The California Birthday Book
by
Various
Part 4 out of 5
Watching thy mate o'er her tiny ones hover,
Tell me, I pray, from your cottonwood tree,
When will my true love come riding to me?
Will he come with his lariat hung at his side?
On a wild prancing bronco, my love, will he ride?
So high on your tree top you surely can see,
O, how will my true love come riding to me?
Sing of my lover and tell me my fate,
Will he guard me as fondly as thou dost thy mate?
Dear oriole, sing, while I listen to thee--
When will my true love come riding to me?
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Overland Monthly._
SEPTEMBER 11.
LOOKING BACKWARD!
My heart aches, and a poignant yearning pains
My pulse, as though from revel I had waked
To find sore disenchantment.
Oh for the simple ways of childhood,
And its joys!
Why have I grown so cold and cynical?
My life seems out of tune;
Its notes harsh and discordant;
The crowded thoroughfare doth fret me
And make lonely.
Darkling I muse and yearn
For those glad days of yore,
When my part chorded too,
And I, a merry, trustful boy,
Found consonance in every friend without annoy.
Since then, how changed!
Strained are the strings of friendship; fled the joys;
Seeming the show.
An alien I, unlike, alone!
And yet my mother! The welcome word o'erflows the eye,
And makes the very memory weep.
No, love is not extinct--that sweetest name--
The covering ashes keep alive the flame.
MALCOLM McLEOD,
in _Culture Simplicity._
SEPTEMBER 12.
The overgoing sun shines upon no region, of equal extent, which offers
so many and such varied inducements to men in search of homes and
health, as does the region which is entitled to the appellation of
"Semi-Tropical California."
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in _Semi-Tropical California._
SEPTEMBER 13.
THE CRESTED JAY.
The jay is a jovial bird--heigh-ho!
He chatters all day
In a frolicsome way
With the murmuring breezes that blow--heigh-ho!
Hear him noisily call
From a redwood tree tall
To his mate in the opposite tree--heigh-ho!
Saying: "How do you do?"
As his top-knot of blue
Is raised as polite as can be--heigh-ho!
O impudent jay,
With your plumage so gay,
And your manners so jaunty and free--heigh-ho!
How little you guessed
When you robbed the wren's nest,
That any stray fellow would see--heigh-ho!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
SEPTEMBER 14.
It is to prevent the wholesale slaughter of songbirds that I appeal to
you. The farmer or the fruit-raiser has not yet learned enough to
distinguish friend from foe, and goes gunning in season and out of
season, so that the cherry orchard, when the cherries are ripe, looks
like a battle-field in miniature, the life-blood of the little slain
birds rivaling in color the brightness of their wings and breast. And
all this destruction of song, of gladness, of helpfulness, because the
poor birds have pecked at a few early cherries, worthless, almost, in
the market, as compared to the later, better kinds, which they do not
interfere with.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN.
SEPTEMBER 15.
THE VOICE OF THE CALIFORNIA DOVE.
Come, listen O love, to the voice of the dove,
Come, hearken and hear him say,
"There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love,
There is only one Today."
And all day long you can hear him say,
This day in purple is rolled,
And the baby stars of the milky way
They are cradled in cradles of gold.
Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove,
Of singing so sweetly alway?
"There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love,
There is only one Today."
JOAQUIN MILLER.
SEPTEMBER 16.
With the tip of his strong cane he breaks off a piece of the serried
bark, and a spider scurries down the side of the log and into the
grass. He chips off another piece, and a bevy of sow-bugs make haste to
tumble over and play dead, curling their legs under their sides, but
recovering their senses and scurrying off after the spider. The cane
continues to chip off the bark, and down tumble all sorts of
wood-people, some of them hiding like a flash in the first moist earth
they come to; others never stopping until they are well under the log,
where experience has taught them they will be safe out of harm's way.
And they declare to themselves, and to each other, that they will never
budge from under that log until it is midnight, and that wicked
meadow-lark is fast asleep.
ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL,
in _Birds of Song and Story._
SEPTEMBER 17.
SIESTA.
A shady nook where nought is overheard
But wind among the eucalyptus leaves,
The cheery chirp of interflitting bird,
Or wooden squeak of tree-frog as it grieves.
The resting eye broods o'er the running grass,
Or nodding gestures of the bowed wild oats;
Watches the oleander lancers pass,
And the bright flashing of the oriole notes.
Hushed are the senses with the drone of bees
And the far glimmer of the mid-day heat;
Dreams stealing o'er one like the incoming seas,
Soft as the rustling zephyrs in the wheat;
While on the breeze is borne the call of Love
To Love, dear Love, of Majel, the wild dove.
CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in _Western Field, Dec._, 1905.
SEPTEMBER 18.
One summer there came a road-runner up from the lower valley, peeking
and prying, and he never had any patience with the water baths of the
sparrows. His own ablutions were performed in the clean, hopeful dust
of the chaparral; and whenever he happened on their morning
splatterings, he would depress his glossy crest, slant his shining tail
to the level of his body, until he looked most like some bright
venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse and feint of battle.
Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing down the gully in fine
disdain, only to return in a day or two to make sure the foolish bodies
were still at it.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
SEPTEMBER 19.
MEADOW LARKS.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am!
(Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!)
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm.
O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the Spring!
Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain?
Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet!
Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain.
The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is!
Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call.
Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss--
For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!
INA D. COOLBRITH,
in _Songs from the Golden Gate._
SEPTEMBER 20.
How could we spare the lark, that most companionable bird of the
plains? Wherever one may wander ... his lovely, plaintive, almost human
song may be heard nearly everywhere, at frequent intervals the livelong
day. He is one of the blessings of this land, one which every lover of
beautiful song welcomes as heartily as the ordinary mortal the warm,
bright days of this climate.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _Some By-Ways of California._
SEPTEMBER 21.
THE MEADOW LARK AND I.
The song of life is living
The love-heart of the year;
And the pagan meadow-lark and I
Can nothing find to fear.
We build our simple homes
For opulence of rest
Among the hills and the meadow grass,
And sing our grateful best.
RUBY ARCHER.
SEPTEMBER 22.
THE RUBY-CROWNED KNIGHT.
The dominant characteristic of the Ruby-Crown is subtlety. He conceals
his nest, and even his nest-building region, so successfully that few
there are who know where he breeds, or who ever find his nest, hidden
in the shaggy end of a high, swinging branch of spruce or pine, deep in
the California mountain recesses. His prettiest trick of concealement
is the way he alternately hides and reveals the bright red feathers in
his crown. You may watch him a long time, seeing only a wee bit of an
olive-green bird, toned with dull yellow underneath, marked on wings
and about the eyes with white; but suddenly, a more festive mood comes
upon him. The bird is transformed. A jaunty dash of brilliant red
upcrests itself upon his head, lighting up his quiet dress.... For
several moments this flame of color quivers, then it burns into a mere
thread of red and is gone.
VIRGINIA GARLAND,
in _Feathered Californians._
SEPTEMBER 23.
SONG OF THE LINNETS.
"Cheer!" "Cheer!" sing the linnets
Through rapturous minutes,
When daylight first breaks
And the golden Dawn streaks
Through the rose of the morning--so bright!
"Gone! gone is the Night! It is light!"
"We have buried our heads
Under eaves of the sheds,
Where our tender broods sleep;
And the long watch we keep
Through the darkness and silence--till dawn.
It is morn! It is morn! It is morn!"
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
SEPTEMBER 24.
THE HUMMING BIRD.
Buz-z! whir-r!--a flash and away!
A midget bejeweled mid flowers at play!
A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king,
A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing!
O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire,
Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire?
You follow the flowers from southern lands sunny,
You pry amid petals all summer for honey!
Now rest on a twig, tiny flowerland sprite,
Your dear little lady sits near in delight;
In a wee felted basket she lovingly huddles--
Two dots of white eggs to her warm breast she cuddles!
Whiz-z! whiff! off to your flowers!
Buzz mid the perfume of jasmine bowers!
Chatter and chirrup, my king of the fays,
And laugh at the song that I sing in your praise!
CHARLES KEELER,
in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
SEPTEMBER 25.
THE HUMMING BIRD.
A sudden whirr of eager sound--
And now a something throbs around
The flowers that watch the fountain. Look!
It touched the rose, the green leaves shook,
I think, and yet so lightly tost
That not a spark of dew was lost.
Tell me, O rose, what thing it is
That now appears, now vanishes?
Surely it took its fire-green hue
From day-breaks that it glittered through;
Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn
Glints through the garden and is gone.
EDWIN MARKHAM,
in _Lincoln and Other Poems._
SEPTEMBER 26.
She led the way to the climbing rose at the front of the house, and
carefully lifting a branch, motioned to the boys to look under it.
There, hidden in the leafy covert, no higher than the young girl's
chin, was the daintiest nest ever seen, made of soft cotton from the
pussy willows by the brook, interwoven with the finest grasses and
green mosses, and embroidered with one shining golden thread. And there
was wee mother humming-bird, watching them a moment with bright,
inquiring eyes, then darting off and poising in the air just above
their heads, uncovering two tiny eggs about the size of buckshot, lying
in a downy hollow like a thimble.
FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD,
in _The Abandoned Claim._
SEPTEMBER 27.
THE RUSSET-BACKED THRUSH.
He dwells where pine and hemlock grow,
A merry minstrel seldom seen;
The voice of Joy is his I know--
Shy poet of the Evergreen!
In dawn's first holy hush I hear
His one ecstatic, thrilling strain,
So sweet and strong, so crystal clear
'Twould tingle e'en the soul of Pain.
At close of day when Twilight dreams
He shakes the air beneath his tree
With such exquisite song it seems
That Passion breathes through Melody.
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
SEPTEMBER 28.
In Marin County birds hold a unique place, for, as the county is
sparsely populated, possessing many wild, secluded valleys, and
unnumbered rolling hills covered with virgin forests, it is but natural
that the birds should congregate in great numbers, reveling in the
solitude which man invariably destroys.
HELEN BINGHAM,
in _In Tamal Land._
THE ABALONE.
I saw a rainbow, for an instant, gleam,
On the west edge of a receeding swell;
The next soft surge,
Which whispering sought the shore,
Swept to my feet an abalone shell;
It was the rainbow I had seen before.
JOHN E. RICHARDS,
in _Idylls of Monterey._
SEPTEMBER 29.
THE SEAGULL.
A ceaseless rover, waif of many climes,
He scorns the tempest, greets the lifting sun
With wings that fling the light and sinks at times
To ride in triumph where the tall waves run.
The rocks tide-worn, the high cliff brown and bare
And crags of bleak, strange shores he rests upon;
He floats above, a moment hangs in air
Clean-etched against the broad, gold breast of dawn.
Bold hunter of the deep! Of thy swift flights
What of them all brings keenest joy to thee--
To drive sharp pinions through storm-beaten nights,
Or shriek amid black hollows of the sea?
HERBERT BASHFORD,
in _At the Shrine of Song._
SEPTEMBER 30.
TO A SEA GULL AT SEA.
Thou winged Wonder!
Tell me I pray thy matchless craft,
Poised in air, then slipping wave-ward,
Mounting again like an arrow-shaft,
Circling, swaying, wheeling, dipping,
All with never a flap of wing,
Keeping pace with my flying ship here,
Give me a key to my wondering!
Gales but serve thee for swifter flying,
Foam crested waves with thy wings thou dost sweep,
Wonderful dun-colored, down-covered body,
Living thy life on the face of the deep!
ANNIE W. BRIGMAN.
OCTOBER 1.
THE PASSING OF SUMMER.
She smiled to the hearts that enshrined her,
Then the gold of her banner unfurled
And trailing her glories behind her
Passed over the rim of the world.
HARLEY R. WILEY,
in _New England Magazine, October_, 1906.
The California condor, the largest of all flying birds, is found only
on this coast and only in the southern half of that, although an
occasional specimen has been seen in the high Sierra Neveda. Of all the
sailing or soaring birds he is the most graceful and wonderful,
drifting to and fro, up and down, right or left, in straight lines or
curves, for hours at a time, darting like an arrow or hanging still in
air with equal ease on that motionless wing whose power puzzles all
philosophy.
T.S. VANDYKE.
OCTOBER 2.
Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any day's
venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his
hollow wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from
the glassy pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls along the water
paths. Strange and far-flown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn
sky. All day wings beat above it with lazy speed; long flights of
cranes glimmer in the twilight. By night one wakes to hear the clanging
geese go over. One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the
ready fens have swallowed up. What they do there, how fare, what find,
is the secret of the tulares.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
OCTOBER 3.
MOCKING BIRD.
Warble, whistle and ripple! wake! whip up! ha! ha!
Burgle, bubble and frolic--a roundelay far!
Pearls on pearls break and roll like bright drops from a bowl!
And they thrill, as they spill in a rill, o'er my soul:
Then thou laughest so light
From thy rapturous height!
Earth and Heaven are combined, in thy full dulcet tone;
North and south pour the nectar thy throat blends in one!
Flute and flageolet, bugle, light zither, guitar!
Diamond, topaz and ruby! Sun, moon, silver star!
Ripe cherries in wine!
Orange blossoms divine!
Genius of Songsters! so matchless in witchery!
Nature hath fashioned thee out of her mystery!
JOHN WARD STIMSON,
in _Wandering Chords._
OCTOBER 4.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
Can anything be more ecstatic than the mockingbird's manner as he pours
out his soul in song, flirting that expressive tail--that seems hung on
wires, jerking those emphatic wings, which say so much, turning his
dainty head this way and that, and now and then flinging himself upon
the air--light as a feather--in pure delight, and floating down to
place again without dropping a note. It is a poem in action to see him,
so lithe, so graceful in every movement.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
OCTOBER 5.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
Each flower a single fragrance gives,
But not the perfume of the rest;
Within each fruit one flavor lives,
Not all the flavors of our quest;
In every bird one song we note
That seems the sweeter without words;
Yet from the mock-bird's mellow throat
Come all the songs of other birds.
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Pickett's Charge and Other Poems._
OCTOBER 6.
When a mocking-bird looks squarely at you, not turning his head one
side, and then the other, like most birds, but showing his front face
and using both eyes at once, like an owl--when he looks squarely at you
in this way, he shows a wise, wise face. You almost believe he could
speak if he would, and you cannot resist the feeling that he is more
intelligent than he has any right to be, having behind those clear,
sharp eyes, only "blind instinct," as the wise men say.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an
ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the
sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep
places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of
golden haze.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
OCTOBER 7.
THE MOCKING BIRD.
He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he
imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music-lessons to all the
other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful
and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit
the best. No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the
corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into
the sky and down into the black abyss as if chimneys were made on
purpose for mocking-birds.
ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL,
in _Birds of Song and Story._
OCTOBER 8.
I love the mocking-bird; not because he is a wonderful musician,
for--as I have heard him--that he is not; nor because he has a sweet
disposition, for that he certainly has not, but because of his
mysterious habit of singing at night, which seems to differentiate him
from his kind, and approach him to the human; because of his rapturous
manner of song, his joy of living; because he shows so much character,
and so much intelligence.
OLIVE THORNE MILLER.
The lift of every man's heart is upward; to help another human soul in
its upward evolution is life's greatest and most joyful privilege; to
lend ourselves each to the other as an inspiration to grander living is
life's highest ministry and reward.
DANA W. BARTLETT,
in _The Better City._
OCTOBER 9.
THE WATER OUZEL.
The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he
traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of
cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending
with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the
steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the
base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in
height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the
throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after
alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to
feed and sing.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
OCTOBER 10.
Who can hear the wild song of the ouzel and not feel an answering
thrill? Perched upon a rock in the midst of the rapids, he is the
incarnation of all that is untamed, a wild spirit of the mountain
stream, as free as a raindrop or a sunbeam. How solitary he is, a lone
little bird, flitting from rock to rock through the desolate gorge,
like some spirit in a Stygian world. Yet he sings continually as he
takes his solitary way along the stream, and bursts of melody, so eerie
and sylvan as to fire the imagination, come to the ear, sounding above
the roar of the torrent. Like Orpheus, he seeks in the nether world of
that wild gorge for his Eurydice, now dashing through the rapids, now
peering into some pool, as if to discern her fond image in its depths,
and calling ever to lure her thence from that dark retreat up into the
world of light and love.
C.H. KIRKHAM,
in _In the Open._
OCTOBER 11.
TO LOS ANGELES.
May this great city of Los Angeles, destined to be a mighty metropolis,
flanked by the mountains and the sea, grow in the spirit of charity and
toleration between man and man, and in the fear and love of God. May
our city ever remain a fair virgin, sought for by the valiant sons from
all lands, adorned with the wealth of the golden orange and caressed by
the clinging vine.
(_Fiach Fionn_) LAURENCE BRANNICK.
OCTOBER 12.
Like most of the early cities of the coast, Los Angeles owes its origin
to the proselyting enthusiasm of the Spanish priesthood. The Mission of
San Gabriel had been in existence ten years, and it had gathered
several thousand Indians under its guardianship when it was proposed to
establish a pueblo in that vicinity in order that a temporal
development might proceed together with the spiritual. Had there been
no mission at San Gabriel to hold the savages in check by the force of
a religious awe, and to lead them to industrial pursuits, there
probably would have been no founding of a city on the lands above the
Los Angeles river--at least not until some date half a century later.
C.D. WILLARD,
in _History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce._
MY CREED.
I believe the best I can think, being fully persuaded that if this be
not true, it is because the truth transcends my present power of
thought.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
OCTOBER 13.
THE BEAUTIES OF LOS ANGELES.
So beautiful for situation, between its guardian mountain ranges and
the smiling sea, so wonderful in its resources and its possibilities is
this charming valley of ours, that one cannot reasonably doubt that its
manifest destiny is to be a world sanitarium. * * * To him who seeks it
wisely here, no demand of necessity, comfort or luxury is impossible.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in _The Mother of Clubs._
OCTOBER 14.
The entire situation with regard to manufacturing in Southern
California has undergone a radical change in the last few years, by
reason of the discovery of oil in great quantities in and around Los
Angeles, and in other sections of Southern and Central California. This
puts an entirely new face on the fuel question, and removes, in a great
measure, what has always been the most serious problem in manufacturing
development.
C.D. WILLARD,
in _History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce._
A fog had drifted in during the night and was still tangled in the tops
of the sycamores. The soft, humid air was sweet with the earthy scents
of the canyon, and the curled fallen leaves of the live-oaks along the
flume path were golden-brown with moisture. Beads of mist fringed the
silken fluffs of the clematis, dripping with gentle, rhythmical
insistence from the trees overhead.
MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in _Stories of the Foothills._
OCTOBER 15.
All believed they were located over an inexhaustible, subterranean lake
of oil, and Oilville, city of tents and shacks, within a month had
acquired the recklessness, the devil-may-care air of a mining camp, or
the Pennsylvania oil fields. * * * Then there was a pause in the work,
for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such
vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant.
Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue,
for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great
quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now
California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of
herself, but of all the world.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in _The Giants._
OCTOBER 16.
SAN PEDRO.
MORNING.
A smooth, smooth sea of gray, gray glass;
An open sea, where big ships pass
Into the sun;
A boat-dotted harbor; gulls, wheeling and screaming,
And surf-song and fisher-cry end our night's dreaming.
Day has begun.
EVENING.
A broken sea of rosy jade;
A rose-pink sky; black ships that fade
Into the night;
Across the bay, the city seems
But elfin music, drowsy dreams
And silver light!
OLIVE PERCIVAL.
OCTOBER 17.
SUNSET IN SAN DIEGO.
The city sits amid her palms;
The perfume of her twilight breath
Is something as the sacred balms
That bound sweet Jesus after death,
Such soft, warm twilight sense as lie
Against the gates of Paradise.
Such prayerful palms, wide palms upreached!
This sea mist is as incense smoke,
Yon ancient walls a sermon preached,
White lily with a heart of oak.
And O, this twilight! O the grace
Of twilight on my lifted face.
JOAQUIN MILLER,
in _Collected Poems._
OCTOBER 18.
AT EVENTIDE.
Behind Point Loma's beacon height
In shimmering waves of grey and gold
The winter sunset dies; and Night
Drops her dusk mantle, fold on fold,
At Eventide.
And now, above yon shadowy line
That faintly limns the distant bar,
Through darkening paths, with steps that shine,
She comes at last, our favorite star,
At Eventide.
O friend, our lives are far apart
As Western sea from Eastern shore!
But in their orisons, dear heart,
Our souls are with you, evermore,
At Eventide.
MARY E. MANNIX.
OCTOBER 19.
THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL.
One never tires of this bright chip of nature--this brave little voice
crying in the wilderness--of observing his many works and ways, and
listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as
savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not
exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a
linnet--almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle
like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed
chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog,
screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in
bluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay.
JOHN MUIR,
in _The Mountains of California._
OCTOBER 20.
A beautiful sight it must have been, the wild-eyed graceful mustang
with its gaily dressed rider sweeping hither and thither among the
frightened hosts, swerving suddenly to right or left to avoid the horns
of some infuriated beast, the riata flashing high in air, then, with
unerring aim, descending upon the shoulders of some reluctant prisoner;
amid all the confusion the bursts of musical laughter or noisier
applause, then the oaths, in the liquid Spanish tongue sounding sweetly
to the ear of the uninitiated.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Camping with Fox-Hounds in Southern California,
Overland Monthly, February_, 1892.
OCTOBER 21.
Immediately, with that short, pumping bay that tells the trail is hot,
the game near, and sends the blood rushing to one's very finger-ends,
the swaying, eager line of hounds came swiftly down the rocky slope,
across the gully ahead and up the other side, following, exactly, the
path of the game. One directly behind the other they went, heads well
up, so strong was the scent, necks out-stretched, rumps in air, tails
wagging in short, fierce strokes. No thought had they for us, intent
only on the game their noses told them must be close at hand.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Hunting the Wild Cat in Southern California. From
Overland Monthly, March_, 1892.
OCTOBER 22.
Life is a fight. Millions fail. Only the strong win. Failure is worse
than death. Man's internal strength is created by watching
circumstances like a hawk, meeting her every spring stiff and straight,
laughing at her pit-falls--which in the beginning of life are excess,
excess, and always excess, and all manner of dishonor. Strength is
created by adversity, by trying to win first the small battles of life,
then the great, by casting out fear, by training the mind to rule in
all things--the heart, the passions, the impulses, which if indulged
make the brain the slave instead of the master. Success, for which
alone a man lives, if he be honest with himself, comes to those who are
strong, strong, strong.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Rulers of Kings._
OCTOBER 23.
WITH THE ARIZONA COWBOYS.
The cow or steer that is selected to be roped or cut out rarely
escapes. While the horse is in hot pursuit the rider dexterously
whirls his riata above his head until, at a favorable moment, it
leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and if the
throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal's head. Suddenly
the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock. When
the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an
abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. * * * The cowboy is
out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy. He grasps the prostrate
animal by the tail and a hind leg, throws it on its side, and ties its
four feet together, so that it is helpless and ready for branding or
inspection.
J.A. MUNK,
in _Arizona Sketches._
OCTOBER 24.
So here I am--settled at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule
team t'pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits
on the east porch, smokin'; the boys're strung along the side of
the bunk-house t'rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the
cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler'n
a floor; and--up over it all--the moon, white and smilin'.
Then, outen the door nigh where the sunflowers're growin', mebbe she'll
come--a slim, little figger in white. And, if it's plenty warm, and not
too late, why, she'll be totin' the smartest, cutest---- * * * That's
my little wife--that's Macie, now--a-singin' to the kid!
ELEANOR GATES,
in _Cupid: the Cow-Punch._
OCTOBER 25.
Let this be known, that a west-land ranch is no more than a farm, and
a farm at the outermost edge of man's dominions is forever a school
and a field of strife and a means of grace to those who live thereon.
* * * The ways of the earth, the ways of the seasons, the ways of the
elements, these had something to impart, eternally. And man, no longer
in the bond with the wild things all about him, wages ceaseless war
against them, to protect his crops and the fowls and the animals that
have come beneath his guardian-ship and know no laws of the air-folk,
the brush-folk, or the forest-folk with whom they were once in
brotherhood.
PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS,
in _Chatwit, the Man-Talk Bird._
OCTOBER 26.
And after supper, when the sun was down, and they was just a kinda
half-light on the mesquite, and the old man was on the east porch,
smokin', and the boys was all lined up along the front of the
bunk-house, clean outen sight of the far side of the yard, why I just
sorta wandered over to the calf-corral, then 'round by the barn and
the Chink's shack, and landed up out to the west, where they's a row
of cottonwoods by the new irrigatin' ditch. Beyond, acrost a hunderd
mile of brown plain, here was the moon a-risin', bigger'n a dishpan,
and a cold white. I stood agin a tree and watched it crawl through the
clouds. The frogs was a-watchin', too, I reckon, fer they begun to
holler like the dickens, some bass and some squeaky. And then, frum
the other side of the ranch-house, struck up a mouth-organ.
ELEANOR GATES,
in _Cupid: the Cow-Punch._
OCTOBER 27.
EL VAQUERO.
Tinged with the blood of Aztec lands,
Sphinx-like, the tawny herdsman stands,
A coiled riata in his hands.
Devoid of hope, devoid of fear,
Half brigand, and half cavalier--
This helot, with imperial grace,
Wears ever on his tawny face
A sad, defiant look of pain.
Left by the fierce iconoclast,
A living fragment of the past--
Greek of the Greeks he must remain.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.
His broad brimmed hat push'd back with careless air,
The proud vaquero sits his steed as free
As winds that toss his black, abundant hair.
JOAQUIN MILLER.
OCTOBER 28.
There was to be a _rodeo_ on the Del Garda ranch. Out of the thousands
of that moving herd could they single the mighty steer that bore their
brand, or the wild-eyed cow whose yearling calf had not yet felt the
searing-iron. Into the very midst of the seething mass would a
_vaquero_ dart, single out his victim without a moment's halt, drive
the animal to the open space, and throw his lasso with unerring aim.
If a steer proved fractious two of the centaurs would divide the
labor, and while one dexterously threw the rope around his horns, the
other's lasso had quickly caught the hind foot, and together they
brought him to the earth.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in _Overland Tales._
OCTOBER 29.
Near noon we came to a little cattle ranch situated in a flat
surrounded by red dykes and buttes after the manner of Arizona. Here
we unpacked, early as it was, for through the dry countries one has to
apportion his day's journeys by the water to be had. If we went
farther today, then tomorrow night would find us in a dry camp.
The horses scampered down the flat to search out alfilaria. We roosted
under a slanting shed--where were stock saddles, silver-mounted bits
and spurs, rawhide riatas, branding-irons, and all the lumber of the
cattle business. * * * Shortly the riders began to come in, jingling
up to the shed, with a rattle of spurs and bit-chains. * * * The
chief, a six-footer wearing beautifully decorated gauntlets and a pair
of white buckskin _chaps_, went so far as to say it was a little warm
for the time of year.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
OCTOBER 30.
HANDS UP!
This is a request that, in the wild and woolly West, "may not be
denied"; and the braver the man is to whom it is addressed, the
quicker does he hasten to comply. Indeed, it would argue the height of
folly if, after a glance into the barrels of a "sawed off," and a look
at the determined eyes behind them, covering your every move, you did
not instantly elevate your hands, and do it with cheerful alacrity.
The plea, "He had the drop on me," will clear you in any frontier
Court of Honor.
A.E. LYNCH,
in _Self-Torture._
OCTOBER 31.
OUT WEST.
When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod,
Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God;
The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide
Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride;
And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal
queen,
Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains
between;
The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven,
And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to
heaven.
* * * * *
Calling--calling--calling--resistless, imperative, strong--
Soldier and priest and dreamer--she drew them, a mighty throng.
The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band,
And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand;
Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place,
For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race.
Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed--and the weaklings shrank--
Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.
* * * * *
The wanderers of earth turned to her--outcast of the older lands--
With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them
pitying hands;
And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main:
"Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again!
Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow,
Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tilled fields can grow;
Seed of the Man-seed springing to stature and strength in my sun,
Free with a limitless freedom no battles of men, have won."
SHARLOT HALL,
in _Out West._
NOVEMBER 1.
One night when the plain was like a sea of liquid black, and the sky
blazed with stars, we rode by a sheep-herder's camp. The flicker of a
fire threw a glow out into the dark. A tall wagon, a group of
silhouetted men, three or four squatting dogs, were squarely within
the circle or illumination. And outside, in the penumbra of shifting
half light, now showing clearly, now fading into darkness, were the
sheep, indeterminate in bulk, melting away by mysterious thousands
into the mass of night. We passed them. They looked up, squinting
their eyes against the dazzle of the fire. The night closed about us
again.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
NOVEMBER 2.
THE DROUTH: 1898.
No low of cattle from these silent fields
Fills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air;
No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yields
From these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.
The brook, that rippled on its summer way,
Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed,
Defenseless of a covert from the ray,
Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.
The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies;
Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled;
The bee no longer to their sweetness flies,
The humming-bird no longer dips his head.
The butterfly--that fairy-glancing thing--
Ethereal blossom of the light and air!
No longer poises on its fluttering wing;
How could it hover in this bleak despair?
FRANCES M. MILNE,
in _For Today._
NOVEMBER 3.
During this first autumn rain, those of us who are so fortunate as to
live in the country are conscious of a strange odor pervading all the
air. It is as though Dame Nature were brewing a vast cup of herb tea,
mixing in the fragrant infusion all the plants dried and stored so
carefully during the summer. When the clouds vanish after this
baptismal shower, everything is charmingly fresh and pure, and we have
some of the rarest of days. Then the little seeds, harbored through
the long summer in earth's bosom, burst their coats and push up their
tender leaves, till on hillside and valley-floor appears a delicate
mist of green, which gradually confirms itself into a soft, rich
carpet--and all the world is verdure clad. Then we begin to look
eagerly for our first flowers.
MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS,
in _The Wild Flowers of California._
NOVEMBER 4.
In basketry the Pomo Indians of California found an outlet for the
highest conceptions of art that their race was capable of. Protected
by their isolation from other tribes, they worked out their ideas
undisturbed--with every incentive for excellence they had reached a
height in basketry when the American first disturbed them which has
never been equaled--not only by no other Indian tribe, but by no other
people in the world in any age. These stolid Indian women have a
knowledge of materials and their preparation, a delicacy of touch, an
artistic conception of symmetry, of form and design, a versatility in
varying and inventing beautiful designs, and an eye for color, which
place their work on a high plane of art.
CARL PURDY,
in _Out West._
NOVEMBER 5.
WHEN IT RAINS IN CALIFORNY.
When it rains in Californy
It makes the tourist mad,
But folks that's got the crops to raise
Is feelin' mighty glad;
I stand out in the showers,
Wet as a drownded rat,
And watch the grain a-growin',
And the cattle gettin' fat.
Sorry for them Easterners,
Kickin' like Sam Hill,
But the sun-kissed land is thirsty
And wants to drink its fill.
Oh, hear the poppies laughin',
And the happy mockers sing,
When it rains in Californy,
Through the glory of the spring.
JOHN S. McGROARTY,
in _Just California._
NOVEMBER 6.
The broad valley had darkened. The mountains opposite had lost their
sharp details and dulled to an opaque silver blue in the mists of
twilight. They had become great shadow mountains, broad spirit masses,
and seemed to melt imperceptibly from form to form toward the
horizon....
There had come a harmony more perfect than life could ever give. It
included all their love that had gone before and something greater,
vaster--all life, all nature, and all God.
HAROLD S. SYMMES,
in _The Divine Benediction, Putnam's, Oct._, 1906.
NOVEMBER 7.
AFTER THE RAIN.
"Sweet fields stand dressed in living green,"
That late were brown and bare.
The twitter of the calling birds
With music fills the air.
Was ever sky so heavenly blue--
"Clear shining after rain!"
Was ever wind so soft and pure,
To breathe away our pain!
Oh, roses white, and roses red,
Your fragrant leaves unfold!
Oh, lily, lift your chalice pure
And show your heart of gold!
FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in _For To-day._
NOVEMBER 8.
She does not appear in public, and her name is seldom seen in the
newspapers. She writes no books, delivers no lectures, paints no great
pictures, but remains the inconspicuous, silent worker, blessing her
home, reinforcing her husband, bringing up her children, and doing the
most important work God has intrusted to the hands of a woman. She is
still a great force in the nation; for the hand that rocks the cradle
still rules the world. Whenever you find a great man, you will find a
great woman. All successful men, it will be found, depend upon some
woman. So Garfield thought when he kissed his mother after kissing the
Bible, when made President of the United States.
REV. WILLIAM RADER,
in _Lecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People._
NOVEMBER 9.
Found that "gracious hollow that God made" in his mother's shoulder
that fit his head as pillows of down never could. Cried when they took
him away from it, when he was a tiny baby, "with no language but a
cry." Cried once again, twenty-five or thirty years afterward, when
God took it away from him. All the languages he had learned, and all
the eloquent phrasing the colleges had taught him, could not then
voice the sorrow of his heart so well as the tears he tried to check.
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
in _The Story of Rollo._
NOVEMBER 10.
Lovely color and graceful outline and clever texture are good things,
but we need more, much more, for the making of a real picture. When
the soul is brimming with an overflowing bounty of beauty, all means
are inadequate to express the fullness of its splendor. Man has not
yet come to his full heritage, but every new mode of expression is an
added language which brings him a little nearer to it.
W.L. JUDSON,
in _The Building of a Picture._
The future of this country depends naturally upon the caliber of the
succeeding generations, and if the Catholic Church is to succeed in
California or elsewhere along material as well as spiritual lines, it
must keep the fear of God in our men and the love of children in our
women, and if these two fundamental virtues are thoroughly sustained,
we need have no anxiety as to the future.
JOSEPH SCOTT,
in _Speech at the Seattle Exposition._
NOVEMBER 11.
BEAUTY.
A hint is flung from the scene most fair
That real beauty is not there;
That earth and blossom, sea and sky,
Would be empty without the seeing eye,
That form and color, movement and rhythm
Are not true elements of heaven
Till passed through transforming power of thought;
For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought.
Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art
Of the upright mind and guileless heart.
MARY RUSSELL MILLS.
NOVEMBER 12.
THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH.
After asking the Brakeman if he had been to each of the leading
churches, the querist finally suggested the Baptists. "Ah, ha!" he
shouted. "Now you're on the Shore Line! River Road, eh? Beautiful
curves, lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river; all steel
rail and rock ballast; single track, and not a siding from the
round-house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it through;
double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shops
that can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges. * * *
And yesterday morning, when the conductor came around taking up fares
with a little basket punch, I didn't ask him to pass me; I paid my
fare like a little Jonah--twenty-five cents for a ninety-minute run,
with a concert by the passengers thrown in."
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
_Pastor Emeritus Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles._
NOVEMBER 13.
Directly opposite sat a Chinese dignitary richly apparrelled, serene,
bland, bearing with courteous equanimity flirtatious overtures of an
unattached blonde woman at his left, and the pert coquetry of a young
girl at the other side. The mother of the girl ventured meek, unheeded
remonstrances between mouthfuls of crab salad. * * *
"But you have not answered my question," he reminded her. "Do you
believe in affinities?"
"I think that I do," hesitatingly.
"You are not certain?"
"N-o; if to have an affinity means to have a very dear friend, whom
one trusts, and whom one desires to make happy--"
"You speak as if you had such a friend in mind," he hazarded.
"I have," she replied simply.
"Happy man!" he sighed.
"I referred to my St. Bernard dog."
"Oh!" Protracted silence. "No use," he drawled. "My pride will not let
me enter the lists with a St. Bernard."
"That is not pride, but modesty," she asserted, and laughed. Her
laughter reminded Horton of liquid sunshine, melted pearls, and
sparkling cascades.
IDA MANSFIELD WILSON,
in _According to Confucius._
NOVEMBER 14.
There's only one thing to do, there can be but one--to say the thing
your soul says, to live the life your heart wills, to die the death
your imagination approves and your spirit sanctions!
MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in _Anthony Overman._
NOVEMBER 15.
TWO LITTLE CHINESE SISTERS.
Their blouses were of pink silk, and their trousers of pale lavender.
They wore gay head-dresses, and were indeed beautiful to look upon.
Sai Gee, a little-footed playmate of theirs, lived a few doors from
them, and they had no difficulty in finding her home. Sai Gee was also
dressed up in her gayest attire. * * * Sai Gee could play the flute.
It was really wonderful. She sat upon a stool, over which an
embroidered robe had been thrown, and played to them. Her hair was
done in a coil back of her right ear, and her little brown face was
sweet and wistful as she brought forth from the flute the most
wonderful sounds.
JESSIE JULIET KNOX,
in _Little Almond Blossoms._
NOVEMBER 16.
She was only a little yellow woman from Asia, with queer, wide
trousers for skirts and rocker-soled shoes that flopped against her
heels. Her uncovered black hair was firmly knotted and securely pinned
and her eyes were black of color and soft of look. * * * She saw the
morning sun push its way through a sea of amber and the nickel dome of
the great observatory on Mount Hamilton standing ebony against the
radiant East. She heard the Oriental jargon of the early hucksters who
cried their wares in the ill-smelling alleys, and with tears she added
to the number of pearls which the dew had strewn upon the porch.
W.C. MORROW,
in _The Ape, the Idiot and Other People._
NOVEMBER 17.
Sing is not included in the category of "goody-goody" boys. He is full
of fun, and play, and willful pranks, and he sees the ridiculous side
of everything quickly, but he seems naturally to accept only the good
and to shun evil in any form. He is pure and innocent by nature and
seems attracted to every person of similar characteristics. He has
discernment and watches the faces of people closely, seeming to care
more for their motives than for their deeds.
NELLIE BLESSING EYSTER,
in _A Chinese Quaker._
NOVEMBER 18.
INDIAN ARROW HEADS FOUND IN CALIFORNIA.
Obsidian is a beautiful, translucent volcanic rock, usually black,
with cloudy flecks, as are seen in jade; like jade it is so hard as to
be capable of taking an edge like a razor. Flaked on its flat surface
and often beautifully serrated on the edge, an arrowhead or a
spearhead is in itself a thing of beauty and a work of art, whether
the Indian manufacturer knew it or not.
L. CLARE DAVIS
in "Long Ago in San Joaquin," in _Sunset Magazine._
In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe,
I shall stay no more away--
Then if you still are true, my love,
It will be our wedding day.
In a year, in a year, when my time is past--
Then I'll live in your love for aye.
Then if you still are true, my love,
It will be our wedding day.
JACK LONDON.
NOVEMBER 19.
Had California owed her settlement and civic life wholly to the
vanguard of that pioneer host, which ... pressed steadily westward to
Kansas and the Rockies, the Golden State would not have today that
literary flavor that renders her in a measure a unique figure among
the western states of the country.
JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in _California and Californians in Literature._
NOVEMBER 20.
All things are but material reflections of mental images. This is
realized in picture and statue in temple and machine. The picture is
but a faint representation of the picture in the soul of painter. He
did his best to catch it with brush and canvas. Had it not existed for
him before the brush was in his hand, it would never have been
painted. * * * Concentration is the only mental attitude under which
mental images (ideals) shape themselves into the material life. As
long as you hold an ideal before you that long is it shaping itself
into your body, your business and into your social life. When you
change your ideal then the new begins to shape itself. Have you, like
the sculptor, held to one till it carves itself "into the marble
real?" Or have you taken the life-block and placed it into the hands
of an Ideal today, another tomorrow, and another next day, till you
have as many ideals as you have days? * * * Is not your life a
composite of all these, not one complete? Concentration means holding
to one ideal until your objective life becomes that mental picture.
Thus it is true: I am that which I think myself to be.
HENRY HARRISON BROWN,
in _Concentration: The Road to Success._
NOVEMBER 21.
The process which we call evolution is the return of the atom to God,
or the extension of consciousness in the growing creation, and this
process which unifies all that exists or can exist in our world is the
working out of the One Purpose and Plan by the One Power. This is what
we mean by the Spiritual Constitution of the Universe, and in the
light of this thought every person, animal, plant and mineral, every
atom and all force, all events and circumstances and conditions and
objects are more or less intelligent and conscious expressions of the
One Purpose and the One Life. Man is thus led to count nothing human
foreign to him, and his inner eyes open to perceive Truth, Goodness
and Beauty everywhere.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS,
in _The New Revelation._
NOVEMBER 22.
Laughter is the music of the soul. It is the sun falling on the rain
drops. Laughter is the nightingale's voice in the night. It chases
away care, destroys worry. It is the intoxicating cup of good nature,
which cheers, but does not cheat. Laughter paints pictures, dreams
dreams, and floods life with love. Blessed are the people who can
laugh! Laughter is religion and hope; and the apostles of good nature,
who see the bright side of life, the queer and funny things among men,
the clowns in Vanity Fair, as well as the deep and terrible pathos of
life, are missionaries of comfort and evangels of good health.
REV. WILLIAM RADER,
in _Lecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People._
NOVEMBER 23.
Given so unique a climate as ours of Southern California, one would
expect it to be hailed gladly as a helper in the solution of this
problem of how and where to build and how to adorn one's home. For it
really meets the most trying items of the problem, making it a pure
pleasure.
Instead, then, of the styles which suit the winter-climate of other
states, and which, transplanted here, have grown too often into
mongrel specimens of foreign style and other times--we should adapt
our Southern California homes, first of all, to the climatic
conditions which prevail here.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in _The Mother of Clubs._
NOVEMBER 24.
Houses furnished in all the styles of modern decorative art rise in
all directions, embowered in roses, geraniums, heliotropes, and lilies
that bloom the long year round and reach a size that makes them hard
to recognize as old friends. Among them rise the banana, the palm, the
aloe, the rubber tree, and the pampas-grass with its tall feathery
plumes. Here and there one sees the guava, the Japanese persimmon,
Japanese plum, or some similar exotic--but grapes and oranges are the
principal product. Yet there are groves of English walnuts almost
rivaling in size the great orange orchards, and orchards of prunes,
nectarines, apricots, plums, pears, peaches, and apples that are
little behind in size or productiveness.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
NOVEMBER 25.
He saw a great hall furnished in the most extravagantly complete style
of Indian art. The walls were entirely covered with Navaho and Hopi
blankets. There was a frieze of Apache hide-shields, each painted with
a brave's totem, and beneath, a solid cornice of buffalo skulls.
Puma-skins carpeted the floor; at least a hundred baskets trimmed with
wood-pecker and quail feathers were scattered about; trophies of
Indian bows, arrows, lances, war-clubs, tomahawks, pipes and knives
decorated the wall spaces. Two couches were made up of Zuni bead-work
ornaments and buck-skin embroideries. In spite of all this, it was a
tastefully designed room, rather than a museum, flaming with color and
vibrant with vitality.
GELETT BURGESS,
in _A Little Sister of Destiny._
NOVEMBER 26.
She sent a hundred messages out into the hills by thought's wonderful
telegraphy. She saw the yellow-green of the new shoots; the gray-green
of the gnarled live oak; she felt that the mariposa was waking in the
brown hillside. She almost heard the creamy bells of the tall yucca
pealing out a hymn to the God who expresses himself in continual
creation. Then, O, wonder of wonders! Over the same invisible wires
came back the response: It all means love, the earth's rendings, the
rains, winds, scorchings--it all means love in the grand consummation,
nothing but love. She thrilled to the wonder of it.
ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN,
in _The Strength of the Weak._
NOVEMBER 27.
THE IDEAL CALIFORNIA EDITOR.
The ideal editor must be a colossal, composite figure, one to whom no
man of whatever age, race or color, is a stranger; one whose mobility
of character and elasticity of temperament expands or contracts as
occasion demands, without deflecting in the least from the law of
perfect harmony. He must know how to smile encouragement, frown
disapproval, or, at an instant's notice bow deferentially and attend
with utmost courtesy to wearisome stories of stupid patrons, or listen
to the fantastic schemes of radical reformers and, with apparent
seriousness and ostensible amiability, nod acquiescence to the
wild-eyed revolutionist upon whom he inwardly vows to keep a careful
watch lest the fire-brand agitator commit serious public mischief. The
ideal editor of the popular press must be the quintescence of tact; an
adroit strategist, a sagacious chief executive, keenly critical, ably
judicial, broad, generous, sympathetic, hospitable, aye, charitable,
magnanimous, ready to forgive and forget, patient and long-suffering
when subjected to the competitive lash of adverse criticism, bearing
calumny rather with quiet dignity than stooping to low and vulgar
forms of retaliation.
BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
in _Sunday Times Magazine._
NOVEMBER 28.
CALIFORNIA TO IRELAND.
Great! Erect! Majestic! Free!
Thrilled with life from sea to sea.
See the Motherland uphold
To the sky her Green and Gold.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
NOVEMBER 29.
And the books! Without final data at hand, I incline to believe that
by the time the war came along to give us a new text, California had
already, in a dozen years, doubled the volume of American literature.
In the same way, of course, that it was doubled again--for our war
literature was not mostly written upon the battle-field. In half a
century this current has not ceased. It is a lean month even now which
does not see, somewhere, some sort of book about California. It is
certain that as much literature (using the word as it is used) has
been written of California as of all the other states together. This
means, of course, only matter in which the State is an essential, not
an incident.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
June_, 1902.
NOVEMBER 30.
By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in the _Lark_,
were continued in the _Queen_, and, if you have read these two papers,
you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the
other as San Francisco is from London. But each has happened to fare
far afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted
a few to my optimistic view of every-day incident. To educate the
British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult than
to open the eyes of the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over
the Thames are not very different to the mists that drive in through
the Golden Gate, after all!
GELETT BURGESS,
in _The Romance of the Commonplace._
DECEMBER 1.
The Bohemian Club, whose real founder is said to have been the late
Henry George, was formed in the '70's by newspaper writers and men
working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a
membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers,
musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group
of men, and hospitality was their evocation. Yet the thing which set
this club off from all others in the world was the midsummer High
Jinks. The club owned a fine tract of redwood forest fifty miles north
of San Francisco. In August the whole Bohemian Club, or such as could
get away from business, went up to this grove and camped out for two
weeks. On the last night they put on the Jinks proper, a great
spectacle in praise of the forest with poetic words, music and effects
done by the club. In late years this has been practically a masque or
an opera. It cost about $10,000. * * * The thing which made it
possible was the art spirit which is in the Californian.
WILL IRWIN,
in _The City That Was._
DECEMBER 2.
Nearly all is now covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation the
most diverse, yet all of it foreign to the soil. Side by side are the
products of two zones, reaching the highest stages of perfection, yet
none of them natives of this coast.
Gay cottages now line the roads where so recently the hare cantered
along the dusty cattle-trail; and villages lie brightly green with a
wealth of foliage where the roaring wings of myriads of quail shook
the air above impenetrable jungles of cactus.
T.S. VAN DYKE,
in _Southern California._
DECEMBER 3.
* * * The chief and highest function of the University is to assert
and perpetually prove that general principles--laws--govern Man,
Society, Nature, Life; and to make unceasing war on the reign of
temporary expedients. * * * There never was a period or a country in
which the reign of fundamental law needed constant assertion and more
perpetual proof than our own period and our own country. * * * The
living danger is that society may come to permanently distrust the
reign of law. * * * A national or a personal life built on expedients
of the day, like a house built on the sand, will inevitably come to
ruin.
PRESIDENT HOLDEN,
in _Inaugural Address of University of California_, 1886.
DECEMBER 4.
And now my story is told, the story of my work, and the story of my
life. Looking back over all the long stretch of years that I have
carried this heavy burden, though I should not care to assume it
again, yet I am not sorry to have borne it. Of the various motives
which urge men to the writing of books, perhaps the most worthy,
worthier by far than the love of fame, is the belief that the author
has something to say which will commend itsself to his fellow-man,
which perchance his fellow-man may be the better for hearing. If I
have fulfilled in some measure even the first of these conditions,
then has my labor not been in vain.
HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in _Literary Industries._
DECEMBER 5.
LAW IN THE EARLY MINING-CAMPS.
Here, in a new land, under new conditions, subjected to tremendous
pressure and strain, but successfully resisting them, were associated
bodies of freemen bound together for a time by common interests, ruled
by equal laws, and owning allegiance to no higher authority than their
own sense of right and wrong. They held meetings, chose officers,
decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift punishment to offenders,
and managed their local affairs with entire success; and the growth of
their committees was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days and
weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which, in more staid
communities, would have required months or even years.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in _Mining Camps._
DECEMBER 6.
New towns were laid out in the valleys to supply the camps, and those
already established grew with astonishing rapidity. Stockton, for
instance, increased in three months from a solitary ranch-house to a
canvas city of one thousand inhabitants. Sacramento also became a
canvas city, whose dust-clouds whirled, and men, mules, and oxen
toiled; where boxes, barrels, bales innumerable, were piled in the
open air, no shelter being needed for months. For the City Hotel,
Sacramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as rent,
although it was only a small frame building. The Parker House, San
Francisco, cost thirty thousand dollars to build, and rented for
fifteen thousand dollars per month.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in _Mining Camps._
DECEMBER 7.
The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization and
prosperity. * * * It is for the sight of a yellow streak in his pan
that he has been tempted to endure the fatigue, cold, and hunger of
the mountains, and the heat, thirst and horror of the desert.
The prospector is a man of small pretensions, of peaceful disposition,
indomitable will, boundless perseverance, remarkable endurance,
undoubted courage, irrepressible hopefulness, and unlimited
hospitality He is the friend of every man till he has evidence that
the man is his enemy, and he is the most respected man in the mining
regions of the West.
ARTHUR J. BURDICK,
in _The Mystic Mid-Region._
DECEMBER 8.
To a little camp of 1848 a lad of sixteen came one day, footsore,
weary, hungry, and penniless. There were thirty robust and cheerful
miners at work in the ravine; and the lad sat on the bank, watching
them awhile in silence, his face telling the sad story of his
fortunes. At last one stalwart miner spoke to his fellows, saying:
"Boys, I'll work an hour for that chap if you will."
At the end of the hour a hundred dollars' worth of gold dust was laid
in the youth's handkerchief. The miners made out a list of tools and
necessaries.
"You go," they said, "and buy these, and come back. We'll have a good
claim staked out for you. Then you've got to paddle for yourself."
Thus genuine and unconventional was the hospitality of the
mining-camp.
CHARLES HOWARD SHINN,
in __Mining Camps._
DECEMBER 9.
Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placer diggings. Elaborate
little ditches for the deflection of water, long cradles for the
separation of gold, decayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons
and tons of pay dirt which had been turned over pound by pound in the
concentrating of its treasure. Some of the old cabins still stood. It
was all deserted now, save for the few who kept trail for the
freighters, or who tilled the restricted bottom lands of the flats.
Road-runners racked away down the paths; squirrels scurried over
worn-out placers, jays screamed and chattered in and out of the
abandoned cabins. And the warm California sun embalmed it all in a
peaceful forgetfulness.
STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in _The Mountains._
DECEMBER 10.
GOD IS EVERYWHERE.
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