, staining
the ground beneath them.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
JULY 23.
With great discomfort and considerable difficulty they threaded this
miniature forest, starting all sorts of wild things as they went on.
Cotton-tail rabbits fled before them. Gophers stuck their heads out of
the ground, and viewed them with jewel-like eyes, then noiselessly
retreated to their underground preserves. Large gray ground squirrels
sat up on their haunches, with bushy tails curled gracefully around
them and wee forepaws dropped downward as if in mimic courtesy, but
scampered off at their approach. Flocks of birds arose from their
feeding grounds, and lizards rustled through the dead leaves.
FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD,
in _The Abandoned Claim._
JULY 24.
THE SENTINEL TREE.
(CYPRESS POINT, CALIFORNIA.)
A giant sentinel, alone it stands
On rocky headland where the breakers roar,
Parted from piny woods and pebbled shore.
Holding out branches as imploring hands.
Poor lonely tree, where never bird doth make
Its nest, or sing at morn and eve to thee,
Nor in whose shadow wild rose calleth bee
To come on gauzy wing for love's sweet sake.
Nature cares for thee, gives thee sunshine gold,
Handfuls of pearls cast from the crested waves,
For thee pink-throated shells soft murmurs hold,
And seaweed vested chorists chant in caves.
Whence came thee, lone one of an alien band.
To guard an outpost of this sunset land?
GRACE HIBBARD,
in _Forget-me-nots from California._
JULY 25.
IN THE MEXICAN JUNGLE.
The jungle, however, rang with life. Brilliant birds flew, screaming
at their approach--noisy parrots and macaws; the _gaucamaya_, one
flush of red and gold; a king vulture, raven black save for his
scarlet crest. From the safe height of a saber, monkeys showered
vituperations upon them. Once an _iguana_, great chameleon
lizard, rose under foot and dashed for the nearest water; again a
python wound its slow length across the path. Vegetation was equally
gorgeous, always strange. He saw plants that stung more bitterly than
insects; insects barely distinguishable from plants. Here a tree bore
flowers instead of leaves; there flowers grew as large as trees. * * *
Birds, beasts, flowers--all were strange, all were wonderful.
HERMAN WHITAKER,
in _The Planter._
JULY 26.
Sitting in the white-paved pergola at Montecito. with overhead a leafy
shelter of pink-flowered passifloras, looking out over the little
lake, its surface dotted with water-lilies, its banks fringed with
drooping shrubs and vines, the hum of the bee and the bird in the
air--I looked down over a wonderful collection of nearly 200 rare
palms and listened to the music that floated up from their waving
branches like that of a thousand silken-stringed eolian harp; and
there came into my mind visions of a people that shall be strong with
the strength of great hills, calm with the calm of a fair sea, united
as are at last the palm and the pine, mighty with the presence of God.
BELLE SUMNER ANGIER,
in _The Garden Book of California._
JULY 27.
THE GIANT SEQUOIAS.
O lofty giants of the elder prime!
How may the feeble lips, of mortal, rhyme
A measure fitted to thy statures grand,
As like a gathering of gods ye stand
And raise your solemn arms up to the skies,
While through your leaves pour Ocean's symphonies!
What Druid lore ye know! What ancient rites--
Gray guardians of ten thousand days and nights,
Watching the stars swim round their sapphire pole,
The ocean surges break about earth's brimming bowl.
The cyclone's driving swirl, the storm-tossed seas.
Hymning for aye their myriad litanies!
* * * * *
What dawn of Life saw ye, Grand Prophets old?
What pristine years? What advents manifold?
When first the glaciers in their icy throes
Were grinding thy repasts; and feeding thee with snows?
What earthquake shocks? What changes of the sun?
While ye laughed down their wrack and builded on!
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
JULY 28.
High above on the western cliff a giant head of cactus reared infernal
arms and luminous bloom. One immense clump threw a shadow across the
cliff road where it leaves the river plain and winds along the canyon
to the mesa above the sea--the road over which in the old days the
Mission Indians bore hides to the ships and flung them from the cliffs
to the waiting boats below.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
JULY 29.
Distinct from all others, the sequoias are a race apart. The big-tree,
and the redwood of the Coast Range, are the only surviving members of
that ancient family, the giants of the fore-world. Their immense
trunks might be the fluted columns of some noble order of
architecture, surviving its builders like the marble temples of
Greece--columns three hundred feet high and thirty feet through at the
base. Such a vast nave, such majestic aisles, such sublime spires,
only the forest cathedrals know. Symmetrical silver firs, giant cedars
and spruce, grow side by side with sugar pines of vast and irregular
outline, whose huge branches, like outstretched arms, hold aloft the
splendid cones--such is the ancient wood.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
JULY 30.
Said one, "This city, as you know,
Though young in years, as cities go,
Has quite a history to repeat
If records have been kept complete.
Oft has it felt the earthquake shock
That made the strongest building rock.
And more than once 'gone up' in smoke
Till scarce a building sheltered folk.
The citizens can point to spots
Where people fashioned hangman's knots
With nimble fingers, to supply
Some hardened rogues a hempen tie,
Whom _Vigilantes_ and their friends
Saw fit to drop from gable-ends."
PALMER COX,
in _The Brownies Through California._
JULY 31.
ROSEMARY.
Indian summer has gone with its beautiful moon.
And all the sweet roses I gathered in June
Are faded. It may be the cloud-sylphs of Even
Have stolen the tints of those roses for Heaven.
O bonnie bright blossom! in the years far away.
So evanished thy bloom on an evening in May.
The sunlight now sleeps in the lap of the west,
And the star-beams are barring its chamber of rest.
While Twilight is weaving her blue-tinted bowers
To mellow the landscape where slumber the flowers.
I would fain learn the music that won thee away,
When the earth was the beautiful temple of May;
For our fancies were measured the bright summer long
To the carols we learned from the lark's morning song.
They still haunt me--those echoes from Child land--but now
My heart beats alone to their musical flow.
_Then_ I never looked up to the portals on high,
For our Heaven was here; and our azure-stained sky
Was the violet mead; the cloud-billows of snow
Were the pale nodding lilies; the roses that glow
On the crown of the hill, gave the soft blushing hue:
The gold was the crocus; the silver, the dew
Which met as it fell, the glad sunlight of smiles.
And wove the gay rainbow of Hope, o'er our aisles.
But the charm of the spring-time has vanished with thee;
To its mystical speech I've forgotten the key;
Yet, if angels and flowers _are_ closely allied,
I may trace thy lost bloom on the blushing hillside;
And when rose-buds are opening their petals in June,
I'll feel thou art near me and teaching the tune.
Which chanted by seraphim, won thee away
On that blossoming eve, from the gardens of May.
MARY V. TINGLEY LAWRENCE,
in _Poetry of the Pacific._
A VOICE ON THE WIND.
And out of the West came a voice on the wind:
O seek for the truth and behold, ye shall find!
O strive for the right and behold, ye shall do
All things that the Master commandeth of you.
For love is the truth ye have sought for so long,
And love is the right that ye strove for through wrong.
Love! love spheres our lives with a halo of fire,
But God, how 'tis dimmed by each selfish desire!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Idyls of El Dorado_ (out of print).
AUGUST 1.
THE AGE OF THE SEQUOIAS.
Prof. Jordan estimates that the oldest of the sequoias is at least
7000 years old. The least age assigned to it is 5000 years. It was a
giant when the Hebrew Patriarchs were keeping sheep. It was a sapling
when the first seeds of human civilization were germinating on the
banks of the Euphrates and the Nile. It had attained its full growth
before the Apostles went forth to spread the Christian religion. It
began to die before William of Normandy won the battle of Hastings. It
has been dying for a thousand years. And unless some accident comes to
it, it will hardly be entirely dead a thousand years from now. It has
seen the birth, growth and decay of all the generations and tribes and
nations of civilized men. It will see the birth and decay of many more
generations. It is the oldest living thing on the face of the earth.
G.W. BURTON,
in _Burton's Book on California._
AUGUST 2.
Adown the land great rivers glide
With lyric odes upon their lips,
The sheltered bay with singing tide
Forever woos the storm-tossed ships--
And yet, for me more magic teems
By California's willowed streams.
* * * * *
For some the crowded market place.
The bustle of the jammed bazaars.
The fleeting chance in fortune's race
That ends somewhere amid the stars--
Give me a chance to gather dreams
By California's willowed streams.
CLARENCE URMY,
in _Sunset Magazine._
AUGUST 3.
But what the land lacks in trees it nearly makes up in shrubs. Three
varieties of sumac, reaching often as high as fifteen or eighteen
feet, and spreading as many wide, stand thick upon a thousand
hill-sides and fill with green the driest and stoniest ravines. Two
kinds of live oak bushes, two varieties of lilac, one with white, the
other with lavender flowers, the _madrona_, the coffee-berry, the
manzanita, the wild mahogany, the choke-berry, all of brightest green,
with _adenostoma_ and _baccharis_, two dark-green bushes,
looking like red and white cedar, form what is called the chaparral.
Three varieties of dwarf-willow often grow along the water-courses,
and with the elder, wild grape, rose and sweet-briar, all well huddled
together, the chinks filled with nettles and the whole tied together
with long, trailing blackberry vines, often form an interesting
subject of contemplation for one who wants to get on the other side.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
AUGUST 4.
You who would find a new delight in the wild and waste places of the
earth, a new meaning to life, and an enlarged sympathy with your
fellow creatures, should seek them out, not in the books, but in their
homes. One bird learned and known as an individual creature, with a
life all its own, is worth volumes of reading. Listen to their
call-notes; observe their plumage and their motions; seek out their
homes, and note their devotion to their young. Then will the lower
animals become invested with a new dignity, and the homes builded not
with hands will become as sacred as the dwelling-place of your
neighbor.
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Bird Notes Afield._
AUGUST 5.
THE NAVEL ORANGE 250 YEARS AGO.
Most Americans know an orange by sight, and we of California count it
a blood relation. We do grow the best orange in the world, and ship
thousands of loads of it in a year; and we have a modest notion that
we invented it, and that we "know oranges." But the handsomest, the
fullest and the most erudite treatise on oranges ever printed does not
derive from California, nor yet from the Only Smart Nation.... On the
contrary, it was printed in Rome in the year 1646.... More accurate
drawings of these fruits have never been printed; and the
illustrations cover not only the varieties and even the "freaks" of
the Golden Apple, but the methods of planting, budding, wall-training
and housing it. Perhaps the point likeliest to jar our complacent
ignorance is the fact that this venerable work describes and pictures
seedless oranges, and even the peculiar "sport," now an established
variety, which we know as the "Navel." Two hundred and fifty seven
years ago it was called the "Female, or Foetus-bearing orange;" but no
one today can draw a better picture, nor a more unmistakable, of a
navel orange.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _Out West._
AUGUST 6.
THE SIERRA NEVADAS.
Serene and satisfied! Supreme! As lone
As God, they loom like God's archangels churl'd;
They look as cold as kings upon a throne;
* * * * *
A line of battle-tents in everlasting snow.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
AUGUST 7.
TO THE VIOLET.
Welcome little violet,
I gladly welcome thee;
Peeping with thy dewy eyes
So shyly out at me.
Modest little violet
Hide not thy face away.
I love thee and thy sweet perfume,
Thy purple-hued array.
Sweetest little violet,
I'll pluck thee gently dear,
I'll nurture thee so tenderly--
Then have of me no fear.
Sweetest little violet,
Delight of every heart;
No flow'ret rare is like thee fair,
None praised as thou art.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH.
AUGUST 8.
August is a word of dire import in the bird-lover's calendar. It means
virtually the end of the bird season. The wooing and nesting and
rearing the family are all over, and now looms before the feathered
population that annual trouble--the change of dress, the only time in
his life--happy soul!--that he has to concern himself about clothes.
In the business of getting a new suit he has more trouble than a fine
lady, for he has to shake off the old garments, while getting the new,
bit by bit, here a feather and there a feather, today a new
wing-quill; tomorrow a new plume on his dainty breast.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
AUGUST 9.
CHILDREN IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.
Legendry and literature may be taught to your children in the garden.
Tell them the pretty story of how Cupid's mother gave the rose its
thorns; the tale of the sensitive plant; and point out to them the
equipment of the cacti for their strange, hard life on the desert; the
lovely human faces filled with the sweetness of remembrance that we
find in the pansy bed. Show them the delight of the swift-flying
hummingbird in the red and yellow blossoms of the garden, and the
sagacity of the oriole in building his nest near the lantana bush--so
attractive to the insects upon which the scamp feeds.
BELLE SUMNER ANGIER,
in _The Garden Book of California._
AUGUST 10.
ON JOAQUIN MILLER.
Sierra's poet! high and pure thy muse
Enthroned doth sit amongst the stars and snows;
And from thy harp olympian music flows,
Of glacier heights and gleaming mountain dews.
Of western sea and burning sunset hues.
And we who look up--who on the plain repose,
And catch faint glimpses of the mount that throws
Athwart thy poet-sight diviner views.
And not alone from starry shrine is strung
Thy lyre, but timed to gentler lay,
That sings of children, motherhood and home,
And lifts our hearts and lives to sweeter day.
Oh, bard of Nature's heart! thy name will rest
Immortal in thy land--our Golden West!
DORA CURETON,
in _Sunset Magazine._
AUGUST 11.
THE PESSIMIST.
The pessimist leads us into a land of desolation. He makes for the
sight blossoms of ugliness; for the smell repellant odors; for the
taste bitterness and gall; for the hearing harsh discord, and death
for the touch that is the only relief from a desert whose scrawny life
lives but to distress us.
ABBOTT KINNEY,
in _Tasks By Twilight._
The leaves of the wild gourd, lying in great star shaped patches on
the ground, drooped on their stems, and the spikes of dusty white sage
by the road hung limp at the ends, and filled the air with their
wilted fragrance. The sea-breeze did not come up, and in its stead
gusts of hot wind from the north swept through the valley as if from
the door of a furnace.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
AUGUST 12.
ENTICEMENT.
Then haste, sweet April Dear.
Thou alone canst find her.
Her hair so soft, so silken soft thy breezes blow
And thou shall laugh with her, give her thy first sweet kiss.
On her white blossom's snow ...
Why, why, dost thou not fly, on clouds of love.
'Tis thou alone canst find her.
Thou fain would'st ask doth she love thee.
Thou knowest well
She loves thee,
April Dear.
ADRIADNE HOLMES EDWARDS.
AUGUST 13.
Our pitcher-plant is one of the most wonderful and interesting of all
the forms that grow, linking, as it were, the vegetable world with the
animal, by its unnatural carnivorous habits.
No ogre in his castle has ever gone to work more deliberately or
fiendishly to entrap his victims while offering them hospitality, than
does this plant-ogre. Attracted by the bizarre yellowish hoods of the
tall, nodding flowers, the foolish insect alights upon the former and
commences his exploration of the fascinating region.
But at last, when he has partaken to satiety and would fain depart, he
turns to retrace his steps. In the dazzlement of the transparent
windows of the dome above, he loses sight of the darkened door in the
floor by which he entered and flies forcibly upward, bumping his head
in his eagerness to escape. He is stunned by the blow and plunges
downward into the tube below. Here he struggles to rise, but countless
downward-pointing, bristly hairs urge him to his fate.
MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS,
in _The Wild Flowers of California._
AUGUST 14.
Sausalito is noted for its abundance of flowers. These not only grow
in thick profusion in the quaint hillside gardens, but are planted
beside the roadways, covering many an erstwhile bare and unsightly
bank with trailing vines, gay nasturtiums and bright geraniums. There
is something in the spirit of this hillside gardening, this planting
of sweet blossoms for the public at large, that is very appealing.
HELEN BINGHAM,
in _In Tamal Land._
AUGUST 15.
A GROUP OF CACTI.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)
Flower of the desert, type mysterious, strange,
Like bird or monster on some sculptured tomb
In Egypt's curious fashion wrought, what change
Or odd similitude of fate, what range
Of cycling centuries from out the gloom
Of dusty ages has evolved thy bloom?
In the bleak desert of an alien zone,
Child of the past, why dwellest thou alone?
Grotesque, incongruous, amid the flowers;
Unlovely and unloved, standing aside,
Like to some rugged spirit sheathed in pride;
Unsmiling to the sun, untouched by showers--
The dew falls--every bud has drunk its fill:
Bloom of the desert, thou art arid still!
MARY E. MANNIN.
AUGUST 16.
In late spring and early summer upon the fading grasslands and on the
dry sunny slopes of the hills, the Mariposa tulips set their
long-stemmed chalices of delicate color. Bulbous plants of the lily
family, they are frequently called Mariposa lilies, but as a matter of
fact their relationship is very near to the true tulips of the Old
World, and like the latter, they have been extensively introduced into
cultivation both in this country and abroad.
The petals are often conspicuously marked with lines and dots and
eye-like spots in a manner that suggests the gay wings of a butterfly,
whence the term, "Mariposa," which is the Spanish word for that
insect.
ELIZABETH H. SAUNDERS,
in _California Wild Flowers._
AUGUST 17.
COPA DE ORO.
(CALIFORNIA POPPY.)
Thy satin vesture richer is than looms
Of Orient weave for raiment of her kings,
Not dyes of olden Tyre, not precious things
Regathered from the long forgotten tombs
Of buried empires, not the iris plumes
That wave upon the tropics' myriad wings,
Not all proud Sheba's queenly offerings,
Could match the golden marvel of thy blooms,
For thou art nurtured from the treasure-veins
Of this fair land; thy golden rootlets sup
Her sands of gold--of gold thy petals spun,
Her golden glory, thou! of hills and plains,
Lifting, exultant, every kingly cup
Brimmed with the golden vintage of the sun.
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
AUGUST 18.
The Golden Eagle is California's noblest bird of prey. He is more than
a match for any animal of his own size. Not a beast of the field or a
fowl of the air can dispossess him; he stands intrepid before every
earthly power except the hand of man. He is shy and wary at all times,
clean and handsome, swift in flight and strong in body. An experience
gained in the fiercest of schools makes the Eagle as formidable as any
creature of the wild. He is a valuable inhabitant of any cattle range
or farming community. His food consists almost entirely of the ground
squirrels that are so abundant through the California hills and cause
such damage to the grain fields.
WILLIAM L. FINLEY,
in _Feathered Foragers._
AUGUST 19.
THE POPPY'S CHIMES.
With all this youth to cheer his eyes
No man is ever old,
With all this wealth to fill his purse
No one need lack for gold.
O rare Ben Jonson, you should see
The draught that I may sup:
How sweet the drink, her kiss within.
The poppy's golden cup.
My lowly queen, I bow to thee
And worship with my soul:
I hope to drink her love from out
The poppy's golden bowl.
Look up, my sweet, and catch my words,
A secret I would tell:
I think I hear her "Yes" ring from
The poppy's golden bell.
CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN,
in _Sunset, August_, 1908.
AUGUST 20.
Flowering vines overhung, climbed and clung about the balcony pillars
and balustrades. Roses drooped in heavy-headed cascades from
second-story railings; the wide purple flowers of the clematis climbed
aloft. On one wall a heliotrope broke in lavender foam and the creamy
froth of the Banksia rose dabbled railings and pillars and dripped
over on to the ground. It was a big, cool, friendly looking house with
a front door that in summer was always open, giving the approaching
visitor a hospitable glimpse of an airy, unencumbered hall.
GERALDINE BONNER,
in _The Pioneer._
AUGUST 21.
A DREAM OF POPPIES.
Brown hills long parched, long lifting to the blue
Of summer's brilliant sky but russet hue
Of sere grass shivering in the trade-wind's sweep.
Soon, with light footfalls, from their tranced sleep
The first rains bid the poppies rise anew,
And trills the lark exultant summons, too.
How swift at Fancy's beck those gay crowds leap
To glowing life! The eager green leaves creep
For welcome first; then hooded buds, pale gold,
Each tender shower and sun-kiss help unfold
Till smiling hosts crowd all the fields, and still
A yellow sea of poppies breasts each hill
And breaks in joyous floods as children hold
Glad hands the lavish cups as gladly fill!
ELLA M. SEXTON,
in _The Golden Poppy._
AUGUST 22.
CALIFORNIA.
Her poppies fling a cloth of gold
O'er California's hills--
Fit emblem of the wealth untold
That hill and dale and plain unfold.
Her fame the whole world fills.
ELIZA D. KEITH.
_How can one convey meaning to another in a language_ which that
other does not understand? I can only tell you the charm of the
desert, when you, too, have learned to love it. And then there will be
no need for me to speak.
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Miner's Mirage Land._
AUGUST 23.
THE PAEAN OF THE POPPIES.
The mountains sway with flame
Where the frail glories tremble--
Fair fallen stars of fire!
The valleys green acclaim
The legions that assemble
In royal robe and tire,
With timbrel, shawm and choir.
* * * * *
Afar in darker lands
I feel their kisses burning
As sweet, uncertain lips.
As faint, unhindered hands
Are felt by exiles yearning
On shores when tears eclipse
The wan and westering ships.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
AUGUST 24.
PEACE.
No hand have I on rudder laid;
All my oars lie idly by;
All my sheets are steadfast made.
For Love now guides me silently.
His are the waves and flowing tide;
He is my bark and chart and hand;
He is companion at my side;
His the coming and departed land.
Somewhere, I know, I port shall win;
Somewhen I know, dear friends, I'll see;
Love, "The I Am" is lord within!
Daily he brings mine own to me.
HENRY HARRISON BROWN,
in _Now, March_, 1900.
AUGUST 25.
IN THE SEASON OF POPPIES.
From the shoulders of Dawn the night shadow slipped,
As the shy, saintly Moon evaded her tryst
With the roystering Sun, who eagerly sipped
From the valley's green cup the golden-white mist.
Day flashed like a smile from Dawn's rosy mouth,
With a passion of birds and fragrant appeals,
And the warm winds up from the sleepy South
Sluiced the red, scented gold of our poppy fields.
HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _Overland Monthly, Sept._, 1908.
AUGUST 26.
WHEN THE POPPY GOES TO SLEEP.
Now the sandman comes a-calling,
And those eyes can scarcely peep:
It is little children's bedtime
When the poppy goes to sleep.
In the west the sun is sinking,
And the chickens go to roost:
And the poppy folds its petals
That the beaming sun had loosed.
* * * * *
And the poppy like the Arab,
Silent in the close of day,
Fearful of the coming darkness,
Folds its tent and steals away.
Hear the sandman's final warning
On the land and on the deep,
Saying, "Good night, good night, good night,"
When the poppy goes to sleep.
CHARLES McKNIGHT SAIN,
in _The Call of the Muse._
AUGUST 27.
THE SIERRA SNOW-PLANT.
Thou growest in eternal snows
As flower never grew;
The sun upon thy beauty throws
No kiss--the dawn no dew.
Thou knowest not the love-warm marl
Of Earth, but dead and white
The wastes wherein thy roots ensnarl
Ere thou art freed in light.
Where blighted dawns, with twilight blent,
Die pale, thou liftest strong,
A tongue of crimson, eloquent
With one unceasing song.
O Life in vasts of death! O Flame
That thrills the stark expanse;
Let Love and Longing be thy name!
Love and Renunciance.
HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in _Looms of Life._
AUGUST 28.
IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.
Thro' the green cloister, folding us within.
The leaves are audible--our ear to win;
They whisper of the realm of old Romance.
Of sunny Spain, and of chivalric France;
And poor Ramona's love and her despair,
Thrill, like Aeolian harp, the twilight air--
So the dear garden claims its mystic due.
Linking the legends of the Old and New.
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in _The Grizzly Bear Magazine, June_, 1909.
AUGUST 29.
The evening primrose covers the lower slopes with long sheets of
brightest yellow, and from the hills above, the rock-rose adds its
golden bloom to that of the sorrel and the wild alfalfa, until the
hills almost outshine the bright light from the slopes and plains. And
through all this nods a tulip of delicate lavender; vetches, lupins
and all the members of the wild-pea family are pushing and winding
their way everywhere in every shade of crimson, purple and white. New
bell-flowers of white and blue and indigo rise above the first, which
served merely as ushers to the display, and whole acres ablaze with
the orange of the poppy are fast turning with the indigo of the
larkspur. The mimulus alone is almost enough to color the hills.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
AUGUST 30.
THE MARIPOSA LILY.
Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing,
Poised upon slender tip, and quivering
To flight! a flower of the fields of air;
A jeweled moth; a butterfly, with rare
And tender tints upon his downy wings,
A moment resting in our happy sight;
A flower held captive by a thread so slight
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer
Are light as the wind, with every wind astir,
Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.
O dainty nursling of the field and sky.
What fairer thing looks up to heaven's blue
And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning's dew?
Thou winged bloom! thou blossom-butterfly!
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
AUGUST 31.
CALIFORNIA PHILOSOPHY.
You kin talk about yer eastern states, their stiddy growth 'nd size,
'Nd brag about yer cities, with their business enterprise;
You kin blow about tall buildin's runnin' clean up to the clouds,
'Nd gas about yer graded streets 'nd chirp about yer crowds;
But how about yer "twisters" 'nd the cyclones you have there,
That's runnin' 'round uncorralled 'nd a-gittin' on a tear,
'Nd a-mixin' towns 'nd counties up at sich a tarnal rate
A man can't be dead sartin that he's in his native state.
You needn't talk to me about yer "enterprise" 'nd "go,"
Fer how about them river floods us folks hear tell of so,
Where a feller goes to bed at night with nary thought o' fear,
'Nd discovers in the mornin' that he's changed his hemisphere;
'Nd where grasshoppers eat the crops 'nd all about the place,
But leave that gilt-edged mortgage there ter stare you in the face.
If that is where you want ter live it's where you'd orter be,
But I reckon ol' Cal'forny's good 'nough fer me.
I sort o' low the climate thar is somewhat diff'runt too,
Accordin' to the weather prophet's watchful p'int o' view.
In course, if ten foot snowbanks don't bother you at all,
Er slosh 'nd mud 'nd drizzlin' rain, combined with a snowfall,
It's just the most delightful spot this side o' heaven's dome--
But I kind o' sorter reckon that I couldn't call it home.
When you talk about that climate, it's all tomfoolery,
Fer sunny ol' Cal'forny's good enough fer me.
Oh, you live away back east, you don't know what you miss
By stayin' in that measly clime, without the joy an' bliss
Of knowin' what the weather is from one day to the next;
It's "mebby this," "I hope it's that," er some such like pretext.
Come out to Californy' whar the sky is allers bright,
'Nd where the sun shines all the while, with skeerce a cloud in sight;
You'd never pine fer eastern climes--ther's no denyin' that--
Fer when you want a heaven on earth, Los Angeles stands pat.
E.A. BRININSTOOL.
CALIFORNIA.
In all methinks I see the counterpart
Of Italy, without her dower of art.
We have the lordly Alps, the fir-fringed hills,
The green and golden valleys veined with rills,
A dead Vesuvius with its smouldering fire,
A tawny Tiber sweeping to the sea.
Our seasons have the same superb attire,
The same redundant wealth of flower and tree,
Upon our peaks the same imperial dyes,
And day by day, serenely over all,
The same successive months of smiling skies.
Conceive a cross, a tower, a convent wall,
A broken column and a fallen fane,
A chain of crumbling arches down the plain,
A group of brown-faced children by a stream,
A scarlet-skirted maiden standing near,
A monk, a beggar, and a muleteer,
And lo! it is no longer now a dream.
These are the Alps, and there the Apennines;
The fertile plains of Lombardy between;
Beyond Val d'Arno with its flocks and vines,
These granite crags are gray monastic shrines
Perched on the cliffs like old dismantled forts;
And far to seaward can be dimly seen
The marble splendor of Venetian courts;
While one can all but hear the mournful rhythmic beat
Of white-lipped waves along the sea-paved street.
O childless mother of dead empires, we,
The latest born of all the western lands,
In fancied kinship stretch our infant hands
Across the intervening seas to thee.
Thine the immortal twilight, ours the dawn,
Yet we shall have our names to canonize,
Our past to haunt us with its solemn eyes,
Our ruins, when this restless age is gone.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.
SEPTEMBER 1.
THE SCARF OF IRIS.
Something magical is near me--hidden, breathing everywhere,
Shaken out in mystic odors, caught unseen in the mid-air.
Life is waking, palpitating; souls of flowers are drawing nigh;
Flitting birds with fluted warble weave between the earth and sky;
And a soft excitement welling from the inmost heart of things
Such a sense of exaltation, such a call to rapture brings,
That my heart--all tremulous with a virgin wonderment--
Waits and yearns and sings in carols of the rain and sunshine blent,
Knowing more will be revealed with the dawning every day--
For the fairy scarf of Iris falls across the common way.
RUBY ARCHER.
SEPTEMBER 2.
To the left as you rode you saw, far on the horizon, rising to the
height of your eye, the mountains of the Channel Islands. Then the
deep sapphire of the Pacific, fringed with the soft, unchanging white
of the surf and the yellow of the shore. Then the town like a little
map, and the lush greens of the wide meadows, the fruit-groves, the
lesser ranges--all vivid, fertile, brilliant, and pulsating with
vitality.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
SEPTEMBER 3.
Never was garden more unintentionally started, and never did one prove
greater source of pleasure. * * * One day, about Christmas time, my
little nephew brought me two small twigs of honeysuckle--not slips or
shoots, and I stuck them in the ground by the front porch. * * * When
it was just eighteen months old honeysuckle vines were twining tenderly
about the corner pillars of the porch, drawing their network across to
the other support, and covered with bunches of white, creamy tubes, the
air heavy with their perfume. * * * The climbing rose had reached the
lattice work, and its yellowish flowers formed a most effective
contrast to the sky-blue of the sollya blossoms, trained up on the
other side of the porch. The beds were edged variously with dark blue
violets and pink daisies, above which bloomed salvias, euphorbias,
lantanas, tube-roses, forget-me-nots, carnations, white lilies, Japan
lilies, iris, primroses, ranunculus, lilies-of-the-valley, pansies,
anemones, dahlias, and roses--white, red, pink, yellow, crimson,
cream--in the wildest profusion.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Another Juanita._
SEPTEMBER 4.
AFTERWARD.
A dying moon fell down the sky,
As one looked out to see
The place where once her soul endured
Its lengthened Calvary.
Of all the mem'ries gathered there--
Their faces wan with tears--
One only smiled--a baby's smile--
To rectify the years.
DOROTHEA L. MOORE.
SEPTEMBER 5.
The harvesting of hops is the conjunction of the rude essentials of
farm life with the highest effect in art. What artist but would note
enthusiastically the inimitable pose of that young girl tip-toeing to
bring down the tuft of creamy blossoms overhead; or the modest nudity
of the wee bronze savage capering about a stolid squaw in a red
sprigged muslin? Indeed, there is indescribable piquancy in this
unconscious grouping of the pickers and their freedom from restraint.
For each artistic bit--a laughing face in an aureole of amber clusters,
a statuesque chin and throat, Indians in grotesquely picturesque
raiment, and the yellow visages of the Chinese--the vines make an
idyllic framing with a sinking summer sun in the background lending a
shimmering transparency to leaf and flower.
NINETTA EAMES,
in _Hop-Picking Time, The Cosmopolitan, November_, 1893.
SEPTEMBER 6.
Golf has spread with great rapidity throughout California, and though
many people may have taken it up from an idea that it is the correct
thing, the game will always be popular, especially in the Southern part
of the State, where more people of leisure live than in the Northern
part, and where the large infusion of British and Eastern residents
tends to foster a love of out-door sports. Golf may be played in any
part of Central or Southern California on any day in the year when a
gale is not blowing or heavy rain falling. Occasionally the strong
winds render golfing somewhat arduous, but the enthusiast can play on
about three hundred and fifty days in the year.
ARTHUR INKERSLEY,
in _Overland Monthly._
SEPTEMBER 7.
My roses bud and bloom and fail me never,
From Lent and Whitsun to the Christmas time;
Climbing in eagerness and great endeavor--
Our Southland bushes ever love to climb.
JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in _My Garden._
How bright the world looked, to be sure; flowers covered the earth, not
scattered in niggardly manner as in the older, colder Eastern states,
but covering the earth for miles, showing nothing but a sea of blue, an
ocean of crimson, or a wilderness of yellow. Then came patches where
all shades and colors were mixed; delicate tints of pink and mauve, of
pure white and deep red, and over all floated a fragrance that was
never equaled by garden-flowers or their distilled perfume.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._
SEPTEMBER 8.
The love that gives all, craves all, asks nothing, is so bitter that no
one lifts the cup voluntarily, and yet if the sweetness of it could be
distilled, prosperous love would regard it enviously and kings seek it
on foot.
AMANDA MATHEWS,
in _Hieroglyphics of Love._
The world will never be saved from its sin and shame until a larger
number of men are ready to lash themselves like Ulysses of old to those
enduring principles of righteousness which stand erect like masts and
sail on, no matter what sirens of personal indulgence sing along the
course.
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.
SEPTEMBER 9.
TO CALIFORNIA:
Queen of the Sunset!
Within the crown upon thy forehead glow
The crystal jewels of eternal snow.
Down at thy feet the broad Pacific towers,
And Summer ever binds thy breast with flowers.
MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in _Debris._
The religious life of California is characterized by the spirit of
freedom and tolerance. The aim has been to "Render unto Caesar the
things which are Caesar's," by legislating only in regard to those
secular interests in which all stand alike before the law and to leave
to the free and untrammeled decision of the individual conscience those
deeper, personal attitudes and relationships "which are God's."
CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.
SEPTEMBER 10.
Gay little oriole, fond little lover,
Back to Full Books
|