The Project Gutenberg EBook of The California Birthday Book, by Various

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The California Birthday Book

Author: Various

Release Date: August 27, 2004 [EBook #13298]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK ***

Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

THE CALIFORNIA
BIRTHDAY BOOK

Prose and Poetical Selections
from the Writings of Living California Authors
with a Brief Biographical Sketch of each

Edited and Arranged, with an Introduction,

by

GEORGE WHARTON JAMES

Arroyo Guild Press
Los Angeles, California

1909

To the dearest and best
Literary Partner
man ever had:

MY WIFE

whose critical discernment and fine judgment
have materially aided in making the
selections for this book.

CALIFORNIA—GOD'S COUNTRY.

California—land of the brightest dreams of our childhood; of the passionate longings of our youth; of the most splendid triumphs of our manhood. California—land of golden thoughts, of golden hills, of golden mines, and of golden deeds.

INTRODUCTORY

This book, as its title-page states, is made up of selections from the writings of California authors. Most of the selections refer to California—her scenic glories, mountains, valleys, skies, canyons, Yosemites, islands, foothills, plains, deserts, shoreline; her climatic charms, her flora and fauna, her varied population, her marvellous progress, her wonderful achievements, her diverse industries. Told by different authors, in both prose and poetry, the book is a unique presentation both of California and California writers. The Appendix gives further information (often asked for in vain) about the authors themselves and their work. It is the hope of the compiler that the taste given in these selections may lead many Californians to take a greater interest in the writings of their fellow citizens, and no interest pleases an author more than the purchase, commendation, and distribution of his book.

If this unpretentious book gives satisfaction to the lovers of California, both in and out of the State, the compiler will reap his highest reward. If any suitable author has been left out the omission was inadvertent, and will gladly be remedied in future editions.

GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.
1098 North Raymond Avenue
Pasadena, California.
October, 1909.

THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK

CALIFORNIA.

Hearken, how many years

I sat alone, I sat alone and heard

Only the silence stirred

By wind and leaf, by clash of grassy spears,

And singing bird that called to singing bird.

Heard but the savage tongue

Of my brown savage children, that among

The hills and valleys chased the buck and doe,

And round the wigwam fires

Chanted wild songs of their wild savage sires,

And danced their wild, weird dances to and fro,

And wrought their beaded robes of buffalo.

Day following upon day,

Saw but the panther crouched upon the limb,

Smooth serpents, swift and slim,

Slip through the reeds and grasses, and the bear

Crush through his tangled lair

Of chaparral, upon the startled prey!

Listen, how I have seen

Flash of strange fires in gorge and black ravine;

Heard the sharp clang of steel, that came to drain

The mountain's golden vein

And laughed and sang, and sang and laughed again,

Because that "Now," I said, "I shall be known!

I shall not sit alone,

But shall reach my hands into my sister lands!

And they? Will they not turn

Old, wondering dim eyes to me and yearn—

Aye, they will yearn, in sooth,

To my glad beauty, and my glad, fresh youth."

INA D. COOLBRITH,
in Songs from the Golden Gate.

LET US MAKE EACH DAY OUR BIRTHDAY.

WRITTEN ESPECIALLY FOR THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK.

Let us make each day our birthday,

As with each new dawn we rise,

To the glory and the gladness

Of God's calm, o'erbending skies;

To the soul-uplifting anthems

Of Creation's swelling strains,

Chanted by the towering mountains,

Surging sea, and sweeping plains.

Let us make each day our birthday—

Every morning life is new,

With the splendors of the sunrise,

And the baptism of the dew;

With the glisten of the woodlands,

And the radiance of the flowers,

And the birds' exultant matins,

In the young day's wakening hours.

Let us make each day our birthday,

To a newer, holier life,

Rousing to some high endeavor,

Arming for a nobler strife,

Toiling upward, looking Godward,

Lest our poor lives be as discords,

In Heaven's symphony of love.

S.A.R., College Notre Dame, San Jose, Cal.

Decorative line

JANUARY 1.

A NEW YEAR'S WISH.

May each day bring thee something

Fair to hold in memory—

Some true light to shine

Upon thee in the after days.

May each night bring thee peace,

As when the dove broods o'er

The young she loves; may day

And night the circle of

A rich experience weave

About thy life, and make

It rich with knowledge, but radiant

With Love, whose blossoms shall be

Tender deeds.

HELEN VAN ANDERSON GORDON.

Decorative line

JANUARY 2.

THE MIRAGE ON THE CALIFORNIA DESERT.

To the south the eye rests upon a vast lake, which can be seen ten or twelve miles distant from the slopes of the mountains, and when I first saw it, its beauty was entrancing. Away to the south, on its borders, were hills of purple, each reflected as clearly as though photographed, and still beyond rose the caps and summits of other peaks and mountains rising from this inland sea, whose waters were of turquoise; yet, as we moved down the slope, the lake was always stealing on before. It was of the things dreams are made of, that has driven men mad and to despair, its bed a level floor of alkali and clay, covered with a dry, impalpable dust that the slightest wind tossed and whirled in air.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Life in the Open.

Decorative line

JANUARY 3.

When the green waves come dashing,

With thunderous lashing,

Against the bold cliffs that defend the scarred earth,

He wheels through the roaring,

Where foam-flakes are pouring,

And flaps his broad wings in a transport of mirth.

JOSIAH KEEP,
in The Song of the Sea-Bird, in Shells and Sea-Life.

Decorative line

JANUARY 4.

A long jagged peninsula, where barren heights and cactus-clad mesas glow in the biting rays of an unobscured sun, where water holes are accorded locations on the maps, and where, under the fluttering shade of fluted palm boughs, life becomes a siesta dream. A land great in its past and lean in its present. A land where the rattlesnake and the sidewinder, the tarantula and the scorpion multiply, and where sickness is unknown and fivescore years no uncommon span of life. A land of strange contradictions! A peninsula which to the Spanish conquistadores was an island glistening in the azure web of romance; a land for which the padres gave their lives in fanatic devotion to the Cross; a land rich in history, when the timbers of the Mayflower were yet trees in the forest. Lower California, once sought and guarded for her ores and her jewels, now a veritable terra incognita, slumbering, unnoticed, at the feet of her courted child, the great State of California. Lower California, her romance nigh forgotten, her possibilities overlooked by enterprise and by the statesmen of the two republics.

ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in The Mother of California.

Decorative line

JANUARY 5.

Above me rise the snowy peaks

Where golden sunbeams gleam and quiver,

And far below, toward Golden Gate,

O'er golden sand flows Yuba River.

Through crystal air the mountain mist

Floats far beyond yon distant eagle,

And swift o'er crag and hill and vale

Steps morning, purple-robed and regal.

CLARENCE URMY,
in A Vintage of Verse.

Decorative line

JANUARY 6.

With the assistance of Indians and swinging a good axe himself, the worthy padre cut down a number of trees, and, having carried the logs to the Gulf Coast, he there constructed from them a small vessel which was solemnly christened El Triumfo de la Cruz.

Let Ugarte be remembered not only as a man of fine physique, the first ship-builder in the Californias, but as an ardent Christian, a wise old diplomat and a fearless explorer. He stands forth bold, shrewd and aggressive, one of the most heroic figures in early California history.  ∗ ∗ ∗ 

At the same time that Ugarte was exploring the Gulf of California, Captain George Shevlock of England was cruising about California waters engaged in a little privateering enterprise. On his return to England, Shevlock set forth on the charts that California was an island. This assertion was not surprising, for at this time a controversy was raging between certain of the Episcopal authorities on the Spanish Main as to which bishopric las Islas Californias belonged! Guadalajara was finally awarded the "island."

ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in The Mother of California.

Decorative line

JANUARY 7.

CALIFORNIA.

A sleeping beauty, hammock-swung,

Beside the sunset sea,

And dowered with riches, wheat, and oil,

Vineyard and orange tree;

Her hand, her heart to that fair prince

Whose genius shall unfold

With rarest art her treasured tales

Of life and love and gold.

CLARENCE URMY,
in A Vintage of Verse.

Decorative line

JANUARY 8.

BACK TO CALIFORNIA.

To the Californian born, California is the only place to live. Why do men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of the human love for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's mountain streams—out of the earth washed into California's great valleys by her mighty rivers—out of this the sons of California are made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native land—back to the soil which gave us birth—and at the last back to Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we repose our tired bodies when our work is done.

JEROME A. HART,
in Argonaut Letters.

Decorative line

JANUARY 9.

GIVE ME CALIFORNY.

Blizzard back in York state

Sings its frosty tune,

Here the sun a-shinin',

Air as warm as June.

Snow in Pennsylvany,

Zero times down East,

Here the flowers bloomin',

A feller's eyes to feast.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Its every one his own way,

The place he'd like to be,

But give me Californy—

It's good enough for me.

JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in Just California.

Decorative line

JANUARY 10.

If Mother Nature is indeed as we see her here, broad-browed and broad-bosomed, strong and calm—calm because strong—swaying her vain brats by unruffled love, not by fear; by wise giving, not by privation; by caresses and gentle precepts, not by cuffs and scoldings and hysterics—why, then she shall better justify our memories and the name we have given her. It is well that our New England mothers had a different climate in their hearts from that which beat at their windows. I know one Yankee boy who never could quite understand that his mother had gone home till he came to know the skies of California.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West, June, 1902.

Decorative line

JANUARY 11.

California, the orchid in the garden of the states, the warm motherland of genius, the land of enchantment, the land of romance, the land of magic; California, the beautiful courtezan land, whose ravishing form the enamored gods had strewed with scarlet roses and white lilies, and buried deep in her bosom rich treasure; California began the twentieth century with another tale, fantastic, incredible.  ∗ ∗ ∗ 

Until the oil was discovered the land had been worth from one to four dollars an acre, but now offers were made for it from five hundred to as many thousands.

MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in The Giants.

Decorative line

JANUARY 12.

A CALIFORNIAN TO HIS OLD HOME.

I oft feel sad and lone and cold

Here in the Golden West,

When I recall the times of old,

And fond hearts laid to rest;

The gladsome village crowd at e'en,

The stars a-peeping down,

And all the meadows robed in green

Around Claremorris Town.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

This is, in truth, a lovely sphere,

A heaven-favored clime,

Here Nature smiles the whole long year,

'Tis summer all the time,

With spreading palms and pine trees tall

And grape-vines drooping down—

But gladly would I give them all

For you, Claremorris Town.

LAURENCE BRANNICK.

Decorative line

JANUARY 13.

The establishment of the Mission of Santa Catarina marks the close of what may well be termed the third period of Lower California history. It is a period remarkable for progress rather than for individual actors. The great Junipero Serra passes quickly across the stage, figuring as a man of physical endurance and a diplomat—not as an explorer or a founder of many missions. His most historic act on the Peninsula was performed when he drew a line of division between the territory of the Dominicans and the Franciscans. He is a link between the two Californias.

ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in The Mother of California.

Decorative line

JANUARY 14.

TO THE U.S. CRUISER CALIFORNIA.

Godspeed our namesake cruiser,

Godspeed till the echoes cease

'Fore all may the nation choose her

To speak her will for peace.

That she in the hour of battle

Her western fangs may show.

That from her broadsides' rattle

A listening world may know—

She's more than a fighting vessel,

More than mere moving steel,

More than a hull to wrestle

With the currents at her keel;

That she bodies a living-spirit.

The spirit of a state,

A people's strength and merit,

Their hope, their love, their fate.

HAROLD S. SYMMES.

Decorative line

JANUARY 15.

CALIFORNIA AND ITALY.

More and more it becomes apparent to me that the Climate of California spoils one for any other in the world. If Californians ever doubt that their winter weather is the finest in the world, let them try that of sunny Italy. If they have ever grumbled at their gentle rains, brought on the wings of mild winds from the south, let them try the raw rain, hail, snow, and sleet storms of sunny Italy. And then forever after let them hold their peace.

JEROME A. HART,
in Argonaut Letters.

Decorative line

JANUARY 16.

I see thee in this Hellas of the West,

Thy youngest, fairest child, upon whose crest

Thy white snows gleam, and at whose dimpled feet

The blue sea breaks, while on her heaving breast

The flowers droop and languish for her smile,

Thy grace is mirrored in her youthful form,

She lifts her forehead to the battling storm,

As proud, as fair as thou.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Like thee, she opens wide her snowy arms,

And folds the Nations on her mother-breast.

The brawny Sons of Earth have made their home

Where her wide Ocean casts its ceaseless foam,

Where lifts her white Sierras' orient peak

The wild exultant love of all that makes

The nobler life; the energy that shakes the Earth

And gives new eons birth.

S.A.S.H. of College of Notre Dame, San Jose,
in Hellas.

Decorative line

JANUARY 17.

THE RETURN TO CALIFORNIA.

Across the desert waste we sped;

The cactus gloomed on either hand,

Wild, weird, grotesque each frowning head

Uprearing from the sand.

Through dull, gray dawn and blazing noon,

Like furnace fire the quivering air,

Till darkness fell, and the young moon

Smiled forth serene and fair.

A single star adown the sky

Shone like a jewel, clear and bright;

We heard the far coyote's cry

Pierce through the silent night.

Then morning—bathed in purple sheen;

Beyond—the grand, eternal hills;

With sunny, emerald vales between,

Crossed by a thousand rills.

Sweet groves, green pastures; buzz of bee

And scent of flower; a dash of foam

On rugged cliffs; the blessed sea,

And then—the lights of home!

MARY E. MANNIX.

Decorative line

JANUARY 18.

Around the Southern Californian home of the loving twain the roses are in perpetual bloom. The vines are laden with clustered grapes, the peach and the apricot trees bend under their loads of luscious fruit, the milch cows yield their creamy milk, the honey-bees laying in their stores of sweet spoil, the balmy air breathes fragrance, the drowsy hum of life is the music of peace.

EDMUND MITCHELL,
in Only a Nigger.

Decorative line

JANUARY 19.

CALIFORNIA SONG.

DEDICATED TO GEORGE WHARTON JAMES.

Proud are we to own us thine,

Land of Song and Land of Story,

All thy glory

Round our heart-hopes we entwine,

In our souls thy fame enshrine,

California!

Dear to us thy mystic name,

Leal-land; Love-land; Land of Might,

We would write

On the walls of Years thy fame,

With thy love a world inflame,

California!

Dear to us thy maiden grace,

Dear thy queenly Motherhood,

Fain we would

Keep the sun-smiles on thy face,

Worthy live of thy strong Race,

California!

Land of Beauty! Blossom-land!

Land of Heroes, Saints and Sages,

Let the Ages

Witness all thou canst command

From each loyal heart and hand,

California!

S.A.S.H.

Decorative line

JANUARY 20.

I always appreciate things as I go along, for no knowing whether you'll ever go the same way twice in this world.

ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in The Travels of Phoebe Ann.

Decorative line

JANUARY 21.

MOUNT TAMALPAIS.

Home of the elements—where battling bands

Of clouds and winds the rocks defy—

Mute yet great, old Tamalpais stands

Outlined against the rosy sky.

His darkened form uprising there commands

The country round, and every eye

From lesser hills he strangely seems to draw

With lifted glance that speaks of wonder and of awe.

It is the awe that makes us reverence show

To men of might who proudly tower

Above their fellow-men; the glance that we bestow

On one whose native force and power

Have lifted him above the race below—

The pigmy mortals of an hour—

We almost bend the knee and bow the head

To the mighty force that marks his kingly tread.

MRS. PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in Readings from the California Poets.

Decorative line

JANUARY 22.

Broadly speaking, California is the only elective State. Its people are not here because their mothers happened to be here at the time; not as refugees; not as ne'er-do-wells, drifting to do no better; not even, in bulk, as joining the scrimmage for more money. They have come by deliberate choice, and a larger proportion of them, and more single-heartedly, for home's sake than in any other as large migration on record.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West, August, 1902.

Decorative line

JANUARY 23.

Is there any kind of climate,

Any scene for painter's eye,

The Almighty hath not crowded

'Neath our California sky?

Is there any fruit or flower,

Any gem or jewel old,

Any wonder of creation

This Garden doth not hold—

From the tiny midget blossom

To the grand Sequoia high,

With its roots in God's own country

And its top in God's own sky?

FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in Old Abe and Other Poems.

Decorative line

JANUARY 24.

A MENDOCINO MEMORY.

I climbed the canyon to a river-head,

And looking backward saw a splendor spread.

Miles beyond miles, of every kingly hue

And trembling tint the looms of Arras knew—

A flowery pomp as of the dying day,

A splendor where a god might take his way.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

It was the brink of night and everywhere

Tall redwoods spread their filmy tops in air;

Huge trunks, like shadows upon shadow cast,

Pillared the under twilight, vague and vast.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Lightly I broke green branches for a bed,

And gathered ferns, a pillow for my head.

And what to this were kingly chambers worth—

Sleeping, an ant, upon the sheltering earth.

EDWIN MARKHAM,
in Lincoln and Other Poems.

Decorative line

JANUARY 25.

CALIFORNIA.

Queen of the Coast, she stands here emerald-crowned,

Waiting her ships that sail in from the sea,

Fairer than all the western world to me,

Is this young Goddess whom the years have found

Ocean and land, with riches rare and sweet.

Loyally bring their treasures to her feet;

In her brave arms she holds with proud content

The varied plenty of a continent;

In her fair face, and in her dreaming eyes,

Shines the bright promise of her destinies;

Winds kiss her cheek, and fret the restless tides,

She in their truth with faith divine confides,

Watching the course of empire's brilliant fate,

She looks serenely through the Golden Gate.

ANNA MORRISON REED.

Decorative line

JANUARY 26.

Here was our first (and still largest) national romance, the first wild-flower of mystery, the first fierce passion of an uncommonly hard-fisted youth. To this day it persists the only glamour between the covers of our geography. For more than fifty years its only name has been a witchcraft, and its spell is stronger now than ever, as shall be coolly demonstrated. This has meant something in the psychology of so unfanciful a race. The flowering of imagination is no trivial incident, whether in one farm boy's life or in a people's. It may be outgrown, and so much as forgotten; but it shall never again be as if it had never been. Without just that flower we should not have just this fruit.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in Out West, June, 1892.

Decorative line

JANUARY 27.

As time goes on its endless course, environment is sure to crystallize the American nation. Its varying elements will become unified and the weeding out process will probably leave the finest human product ever known. The color, the perfume, the size and form that are placed in the plants will have their analogies in the composite, the American of the future.

And now what will hasten this development most of all? The proper rearing of children. Don't feed children on maudlin sentimentalism or dogmatic religion; give them nature. Let their souls drink in all that is pure and sweet. Rear them, if possible, amid pleasant surroundings. If they come into the world with souls groping in darkness, let them see and feel the light. Don't terrify them in early life with the fear of an after world. There never was a child that was made more noble and good by the fear of a hell. Let nature teach them the lessons of good and proper living. Those children will grow to be the best of men and women. Put the best in them in contact with the best outside. They will absorb it as a plant does sunshine and the dew.

LUTHER BURBANK.

Decorative line

JANUARY 28.

Let us embark freely upon the ocean of truth; listen to every word of God-like genius as to a whisper of the Holy Ghost, with the conviction that beauty, truth and love are always divine, and that the real Bible, whose inspiration can never be questioned, comprises all noble and true words spoken and written by man in all ages.

WILLIAM DAY SIMONDS,
in Freedom and Fraternity.

Decorative line

JANUARY 29.

Westward the Star of Empire! Come West, young men! Westward ho! to all of you who want an opportunity to do something and to be something. Here is the place in the great Southwest, in the great Northwest, in all the great West, where you can find an opportunity ready to your hand. We are only 3,000,000 now. There is room here for 30,000,000. Where each one of us is now finding an opportunity to do something and be something there is plenty of room for ten more of you to come and join us.

G.W. BURTON,
in Burton's Book on California.

Decorative line

JANUARY 30.

IN CALIFORNIA'S MOUNTAINS.

'Mid the far, fair hills, beneath the pines

With their carpet of needles, soft and brown.

Dwells the precious scent of rare old wines.

Where the sun's distilling rays pour down:

Away from the city, mile on mile,

Far up in the hills where life's worth while.

There the rivulet in gladness leaps

Down a fronded valley, sweet and cool,

Or pausing a little moment sleeps

In a mossy, rock-bound, limpid pool:

Away from the city, mile on mile,

Far up in the hills where life's worth while.

The wild bird carols its sweetest lay,

And the world seems golden with love's good cheer;

There is never a care to cloud the day,

And Heaven, itself, seems, oh, so near!

Away from the city, mile on mile.

Far up in the hills where life's worth while.

WILLIS GEORGE EMERSON.

Decorative line

JANUARY 31.

OUT HERE IN CALIFORNIA.

Out here in California, when Winter's on the scene

And the earth is like a maiden clad in shimmering robes of green;

When the mountains 'way off yonder lift their snowy peaks to God,

While here the dainty flowers raise their faces from the sod;

When the sunbeams kiss the waters till they laugh beneath the rays,

And nature seems a-joining in a matchless hymn of praise;

When there's just enough of frostiness a sense of life to give,

Right here in California it's a comfort just to live.

Out here in California in the January days

The soul of nature seems to sing a jubilee of praise,

And the songbirds whistle clearer, and the blossoms are more fair,

And someway joy and blessing seem about us in the air.

It's cold perhaps off yonder, but we never feel it here,

For the seasons run together through a Summer-haunted year,

And Dame Nature in her bounty leaves us nothing to forgive

Right here in California, where it's comfort just to live.

Out here in California where the orange turns to gold

And Nature has forgotten all the art of growing old,

There's not a day throughout the year when flowers do not grow;

There's not a single hour the streams do not unfettered flow;

There's not a briefest moment when the songsters do not sing,

And life's a sort of constant race 'twixt Summer and the Spring.

Why, just to know the joy of it one might his best years give—

Out here in California, where it's comfort just to live.

A.J. WATERHOUSE.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 1.

Night-time in California. Elsewhere men only guess

At the glory of the evenings that are perfect—nothing less;

But here the nights, returning, are the wond'rous gifts of God—

As if the days were maidens fair with golden slippers shod.

There is no cloud to hide the sky; the universe is ours,

And the starlight likes to look and laugh in Cupid-haunted bowers.

Oh the restful, peaceful evenings! In them my soul delights,

For God loved California when He gave to her her nights.

ALFRED JAMES WATERHOUSE,
in Some Homely Little Songs.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 2.

There it lay, a constellation of lights, a golden radiance dimmed by the distance. San Francisco the Impossible. The City of Miracles! Of it and its people many stories have been told, and many shall be; but a thousand tales shall not exhaust its treasury of romance. Earthquake and fire shall not change it, terror and suffering shall not break its glad, mad spirit. Time alone can tame the town, restrain its wanton manners, refine its terrible beauty, rob it of its nameless charm, subdue it to the commonplace. May time be merciful—may it delay its fatal duty till we have learned that to love, to forgive, to enjoy, is but to understand!

GELETT BURGESS,
in The Heart Line.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 3.

INCONSTANCY.

The bold West Wind loved a crimson Rose.

West winds do.

This dainty secret he never had told.

He thought she knew.

But there were poppies to be caressed—

When he returned from his fickle quest,

He found his Rose on another's breast.

Alas! Untrue!

IDA MANSFIELD-WILSON.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 4.

THE FIRST FLAG RAISING IN CALIFORNIA.

In February, 1829 the ship Brookline of Boston arrived at San Diego. The mate, James P. Arthur, was left at Point Loma, with a small party to cure hides, while the vessel went up the coast. To attract passing ships Arthur and one of his men, Greene, concluded to make and raise a flag. This was done by using Greene's cotton shirt for the white and Arthur's woolen shirts for the red and blue. With patient effort they cut the stars and stripes with their knives, and sewed them together with sail needles. A small tree lashed to their hut made a flag-pole. A day or two later a schooner came in sight, and up went the flag. This was on Point Loma, on the same spot, possibly, hallowed by the graves of the seventy-five men who lost their lives in the Bennington explosion, July 21, 1905.

MAJOR W.J. HANDY.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 5.

Live for to-day—nor pause to fear

Of what To-morrow's sun may bring!

To-day has hours of hope and cheer.

To-day your songs of joy should ring.

The Yesterdays are dead and gone

Adown the long, uneven way;

But Hope is smiling with the dawn—

Live for To-day!

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Live for To-day! He wins the crown

Whose work stands but the crucial test!

Who scales the heights through sneer and frown

And gives unto the world his best.

Bend to your task! The steep slopes climb,

And Love's true light will lead the way

To perfect peace in God's own time—

Live for To-day!

E.A. BRININSTOOL

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 6.

It is a peculiar feature of our sailing that within a few hours we may change our climate. Cool, windy, moist, in the lower bays; and hot, calm, and quiet in the rivers, creeks, and sloughs. As you go to Napa, for instance, the wind gradually lightens as the bay is left, the air is balmier, and finally the yacht is left becalmed. We can, moreover, in two hours run from salt into fresh water. In spring the water is fresh down into Suisun Bay; and at Antioch, fresh water is the rule. The yachts frequently sail up there so that the barnacles will be killed by the fresh water.

CHARLES G. YALE,
in The Californian.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 7.

Across San Pablo's heaving breast

I see the home-lights gleam,

As the sable garments of the night

Drop down on vale and stream.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Hard by, yon vessel from the seas

Her cargo homeward brings,

And soon, like sea-bird on her nest,

Will sleep with folded wings.

The fisher's boat swings in the bay,

From yonder point below,

While ours is drifting with the tide,

And rocking to and fro.

LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE,
in A Red-Letter Day.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 8.

A few years ago this valley of San Gabriel was a long open stretch of wavy slopes and low rolling hills; in winter robed in velvety green and spangled with myriads of flowers all strange to Eastern eyes; in summer brown with sun-dried grass, or silvery gray where the light rippled over the wild oats. Here and there stood groves of huge live-oaks, beneath whose broad, time-bowed heads thousands of cattle stamped away the noons of summer. Around the old mission, whose bells have rung o'er the valley for a century, a few houses were grouped; but beyond this there was scarcely a sign of man's work except the far-off speck of a herdsman looming in the mirage, or the white walls of the old Spanish ranch-house glimmering afar through the hazy sunshine in which the silent land lay always sleeping.

T.S. VAN DYKE,
in Southern California.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 9.

The surroundings of Monterey could not well be more beautiful if they had been gotten up to order. Hills, gently rising, the chain broken here and there by a more abrupt peak, environ the city, crowned with dark pines and the famous cypress of Monterey (Cypressus macrocarpa.) Before us the bay lies calm and blue, and away across, can be seen the town of Santa Cruz, an indistinct white gleam on the mountain side.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in Another Juanita.

LOS ALTOS.

The lark sends up a carol blithe,

Bloom-billows scent the breeze,

Green-robed the rolling foot-hills rise

And poppies paint the leas.

HANNA OTIS BRUN.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 10.

SANTA BARBARA.

A golden bay 'neath soft blue skies,

Where on a hillside creamy rise

The mission towers, whose patron saint

Is Barbara—with legend quaint.

HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in History of California.

Dare to be free. Free to do the thing you crave to do and that craves the doing. Free to live in that higher realm where none is fit to criticise save one's self. Free to scorn ridicule, to face contempt, to brave remorse. Free to give life to the one human soul that can demand and grant such a boon—one's own self.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in Anthony Overman.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 11.

In Carmel pines the summer wind

Sings like a distant sea.

O harps of green, your murmurs find

An echoing chord in me!

On Carmel shore the breakers moan

Like pines that breast the gale.

O whence, ye winds and billows, flown

To cry your wordless tale?

GEORGE STERLING,
in A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems.

OAKLAND—BERKELEY—ALAMEDA.

O close-clasped towns across the bay,

Whose lights like gleaming jewels stray,

A ruby, golden, splendid way,

When day from earth has flown.

I watch you lighting night by night,

O twisted strands of jewels bright,

The altar-fires of home, alight—

I who am all alone.

GRACE HIBBARD,
in Forget-me-nots from California.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 12.

On the Berkeley Hills for miles away

I went a-roaming one winter's day,

And what do you think I saw, my dear?

A place where the sky came down to the hill,

And a big white cloud on the fresh green grass,

And bright red berries my basket to fill,

And mustard that grew in a golden mass—

All on a winter's day, my dear!

CHARLES KEELER,
in Elfin Songs of Sunland.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 13.

THE SUNSET GUN AT ANGEL ISLAND

A touch of night on the hill-tops gray;

A dusky hush on the quivering Bay;

A calm moon mounting the silent East—

White slave the day-god has released;

Small, scattered clouds

That seemed to wait

Like sheets of fire

O'er the Golden Gate.

And under Bonita, growing dim.

With a seeming pause on the ocean's rim,

Like a weary lab'rer, smiles the sun

To the booming crash of the sunset gun.

LOWELL OTUS REESE.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 14.

MY VALENTINE.

My valentine needs not this day

Of Cupid's undisputed sway

To have my loving heart disclose

The love for her that brightly glows;

For it is hers alway, alway.

Whate'er the fickle world may say,

There's nought within its fair array

That for a moment could depose

My valentine.

Where'er the paths of life may stray,

'Mid valleys dark or gardens gay,

With holly wild or blushing rose,

Through summer's gleam or winter's snows,

Thou art, dear love, for aye and aye.

My valentine.

CLIFFORD HOWARD.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 15.

JOAQUIN MILLER'S HOME ON THE HIGHTS.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Rugged! Rugged as Parnassus!

Rude, as all roads I have trod—

Yet are steeps and stone-strewn passes

Smooth o'erhead, and nearest God.

Here black thunders of my canyon

Shake its walls in Titan wars!

Here white sea-born clouds companion

With such peaks as know the stars.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Steep below me lies the valley,

Deep below me lies the town,

Where great sea-ships ride and rally,

And the world walks up and down.

O, the sea of lights far streaming

When the thousand flags are furled—

When the gleaming bay lies dreaming

As it duplicates the world.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

JOAQUIN MILLER.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 16.

I have watched the ships sailing and steaming in through the Golden Gate, and they seemed like doves of peace bringing messages of good-will from all the world. In the still night, when the scream of the engine's whistle would reach my ears, I would reflect upon the fact that though dwelling in a city whose boundaries were almost at the verge of our nation's great territory, yet we were linked to it by bands of steel, and Plymouth Rock did not seem so far from Shag Rock, nor Bedloe's Island from Alcatraz.

LORENZO SOSSO,
in Wisdom of the Wise.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 17.

We believe that when future generations shall come to write our history they will find that in this city of San Francisco we have been true to our ideals; that we have struggled along as men who struggle, not always unfalteringly, but at least always with a good heart; that we have tried to do our duty by our town and by our country and by the people who look to us for light, and that history will be able to say of San Francisco that she has been true to her trust as the "Warder of two continents"; that she has been the jewel set in the place where the ends of the ring had met; that she is the mistress of the great sea which spreads before us, and of the people who hunger for light, for truth, and for civilization; that she stands for truth, a flaming signal set upon the sentinel hills, calling all the nations to the blessings of the freedom which we enjoy.

FATHER P.C. YORKE,
in The Warder of Two Continents.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 18.

FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOPS, LOOKING TOWARDS SAN FRANCISCO BAY.

From the mountain tops we see the valleys stretching out for leagues below. The eye travels over the tilled fields and the blossoming orchards, through the tall trees and along the verdant meadows that are watered by the mountain streams. Beyond the valley rolls the ocean, whereon we see the armored vessels, and the pleasure yachts, and the merchant ships, laden with the grain of our golden shores, sailing under every flag that floats the sea.

LAURENCE BRANNICK.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 19.

THE POET'S SONG.

I gather flowers on moss-paved woodland ways

I roam with poets dead in tranced amaze;

Soon must my wild-wood sheaf be cast away,

But in my heart the poet's song shall stay.

CHARLES KEELER,
in A Season's Sowing.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 20.

Morning of fleet-arrive was splandid. By early hour of day all S.F. persons has clustered therselves on tip of hills and suppression of excitement was enjoyed. Considerable watching occurred. Barking of dogs was strangled by collars, infant babies which desired to weep was spanked for prevention of. Silences. Depressed banners was held in American hands to get ready wave it.

Many persons in Sabbath clothings was there, including 1,000 Japanese spies which were very nice behaviour. I was nationally proud of them.

Of suddenly, Oh!!!

Through the Goldy Gate, what see? Maglificent sight of marine insurance! Floating war-boats of dozens approaching directly straight by line and shooting salutes at people. On come them Imperial Navy of Hon. Roosevelt and Hon. Hobson; what heart could quit beating at it? Such white paint—like bath tub enamel, only more respectful in appearance.  ∗ ∗ ∗ 

From collected ½ million of persons on hills of S.F. one mad yell of star-spangly joy. Fire-crack salute, siren whistle, honk-horn, megaphone, extra edition, tenor solo—all connected together to give impressions of loyal panderonium.

WALLACE IRWIN,
in Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 21.

CALIFORNIA TO THE FLEET.

Behold, upon thy yellow sands,

I wait with laurels in my hands.

The Golden Gate swings wide and there

I stand with poppies in my hair.

Come in, O ships! These happy seas

Caressed the golden argosies

Of forty-nine. They felt the keel

Of dark Ayala's pinnace steal

Across the mellow gulf and pass

Unchallenged, under Alcatraz.

Not War we love, but Peace, and these

Are but the White Dove's argosies—

The symbols of a mighty will

No tyrant hand may use for ill.

DANIEL S. RICHARDSON,
in Trail Dust.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 22.

The splendors of a Sierra sunset cannot be accurately delineated by pencil or brush. The combined pigments of a Hill and a Moran and a Bierstadt cannot adequately reproduce so gorgeous a canvas. The lingering sun floods all the west with flame; it touches with scarlet tint the serrated outlines of the distant summits and hangs with golden fringe each silvery cloud. Then the colors soften and turn into amber and lilac and maroon. These soon assimilate and dissolve and leave an ashes of rose haze on all far-away objects, when receding twilight spreads its veil and shuts from view all but the mountain outlines, the giant taxodiums and the fantastic fissures of the canyons beneath.

BEN C. TRUMAN,
in Occidental Sketches.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 23.

GOLDEN GATE PARK IN MIDWINTER.

The dewdrops hang on the bending grass,

A dragon-fly cuts a sunbeam through.

The moaning cypress trees lift somber arms

Up to skies of cloudless blue.

A humming-bird sips from a golden cup,

In the hedge a hidden bird sings,

And a butterfly among the flowers

Tells me that the soul has wings.

GRACE HIBBARD,
in Wild Roses of California.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 24.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

JOHN MUIR.

It was indeed a glorious morning. The bay, a molten blaze of many blended hues, bore upon its serene surface the flags of all nations, above which brooded the white doves of peace. Crafts of every conceivable description swung in the flame-lit fathoms that laved the feet of the stately hills, then stepping out, one by one, from their gossamer night robes to receive the first kiss of dawn.

Grim Alcatraz, girdled with bristling armaments, scintillating in the sun, suggested the presence of some monster leviathan, emerging from the deep, still undivested of gems, from his submarine home.

EUGENIA KELLOGG,
in The Awakening of Poccalito.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 25.

THE SIERRA NEVADAS

They watch and guard the sleeping dells

Where ice born torrents flow—

A myriad granite sentinels,

Helmed and cuirassed with snow.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Yon glacial torrent's deep, hoarse lute

Its upward music flings—

The great, eternal crags stand mute,

And listen while it sings

O mighty range! Thy wounds and scars,

Thy weird, bewildering forms,

Attest thine everlasting wars—

Thy heritage of storms

And still what peace! Serenity

On crag and deep abyss,

O, may such calmness fall on me

When Azrael stoops to kiss.

GEORGE N. LOWE.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 26.

Tamalpais is a wooded mountain with ample slopes, and from it on the north stretch away ridges of forest land, the out posts of the great Northern woods of Sequoia sempervirens, This mountain and the mountainous country to the south bring the forest closer to San Francisco than to any other American city. Within the last few years men have killed deer on the slopes of Tamalpais and looked down to see the cable cars crawling up the hills of San Francisco to the south. In the suburbs coyotes still stole in and robbed hen roosts by night.

WILL IRWIN,
in The City That Was.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 27.

DAWN ON MOUNT TAMALPAIS.

A cloudless heaven is bending o'er us,

The dawn is lighting the linn and lea;

Island and headland and bay before us,

And, dim in the distance, the heaving sea.

The Farallon light is faintly flashing,

The birds are wheeling in fitful flocks,

The coast-line brightens, the waves are dashing

And tossing their spray on the Lobos rocks.

The Heralds of Morn in the east are glowing

And boldly lifting the veil of night;

Whitney and Shasta are bravely showing

Their crowns of snow in the morning light.

The town is stirring with faint commotion,

In all its highways it throbs and thrills;

We greet you! Queen of the Western Ocean,

As you wake to life on your hundred hills.

The forts salute, and the flags are streaming

From ships at anchor in cove and strait;

O'er the mountain tops, in splendor beaming,

The sun looks down on the Golden Gate.

LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 28.

ENOUGH.

When my calm majestic mountains are piled white and high

Against the perfect rose-tints of a living sunrise sky,

I can resign the dearest wish without a single sigh,

And let the whole world's restlessness pass all unheeded by.

MARY RUSSELL MILLS.

Decorative line

FEBRUARY 29.

MARSHALL SAUNDERS ON SAN FRANCISCO.

How we all love a city that we have once contemplated making our home! Such a city to me is San Francisco, and but for unavoidable duties elsewhere, I would be there today. I loved that bright, beautiful city, and even the mention of its name sends my blood bounding more quickly through my veins. That might have been my city, and I therefore rejoice in its prosperity. I am distressed when calamity overtakes it—I never lose faith in its ultimate success. The heart of the city is sound. It has always been sound, even in the early days when a ring of corrupt adventurers would have salted the city of the blessed herb with an unsavory reputation, but for the care of staunch and courageous protectors at the heart of it.

San Francisco is not the back door of the continent. San Francisco is the front door. Every ship sailing out of its magnificent bay to the Orient, proclaims this fact. San Francisco will one day lead the continent. A city that cares for its poor and helpless, its children and dumb animals, that encourages art and learning, and never wearies in its prosecution of evil-doers—that city will eventually emerge triumphant from every cloud of evil report. Long live the dear city by the Golden Gate!

MARSHALL SAUNDERS, July, 1909.

"Senor Barrow, I congratulate you," Morale said, in his native tongue. "A woman who cannot be won away by passion or by chance, is a woman of gold."

GERTRUDE B. MILLARD,
in On the Ciudad Road, The Newsletter, Jan., 1899.

AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO.

The rose and honey-suckle here entwine

In lovely comradeship their am'rous arms;

Here grasses spread their undecaying charms.

And every wall is eloquent with vine;

Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign,

And as we stroll along their tree-lined way,

The songster trills his rapture-breathing lay

From where he finds inviolable shrine.

And yet, within this beauty-haunted place

War keeps his dreadful engines at command.

With scarce a smile upon his frowning face,

And ever ready, unrelaxing hand ...

We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers,

A tiger sleeping on a bed of flowers.

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in Moods and Other Verse.

Decorative line

MARCH 1.

THE CITY'S VOICE.

A mighty undertone of mingled sound;

The cadent tumult rising from a throng

Of urban workers, blending in a song

Of greater life that makes the pulses bound.

The whirr of turning wheels, the hammers' ring

The noise of traffic and the tread of men,

The viol's sigh, the scratching of a pen—

All to a vibrant Whole their echoes fling.

Hark to the City's voice; it tells a tale

Of triumphs and defeats, of joy and woe,

The lover's tryst, the challenge of a foe,

A dying gasp, a new-born infant's wail.

The pulse-beats of a million hearts combined,

Reverberating in a rhythmic thrill—

A vital message that is never still—

A sweeping, cosmic chorus, unconfined.

LOUIS J. STELLMANN,
in San Francisco Town Talk, December 6, 1902.

Decorative line

MARCH 2.

From his windows on Russian Hill one saw always something strange and suggestive creeping through the mists of the bay. It would be a South Sea Island brig, bringing in copra, to take out cottons and idols; a Chinese junk after sharks' livers; an old whaler, which seemed to drip oil, home from a year of cruising in the Arctic. Even the tramp windjammers were deep-chested craft, capable of rounding the Horn or of circumnavigating the globe; and they came in streaked and picturesque from their long voyaging.

WILL IRWIN,
in The City That Was.

Decorative line

MARCH 3.

WILD HONEY.

The swarms that escape from their careless owners have a weary, perplexing time of it in seeking suitable homes. Most of them make their way to the foot-hills of the mountains, or to the trees that line the banks of the rivers, where some hollow log or trunk may be found. A friend of mine, while out hunting on the San Joaquin, came upon an old coon trap, hidden among some tall grass, near the edge of the river, upon which he sat down to rest. Shortly afterward his attention was attracted to a crowd of angry bees that were flying excitedly about his head, when he discovered that he was sitting upon their hive, which was found to contain more than 200 pounds of honey.

JOHN MUIR,
in The Mountains of California.

Decorative line

MARCH 4.

PHOSPHORESCENT SEA WAVES, BALBOA BEACH, CAL.

Responsive to my oar and hand,

Touching to glory sea and sand.

A glint, a sparkle, a flash, a flame,

An ecstasy above all name.

What art thou, strange, mysterious flame?

Art thou some flash of central fire,

So pure and strong thou wilt not expire

Tho' plunged in ocean's seething main?

Mayest thou not be that sacred flame,

Creative, moulding, purging fire.

Aspiring, abandoning all desire

Shaping perfection from Life's pain?

MARY RUSSELL MILLS,
in Fellowship Magazine.

Decorative line

MARCH 5.

THE JOY OF THE HILLS.

I ride on the mountain tops, I ride;

I have found my life and am satisfied.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget

Life's hoard of regret—

All the terror and pain

Of the chafing chain.

Grind on, O cities, grind;

I leave you a blur behind.

I am lifted elate—the skies expand;

Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of sand.

Let them weary and work in their narrow walls;

I ride with the voices of waterfalls!

I swing on as one in a dream; I swing

Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing!

The world is gone like an empty word;

My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a bird.

EDWIN MARKHAM,
in The Man with a Hoe, and Other Poems.

Decorative line

MARCH 6.

We move about these streets of San Francisco in cars propelled by electric energy created away yonder on the Tuolumne River in the foothills of the Sierras; we sit at home and read by a light furnished from the same distant source. How splendid it all is—the swiftly flowing cascades of the Sierra Nevadas are being harnessed like beautiful white horses, tireless and ageless, to draw the chariots of industry around this Bay.

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.

Decorative line

MARCH 7.

BACK, BACK TO NATURE.

Weary! I am weary of the madness of the town,

Deathly weary of all women, and all wine.

Back, back to Nature! I will go and lay me down,

Bleeding lay me down before her shrine.

For the mother-breast the hungry babe must call,

Loudly to the shore cries the surf upon the sea;

Hear, Nature wide and deep! after man's mad festival

How bitterly my soul cries out for thee!

HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in Of Both Worlds.

Decorative line

MARCH 8.

Across the valley was another mountain, dark and grand, with flecks of black growing chemisai in clefts and crevices, and sunny slopes and green fields lying at its base. And oh, the charm of these mountains. In the valley there might be fog and the chill of the north, but on the mountains lay the warmth and the dreaminess of the south.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN,
in Overland Tales.

The furious wind that came driving down the canyon lying far below him was the breath of the approaching multitude of storm-demons. The giant trees on the slopes of the canyon seemed to brace themselves against the impending assault.  ∗ ∗ ∗ 

At the bottom of the canyon, the Sacramento River here a turbulent mountain stream, and now a roaring torrent from the earlier rains of the season, fumed and foamed as it raced with the wind down the canyon hurrying on its way to the placid reaches in the plains of California.

W.C. MORROW,
in A Man: His Mark.

Decorative line

MARCH 9.

THE ROCK DIVING OF MOUNTAIN SHEEP.

On another occasion, a flock … retreated to another portion of this same cliff (over 150 feet high), and, on being followed, they were seen jumping down in perfect order, one behind another, by two men who happened to be chopping where they had a fair view of them and could watch their progress from top to bottom of the precipice. Both ewes and rams made the frightful descent without evincing any extraordinary concern, hugging the rock closely, and controlling the velocity of their half-falling, half-leaping movements by striking at short intervals and holding back with their cushioned, rubber feet upon small ledges and roughened inclines until near the bottom, when they "sailed off" into the free air and alighted on their feet, but with their bodies so nearly in a vertical position that they appeared to be diving.

JOHN MUIR,
in The Mountains of California.

Decorative line

MARCH 10.

The ridge, ascending from seaward in a gradual coquetry of foot-hills, broad low ranges, cross-systems, canyons, little flats, and gentle ravines, inland dropped off almost sheer to the river below. And from under your very feet rose range after range, tier after tier, rank after rank, in increasing crescendo of wonderful tinted mountains to the main crest of the Coast Range, the blue distance, the mightiness of California's western systems.  ∗ ∗ ∗  And in the far distance, finally, your soul grown big in a moment, came to rest on the great precipices and pines of the greatest mountains of all, close under the sky.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in The Mountains.

Decorative line

MARCH 11.

TO YOU, MY FRIEND.

To you, my friend, where'er you be,

Though known or all unknown to me;

To you, who love the things of God,

The dew-begemmed and velvet sod,

The birds that trill beside their nest.

"Oh, love, sweet love, of life is best;"

To you, for whom each sunset glows.

This message goes.

To you, my friend. Mayhap 'tis writ

We ne'er shall meet. What matters it?

Where'er we roam, God's light shall gleam

For us on hill and wold and stream.

And we shall hold the blossoms dear,

And baby lips shall give us cheer,

And, loving these, leal friends are we,

Where'er you be.

To you, my friend, who know right well

That life is more than money's spell,

Who hear the universal call,

"Let all love all, as He loves all,"

Oh, list me in your ranks benign,

Accept this falt'ring hand of mine

Which, though unworthy, I extend.

And hold me friend.

A.J. WATERHOUSE.

Decorative line

MARCH 12.

Strength is meant for something more than merely to be strong;

And Life is not a lifetime spent in strain to keep alive.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in The Transplantation.

Decorative line

MARCH 13.

HER KING.

A winsome maiden planned her life—

How, when she was her hero's wife,

He should be royal among men,

And worthy of a diadem.

Through all the devious ways of earth

She sought her king;

The snows of Winter fell before—

She walked o'er flowers of vanished Spring

Into the Summer's fragrant heat;

She bent her quest, with rapid feet,

Then saddened; still she journeyed down

The Autumn hillsides, bare and brown,

Through shadowy eves and golden morns;

And lo! she found him—crowned with thorns.

ANNA MORRISON REED.

Decorative line

MARCH 14.

The area of San Francisco Bay proper is two hundred and ninety square miles; the area of San Pablo Bay, Carquinez Straits, and Mare Island, thirty square miles; the area of Suisun Bay, to the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, is sixty-three square miles. The total bay area is therefore four hundred and eighty square miles; and there are hundreds of miles of slough, river, and creek. A yachtsman, starting from Alviso, at the southern end of the bay, may sail in one general direction one hundred and fifty-four miles to Sacramento, before turning. All of this, of course, in inland waters.

CHARLES G. YALE,
in The Californian.

Decorative line

MARCH 15.

It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plain and relieved their harshness of line by making a little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness. Here all things rested. Even the narrow stream ceased its turbulent down-rush long enough to form a quiet pool. Knee-deep in the water, with drooping head and half-shut eyes, drowsed a red-coated, many-antlered buck.

On one side, beginning at the very lip of the pool, was a tiny meadow, a cool, resilient surface of green, that extended to the base of the frowning wall. Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up to meet the opposing wall. Fine grass covered the slope—grass that was spangled with flowers, with here and there patches of color, orange and purple and golden. Below, the canyon was shut in. There was no view. The walls leaned together abruptly and the canyon ended in a chaos of rocks, moss-covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and creepers and boughs of trees. Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big foot-hills, pine covered and remote. And far beyond, like clouds upon the border of the sky, towered minarets of white, where the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun.

JACK LONDON,
in All Gold Canyon.

Decorative line

MARCH 16.

Except you are kindred with those who have speech with great spaces, and the four winds of the earth, and the infinite arch of God's sky, you shall not have understanding of the desert's lure.

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in Miner's Mirage Land.

Decorative line

MARCH 17.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN CALIFORNIA.

This day we celebrate is a day of faith, faith in God and the motherland. It is a day of gratitude to the God whose grace brought our fathers into the Christian life, a day of gratitude to the nations which received our fathers and blessed them with the privileges of citizenship. Let us not mind the minor chord of sorrow and persecution. Let us rather take the major chord of glory and of honor, and from the days of scholarship and of freedom to the present moment of a world's national power, let us chant the hymns of glory and sing of victory.

BISHOP THOMAS J. CONATY.

Decorative line

MARCH 18.

Said one, who upward turned his eye,

To scan the trunks from earth to sky:

"These trees, no doubt, well rooted grew

When ancient Nineveh was new;

And down the vale long shadows cast

When Moses out of Egypt passed,

And o'er the heads of Pharaoh's slaves

And soldiers rolled the Red Sea waves."

"How must the timid rabbit shake,

The fox within his burrow quake,

The deer start up with quivering hide

To gaze in terror every side,

The quail forsake the trembling spray,

When these old roots at last give way,

And to the earth the monarch drops

To jar the distant mountain-tops."

PALMER COX,
in The Brownies Through California.

Decorative line

MARCH 19 AND MARCH 20.

A WINDOW AND A TREE IN ALTADENA.

By my window a magician, breathing whispers of enchantment,

Stands and waves a wand above me till the flowing of my soul,

Like the tide's deep rhythm, rises in successive swells that widen

All my circumscribed horizon, till the finite fades away;

And the fountains of my being in their innermost recesses

Are unsealed, and as the seas sweep, sweep the waters of my soul

Till they reach the shores of Heaven and with ebb-tide bear a pearl

Back in to the heart's safe-keeping, where no thieves break through nor steal.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

By my window stands confessor with his hands outstretched to bless me,

And on bended knee I listen to his low "Absolvo te."

Ne'er was mass more sacramental, ne'er confessional more solemn,

And the benediction given ne'er shall leave my shriven soul.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Just a tree beside my window—just a symbol sent from Heaven—

But with Proteus power it ever changes meaning—changes form—

And it speaks with tongues of angels, and it prophesies the rising

Of the day-star which shall shine out from divinity in man.

LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.

Decorative line

MARCH 21.

IN THE REDWOOD CANYONS.

Down in the redwood canyons cool and deep,

The shadows of the forest ever sleep;

The odorous redwoods, wet with fog and dew,

Touch with the bay and mingle with the yew.

Under the firs the red madrona shines,

The graceful tan-oaks, fairest of them all,

Lean lovingly unto the sturdy pines,

In whose far tops the birds of passage call.

Here, where the forest shadows ever sleep,

The mountain-lily lifts its chalice white;

The myriad ferns hang draperies soft and white

Thick on each mossy bank and watered steep,

Where slender deer tread softly in the night—

Down in the redwood canyons dark and deep.

LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in Among the Redwoods.

Decorative line

MARCH 22.

You rode three miles on the flat, two in the leafy and gradually ascending creek-bed of a canyon, a half hour of laboring steepness in the overarching mountain lilac and laurel. There you came to a great rock gateway which seemed the top of the world. * * * Beyond the gateway a lush level canyon into which you plunged as into a bath; then again the laboring trail, up and always up toward the blue California sky, out of the lilacs, and laurels, and redwood chaparral into the manzanita, the Spanish bayonet, the creamy yucca, and the fine angular shale of the upper regions. Beyond the apparent summit you found always other summits yet to be climbed, and all at once, like thrusting your shoulders out of a hatchway, you looked over the top.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE,
in The Mountains.

Decorative line

MARCH 23.

DONNER LAKE.

So fair thou art—so still and deep—

Half hidden in thy granite cup.

From depths of crystal smiling up

As smiles a woman in her sleep!

The pine trees whisper where they lean

Above thy tide; and, mirrored there

The purple peaks their bosoms bare,

Reflected in thy silver sheen.

So fair thou art! And yet there dwells

Within thy sylvan solitudes

A memory which darkling broods

And all thy witchery dispels.

DANIEL S. RICHARDSON,
in Trail Dust.

Decorative line

MARCH 24.

DONNER LAKE.

Donner Lake a pleasure resort! Can you understand for one moment how strange this seems to me? I must be as old as Haggard's "She," since I have lived to see our papers make such a statement. It is years since I was there, yet I can feel the cold and hunger and hear the moan of the pines; those grand old trees that used to tell me when a storm was brewing and seemed to be about the only thing there alive, as the snow could not speak. But now that the place is a pleasure resort—the moan of the pines should cease.

VIRGINIA REED MURPHY.

Decorative line

MARCH 25.

THE LURE OF THE DESERT LAND.

Have you slept in a tent alone—a tent

Out under the desert sky—

Where a thousand thousand desert miles

All silent 'round you lie?

The dust of the aeons of ages dead,

And the peoples that tramped by!

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Have you lain with your face in your hands, afraid,

Face down—flat down on your face—and prayed,

While the terrible sandstorm whirled and swirled

In its soundless fury, and hid the world

And quenched the sun in its yellow glare—

Just you and your soul, and nothing there?

If you have, then you know, for you've felt its spell,

The lure of the desert land.

And if you have not, then you could not tell—

For you could not understand.

MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in Lippincott's.

Decorative line

MARCH 26.

One of the most beautiful lakes in the world is Lake Tahoe. It is six thousand feet above sea-level, and the mountains around it rise four thousand feet higher.  ∗ ∗ ∗  The first thing one would notice, perhaps, is the wonderful clearness of the lake water. As one stands on the wharf the steamer Tahoe seems to be hanging in the clear green depths with her keel and propellers in plain sight. The fish dart under her and all about as in some large aquarium.  ∗ ∗ ∗  Every stick or stone shows on the bottom as one sails along where the water is sixty or seventy feet deep.

ELLA M. SEXTON,
in Stories of California.

Decorative line

MARCH 27.

A PLAINSMAN'S SONG—MY LOVE.

Oh, give me a clutch in my hand of as much

Of the mane of a horse as a hold,

And let his desire to be gone be a fire

And let him be snorting and bold!

And then with a swing on his back let me fling

My leg that is naked as steel

And let us away to the end of the day

To quiet the tempest I feel.

And keen as the wind with the cities behind

And prairie before—like a sea,

With billows of grass that lash as we pass.

Make way for my stallion and me!

And up with his nose till his nostril aglows,

And out with his tail and his mane,

And up with my breast till the breath of the West

Is smiting me—knight of the plain!

Oh, give me a gleam of your eyes, love adream

With the kiss of the sun and the dew,

And mountain nor swale, nor the scorch nor the hail

Shall halt me from spurring to you!

For wild as a flood-melted snow for its blood—

By crag, gorge, or torrent, or shoal,

I'll ride on my steed and lay tho' it bleed,

My heart at your feet—and my soul!

PHILIP VERRILL MICHELS,
in Harper's Weekly.

Decorative line

MARCH 28.

Lo, a Power divine, in all nature is found,

A Power omniscient, unfailing, profound;

A great Heart, that loves beauty and order and light.

In the flowers, in the shells, in the stars of the night.

JOSIAH KEEP,
in Shells and Sea-Life.

Decorative line

MARCH 29.

BACK TO THE DESERT.

Call it the land of thirst,

Call it the land accurst,

Or what you will;

There where the heat-lines twirl

And the dust-devils whirl

His heart turns still.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Back to the land he knows,

Back where the yucca grows

And cactus bole;

Where the coyote cries,

Where the black buzzard flies

Flyeth his soul!

BAILEY MILLARD,
in Songs of the Press.

Decorative line

MARCH 30.

DRIVING THE LAST SPIKE, 1869.

Under the desert sky the spreading multitude was called to order. There followed a solemn prayer of thanksgiving. The laurel tie was placed, amidst ringing cheers. The golden spike was set. The trans-American telegraph wire was adjusted. Amid breathless silence the silver hammer was lifted, poised, dropped, giving the gentle tap that ticked the news to all the world! Then, blow on blow, Governor Stanford sent the spike to place! A storm of wild huzzas burst forth; desert rock and sand, plain and mountain, echoed the conquest of their terrors. The two engines moved up, touched noses; and each in turn crossed the magic tie. America was belted! The great Iron Way was finished.

SARAH PRATT CARR,
in The Iron Way.

Decorative line

MARCH 31.

THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST.

All wearied with the burdens of a place

Grown barren, over-crowded and despoiled

Of vital freshness by the weight of years.

A sage ascended to the mountain tops

To peer, as Moses once had done of old,

Into the distance for a Promised Land:

And there, his gaze toward the setting sun.

Beheld the Spirit of the Occident,

Bold, herculean, in its latent strength—

A youthful destiny that beckoned on

To fields all vigorous with natal life.

The years have passed; the sage has led a band

Of virile, sturdy men into the West.

And these have toiled and multiplied and stamped

Upon the face of Nature wondrous things.

Until, created from the virgin soil,

Great industries arise as monuments

To their endeavor; and a mighty host

Now labors in a once-untrodden waste—

Quick-pulsed with life-blood, from a heart that throbs

Its vibrant dominance throughout the world.

Today, heroic in the sunset's glow,

A figure looms, colossal and serene.

In royal power of accomplishment,

That claims the gaze of nations over sea

And beckons, still, as in the years agone.

The weary ones of earth to its domain—

That they may drink from undiluted founts

An inspiration of new energy.

LOUIS J. STELLMAN,
in Sunset Magazine, August, 1903.

DESERT LURE.

The hills are gleaming brass, and bronze the peaks,

The mesas are a brazen, molten sea,

And e'en the heaven's blue infinity,

Undimmed by kindly cloud through arid weeks,

Seems polished turquoise. Like a sphinx she speaks,

The scornful desert: "What would'st thou from me?"

And in our hearts we answer her; all three

Unlike, for each a different treasure seeks.

One sought Adventure, and the desert gave;

His restless heart found rest beneath her sands.

One sought but gold. He dug his soul a grave;

The desert's gift worked evil in his hands.

One sought for beauty; him She made her slave.

Turn back! No man her 'witched gift withstands.

CHARLTON LAWRENCE EDHOLM,
in Ainslee's, July, 1907.

Decorative line

APRIL 1.

Hark! What is the meaning of this stir in the air. why are the brooks so full of laughter, the birds pouring forth such torrents of sweet song, as if unable longer to contain themselves for very joy? The hills and ravines resound with happy voices. Let us re-echo the cheering vibrations with the gladness of our hearts, with the hope arisen from the tomb of despair. With buoyant spirit, let us join in the merry mood of the winged songsters; let us share the gaiety of the flowers and trees, and let our playful humor blend with the musical flow and tinkle of the silvery, shimmering rivulet. Greetings, let fond greetings burst from the smiling lips on this most happy of all occasions! The natal day of the flowers, the tender season of love and beauty, the happy morn of mother Nature's bright awakening! The resurrection, indeed! The world palpitating with fresh young life—it is the Holiday of holidays, the Golden Holiday for each and all—the Birth of Spring.

BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
Copyright, 1907.

Decorative line

APRIL 2.

Almost has the Californian developed a racial physiology. He tends to size, to smooth symmetry of limb and trunk, to an erect, free carriage; and the beauty of his women is not a myth. The pioneers were all men of good body; they had to be to live and leave descendants. The bones of the weaklings who started for El Dorado in 1849 lie on the plains or in the hill cemeteries of the mining camps. Heredity began it; climate has carried it out.

WILL IRWIN,
in The City That Was.

Decorative line

APRIL 3.

AN EASTER OFFERING.

I watched a lily through the Lenten-tide;

From when its emerald sheath first pierced the mould.

I saw the satin blades uncurl, unfold,

And, softly upward, stretch with conscious pride

Toward the fair sky. At length, the leaves beside,

There came a flower beauteous to behold,

Breathing of purest joy and peace untold;

Its radiance graced the Easter altar-side.

And in my heart there rose a sense of shame

That I, alas, no precious gift had brought

Which could approach the beauty of this thing—

I who had sought to bear the Master's name!

Humbly I bowed while meek repentance wrought,

With silent tears, her chastened offering.

BLANCHE M. BURBANK

Decorative line

APRIL 4.

For all the toll the desert takes of a man it gives compensations, deep breaths, deep sleep, and the communion of the stars. It comes upon one with new force that the Chaldeans were a desert-bred people. It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide, clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured. They look large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they make the poor world fret of no account. Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls.

MARY AUSTIN,
in The Land of Little Rain.

Decorative line

APRIL 5.

DESERT CALLS.

There are breaks in the voice of the shouting street

Where the smoke drift comes sifting down,

And I list to the wind calls, far and sweet—

They are not from the winds of the town.

O I lean to the rush of the desert air

And the bite of the desert sand,

I feel the hunger, the thirst and despair—

And the joy of the still border land!

For the ways of the city are blocked to the end

With the grim procession of death—

The treacherous love and the shifting friend

And the reek of a multitude's breath.

But the arms of the Desert are lean and slim

And his gaunt breast is cactus-haired,

His ways are as rude as the mountain rim—

But the heart of the Desert is bared.

HARLEY R. WILEY,
in Out West Magazine.

Decorative line

APRIL 6.

In the universal pean of gladness which the earth at Eastertide raises to the Lord of Life, the wilderness and the solitary place have part, and the desert then does in truth blossom as the rose. And how comforting are the blossoms of the desert when at last they have come! When the sun has sunk behind the rim of the verdure-less range of granite hills that westward bound my view, and the palpitating light of the night's first stars shines out in the tender afterglow, I love to linger on the cooling sands and touch my cheek to the flowers. Now has the desert shaken off the livery of death, and … is become an abiding place of hope.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in Blossoms of the Desert.

Decorative line

APRIL 7.

There had been no hand to lay a wreath upon his tomb. But soon, as if the weeping skies had scattered seeds of pity, tiny flowerets, yellow, blue, red, and white, were sprouting on the sides of the grave.  ∗ ∗ ∗  A delicious perfume filled the air. The desert cemetery was now a place of beauty as well as a place of peace. But the silence and solitude remained unbroken, except when a long-tailed lizard scurried through the undergrowth, or a big horned toad, white and black, like patterned enamel, took a blinking peep of melancholy surprise into the yawning ditch that blocked his accustomed way.

EDMUND MITCHELL,
in In Desert Keeping.

Decorative line

APRIL 8.

To those who know the desert's heart, and through years of closest intimacy—have learned to love it in all its moods; it has for them something that is greater than charm, more lasting than beauty a something to which no man can give a name. Speech is not needed, for they who are elect to love these things understand one another without words; and the desert speaks to them through its silence.

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in Miner's Mirage Land.

At length I struck upon a spot where a little stream of water was oozing out from the bank of sand. As I scraped away the surface I saw something which would have made me dance for joy had I not been weighed down by the long boots. For there, in very truth, was a live Olive, with its graceful shell and a beautiful pearl-colored body.

JOSIAH KEEP,
in West Coast Shells.

Decorative line

APRIL 9.

DESERT DUST.

With all its heat and dust the desert has its charms. The desert dust is dusty dust, but not dirty dust. Compared with the awful organic dust of New York, London, or Paris, it is inorganic and pure. On those strips of the Libyan and Arabian deserts which lie along the Nile, the desert dust is largely made up of the residuum of royalty, of withered Ptolemies, of arid Pharaohs, for the tombs of queens and kings are counted here by the hundreds, and of their royal progeny and their royal retainers by the thousands. These dessicated dynasties have been drying so long that they are now quite antiseptic.

The dust of these dead and gone kings makes extraordinarily fertile soil for vegetable gardens when irrigated with the rich, thick water of the Nile. Their mummies also make excellent pigments for the brush. Rameses and Setos, Cleopatra and Hatasu—all these great ones, dead and turned to clay, are said, when properly ground, to make a rich umber paint highly popular with artists.

JEROME HART,
in A Levantine Log-Book.

Decorative line

APRIL 10.

The mountain wall of the Sierra bounds California on its eastern side. It is rampart, towering and impregnable, between the garden and the desert. From its crest, brooded over by cloud, glittering with crusted snows, the traveler can look over crag and precipice, mounting files of pines and ravines swimming in unfathomable shadow, to where, vast, pale, far-flung in its dreamy adolescence, lies California, the garden.

GERALDINE BONNER,
in The Pioneer.

Decorative line

APRIL 11.

MIRAGE IN THE MOHAVE DESERT.

They hear the rippling waters call;

They see the fields of balm;

And faint and clear above it all,

The shimmer of some silver palm

That shines thro' all that stirless calm

So near, so near—and yet they fall

All scorched with heat and blind with pain,

Their faces downward to the plain,

Their arms reached toward the mountain wall.

ROSALIE KERCHEVAL.

Decorative line

APRIL 12.

The desert calls to him who has once felt its strange attraction, calls and compels him to return, as the sea compels the sailor to forsake the land. He who has once felt its power can never free himself from the haunting charm of the desert.

GEORGE HAMILTON FITCH,
in Palm Springs, Land of Sunshine Magazine.

IN SANCTUARY.

The wind broke open a rose's heart

And scattered her petals far apart.

Driven before the churlish blast

Some in the meadow brook were cast,

Or fell in the tangle of the sedge;

Some were impaled on the thorn of the hedge;

But one was caught on my dear love's breast

Where long ago my heart found rest.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in Overland Monthly, July, 1907.

Decorative line

APRIL 13.

For fifteen months the desert of California had lain athirst. The cattle of the vast ranges had fled from the parched sands, the dying, shriveled shrubs, appealing vainly, mutely, for rain, and had taken refuge in the mountains. They instinctively retreated from the death of the desert and sheltered themselves in the green of the foot-hills. North, east, south, and west, rain had fallen, but here, for miles on either side of the little isolated station  ∗ ∗ ∗  the plain had so baked in the semi-tropical sun until even the hardiest sage-brush took on the color of the sand which billowed toward the eastern horizon like an untraveled ocean.

MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in The Giants.

Decorative line

APRIL 14.

The strong westerly winds drawing in through the Golden Gate sweep with unobstructed force over the channel, and, meeting the outflowing and swiftly moving water, kick up a sea that none but good boats can overcome. To go from San Francisco to the usual cruising grounds the channel must be crossed. There is no way out of it. And it is to this circumstance, most probably, we are indebted for as expert a body of yachtsmen as there is anywhere in the United States. Timid, nervous, unskilled men cannot handle yachts under such conditions of wind and waves. The yachtsmen must have confidence in themselves, and must have boats under them which are seaworthy and staunch enough to keep on their course, regardless of adverse circumstances.

CHARLES G. YALE,
in Yachting in San Francisco Bay, in The Californian.

Decorative line

APRIL 15.

THE LIZARD.

I sit among the hoary trees

With Aristotle on my knees

And turn with serious hand the pages,

Lost in the cobweb-hush of ages;

When suddenly with no more sound

Than any sunbeam on the ground,

The little hermit of the place

Is peering up into my face—

The slim gray hermit of the rocks,

With bright, inquisitive, quick eyes,

His life a round of harks and shocks,

A little ripple of surprise.

Now lifted up, intense and still,

Sprung from the silence of the hill

He hangs upon the ledge a-glisten.

And his whole body seems to listen!

My pages give a little start,

And he is gone! to be a part

Of the old cedar's crumpled bark.

A mottled scar, a weather mark!

EDWIN MARKHAM,
in Lincoln and Other Poems.

Decorative line

APRIL 16.

I lived in a region of remote sounds. On Russian Hill I looked down as from a balloon; all there is of the stir of the city comes in distant bells and whistles, changing their sound, just as scenery moves, according to the state of the atmosphere. The islands shift as if enchanted, now near and plain, then removed and dim. The bay widening, sapphire blue, or narrowing, green and gray, or, before a storm, like quicksilver.

EMMA FRANCES DAWSON,
in An Itinerant House.

Decorative line

APRIL 17.

Although we dread earthquakes with all their resultant destruction, yet it is well to recognize the fact that if it were not for them we would find here in California little of that wonderful scenery of which we are so proud. Our earthquakes are due to movements similar to those which, through hundreds of thousands of years, have been raising the lofty mountains of the Cordilleran region. The Sierra Nevada range, with its abrupt eastern scarp nearly two miles high, faces an important line of fracture along which movements have continued to take place up to the present time.

HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS,
in The Great Earthquake Rift of California.

Decorative line

APRIL 18.

APRIL EIGHTEENTH.

Three years have passed, oh, City! since you lay—

A smoking shambles—stricken by the lust

Of Nature's evil passions. In a day

I saw your splendor crumble into dust.

So vast your desolation, so complete

Your tragedy of ruin that there seemed

Small hope of rallying from such defeat—

Of seeing you arisen and redeemed.

Yet, three short years have marked a sure rebirth

To splendid urban might; a higher place

Among the ruling cities of the earth

And left of your disaster but a trace.

Refined in flame and tempered, as a blade

Of iron into steel of flawless ring—

City of the Spirit Unafraid!

What wondrous destiny the years will bring!

LOUIS J. STELLMAN,
in San Francisco Globe, April 18, 1909.

Decorative line

APRIL 19.

O, EVANESCENCE!
(SAN FRANCISCO.)

I loved a work of dreams that bloomed from Art;

A town and her turrets rose

As from the red heart

Of the couchant suns where the west wind blows

And worlds lie apart.

Calm slept the sea-flats; beneath the blue dome

Copper and gold and alabaster gleamed,

And sea-birds came home.

But I woke in a sorrowful day;

The vision was scattered away.

Ashes and dust lie deep on the dream that I dreamed.

HERMAN SCHEFFAUER,
in Looms of Life.

Decorative line

APRIL 20.

SAN FRANCISCO.

What matters that her multitudinous store—

The garnered fruit of measureless desire—

Sank in the maelstrom of abysmal fire,

To be of man beheld on earth no more?

Her loyal children, cheery to the core.

Quailed not, nor blenched, while she, above the ire

Of elemental ragings, dared aspire

On victory's wings resplendently to soar.

What matters all the losses of the years,

Since she can count the subjects as her own

That share her fortunes under every fate;

Who weave their brightest tissues from her tears,

And who, although her best be overthrown,

Resolve to make her and to keep her great.

EDWARD ROKESON TAYLOR,
in Sunset Magazine.

Decorative line

APRIL 21.

They could hear the roar and crackle of the fire and the crashing of walls; but even more formidable was that tramping of thousands of feet, the scraping of trunks and furniture on the tracks and stones.  ∗ ∗ ∗  It was a well and a carefully dressed crowd, for by this time nearly everyone had recovered from the shock of the earthquake; many forgotten it, no doubt, in the new horror.  ∗ ∗ ∗  They pushed trunks to which skates had been attached, or pulled them by ropes; they trundled sewing machines and pieces of small furniture, laden with bundles. Many carried pillow-cases, into which they had stuffed a favorite dress and hat, an extra pair of boots and a change of underclothing, some valuable bibelot or bundle of documents; to say nothing of their jewels and what food they could lay hands on. Several women wore their furs, as an easier way of saving them, and children carried their dolls. Their state of mind was elemental.  ∗ ∗ ∗  The refinements of sentiment and all complexity were forgotten; they indulged in nothing so futile as complaint, nor even conversation. And the sense of the common calamity sustained them, no doubt, de-individualized them for the hour.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in Ancestors.

Decorative line

APRIL 22.

The sun is dying; space and room.

Serenity, vast sense of rest,

Lie bosomed in the orange west

Of Orient waters. Hear the boom

Of long, strong billows; wave on wave,

Like funeral guns above a grave.

JOAQUIN MILLER,
in Collected Poems.

Decorative line

APRIL 23.

SAN FRANCISCO.
IN CHRISTMAS TWILIGHT, 1898.

In somber silhouette, against a golden sky,

Francisco's city sits as sunbeams die.

The serrated hills her throne; the ocean laves her feet:

Her jeweled crown the Western zephyrs greet;

Their breath is fragrance, sweet as wreath of bride,

In winter season as at summer tide.

AFTER APRIL 18, 1906.

Clothed with sack-cloth, strewn with ashes,

Seated on a desolate throne

'Mid the spectral walls of stately domes

And the skeletons of regal homes,

Francisco weeps while westward thrashes

Through the wrecks of mansions, stricken prone

By the rock of earth and sweep of flame

Which, unheralded and unbidden, came

In the greatness of her pride full-blown

And at the zenith of her matchless fame.

TALIESIN EVANS.

Decorative line

APRIL 24.

And let it be remembered that whatever San Francisco, her citizens and her lovers, do now or neglect to do in this present regeneration will be felt for good or ill to remotest ages. Let us build and rebuild accordingly, bearing in mind that the new San Francisco is to stand forever before the world as the measure of the civic taste and intelligence of her people.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT,
in Some Cities and San Francisco.

Decorative line

APRIL 25.

SAN FRANCISCO.

Queen regnant she, and so shall be for aye

As long as her still unpolluted sea

Shall wash the borders of her brave and free,

And mother her incomparable Bay.

The pharisees and falsehood-mongers may

Be rashly blatant as they care to be,

She yet with dauntless, old-time liberty

Will hold her own indomitable way.

A Royal One, all love and heart can bear.

The all of strength that human arm can wield.

Are thine devotedly, and ever thine;

And thou wilt use them till thy brow shall wear

A newer crown by high endeavor sealed

With gems emitting brilliances divine.

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR,
in Sunset Magazine.

Decorative line

APRIL 26.

Until a man paints with the hope or with the wish to stir the minds of his fellows to better thinking and their hearts to better living, or to make some creature happier or wiser, he has not understood the meaning of art.

W.L. JUDSON,
in The Building of a Picture.

CALIFORNIA ON THE PASSING OF TENNYSON.

All silent … So, he lies in state …

Our redwoods drip and drip with rain …

Against our rock-locked Golden Gate

We hear the great, sad, sobbing main.

But silent all … He passed the stars

That year the whole world turned to Mars.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

Decorative line

APRIL 27 AND 28.

In ended days, a child, I trod thy sands,

The sands unbuilded, rank with brush and brier

And blossom—chased the sea-foam on thy strands,

Young city of my love and my desire!

I saw thy barren hills against the skies,

I saw them topped with minaret and spire,

On plain and slope thy myriad walls arise,

Fair city of my love and my desire.

With thee the Orient touched heart and hands;

The world's rich argosies lay at thy feet;

Queen of the fairest land of all the lands—

Our Sunset-Glory, proud and strong and sweet!

I saw thee in thine anguish! tortured, prone.

Rent with earth-throes, garmented in fire!

Each wound upon thy breast upon my own.

Sad city of my love and my desire.

Gray wind-blown ashes, broken, toppling wall

And ruined hearth—are these thy funeral pyre?

Black desolation covering as a pall—

Is this the end, my love and my desire?

Nay, strong, undaunted, thoughtless of despair,

The Will that builded thee shall build again,

And all thy broken promise spring more fair.

Thou mighty mother of as mighty men.

Thou wilt arise invincible, supreme!

The earth to voice thy glory never tire,

And song, unborn, shall chant no nobler theme,

Proud city of my love and my desire.

But I—shall see thee ever as of old!

Thy wraith of pearl, wall, minaret and spire,

Framed in the mists that veil thy Gate of Gold,

Lost city of my love and my desire.

INA D. COOLBRITH.

Decorative line

APRIL 29.

The cataclysmal force to which we owe

Our glorious Gate of Gold, through which the sea

Rushed in to clasp these shores long, long ago,

Came once again to crown our destiny

With such a grandeur that in sequent years

This period of pain which now appears

Pregnant with doubt, shall vanish as when day

Drives the foreboding dreams of night away.

Born of the womb of Woe, where Sorrow sighs,

Fostered by Faith, undaunted by Dismay,

Earth's fairest City shall from ashes rise.

LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON,
in Through Painted Panes.

Decorative line

APRIL 30.

Old San Francisco, which is the San Francisco of only the other day—the day before the earthquake—was divided midway by the Slot. The Slot was an iron crack that ran along the center of Market street, and from the Slot arose the burr of the ceaseless, endless cable that was hitched at will to the cars it dragged up and down. In truth, there were two Slots, but, in the quick grammar of the West, time was saved by calling them, and much more that they stood for, "The Slot." North of the Slot were the theaters, hotels and shipping district, the banks and the staid, respectable business houses. South of the Slot were the factories, slums, laundries, machine shops, boiler works, and the abodes of the working class.

JACK LONDON,
in Saturday Evening Post.

Decorative line

MAY 1.

HAWAII, WEDNESDAY, MAY 1. 1907.

A year ago, Jack and I set out on a horseback trip through the northern counties of California. It just now came to me—not the date itself, but the feel of the sweet country, the sweetness of mountain lilacs, the warm summer-dusty air.  ∗ ∗ ∗  And here in Hawaii, I am not sure but I am at home, for our ground is red, too, in the Valley of the Moon, where home is—dear home on the side of Sonoma Mountain, where the colts are, and where the Brown Wolf died.

CHARMIAN K. LONDON,
in Log of the Snark.

Decorative line

MAY 2.

A dull eyed rattlesnake that lay

All loathsome, yellow-skinned, and slept,

Coil'd tight as pine-knot, in the sun

With flat head through the center run,

Struck blindly back.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

The air was steeped in the warm fragrance of a California spring. Every crease and wrinkle of the encircling hills was reflected in the blue stillness of the laguna. Patches of poppies blazed like bonfires on the mesa, and higher up the faint smoke of the blossoming buckthorn tangled its drifts in the chaparral. Bees droned in the wild buckwheat, and powdered themselves with the yellow of the mustard, and now and then the clear, staccato voice of the meadow-lark broke into the drowsy quiet—a swift little dagger of sound.

MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM,
in Stories of the Foothills.

Decorative line

MAY 3.

THE SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.

The voyager when the glass-bottom boat starts is first regaled with the sandy beach, in three or four feet of water. He sees the wave lines, the effect of waves on soft sand, the delicate shading of the bottom in grays innumerable; now the collar-like egg of a univalve or the sharp eye of a sole or halibut protruding from the sand. A school of smelt dart by, pursued by a bass; and as the water deepens bands of small fish, gleaming like silver, appear; then a black cormorant dashing after them, or perchance a sea-lion browsing on the bottom in pursuit of prey. Suddenly the light grows dimmer; quaint shadows appear on the bottom, and almost without warning the lookers on are in the depths of the kelpian forest.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Life in the Open.

Decorative line

MAY 4.

THE HIDEOUS OCTOPUS.

From the glass-bottom boat we can see all the fauna of the ocean, and, without question, the most fascinating of them all is the octopus. Timid, constantly changing color, hideous to a degree, having a peculiarly devilish expression, it is well named the Mephistopheles of the Sea, and with the bill of a parrot, the power to adapt its color to almost any rock, and to throw out a cloud of smoke or ink, it well deserves the terror it arouses. The average specimen is about two feet across, but I have seen individuals fourteen feet in radial spread, and larger ones have been taken in deep water off shore.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in The Glass Bottom Boat.

Decorative line

MAY 5.

A SIERRA STORM FROM A TREE TOP.

Being accustomed to climb trees in making botanical studies, I experienced no difficulty in reaching the top of this one (a pine about 100 feet high), and never before did I enjoy so noble an exhilaration of motion. The slender tops fairly flapped and swished in the passionate torrent, bending and swirling backward and forward, round and round, tracing indescribable combinations of vertical and horizontal curves, while I clung with muscles firm braced, like a bobolink on a reed.

JOHN MUIR,
in The Mountains of California.

Decorative line

MAY 6.

There is a breeziness, a spaciousness, an undefiled ecstasy of purity about the High Sierras. Nature, yet untainted by man, has expressed herself largely in mighty pine-clad, snow-topped blue mountains, and rolling stretches of foot-hills; in rivers whose clarity is as perfect as the first snow-formed drops that heralded them; and a sky of chaste and limpid blue, pale as with awe of the celestial wonders it has gazed upon. But there is an effect of simplicity with it all, an omission of sensational landscape contrasts.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in Anthony Overman.

The ocean is a great home. Its waters are full of life. The rocks along its shores are thickly set with living things; the mud and sand of its bays are pierced with innumerable burrows, and even the abyss of the deep sea has its curious inhabitants.

JOSIAH KEEP,
in West Coast Shells.

Decorative line

MAY 7.

THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)

It was folded, away from strife,

In the beautiful pastoral hills;

And the mountain peaks kept watch and ward

O'er the peace that the valley fills—

Kept watch and ward lest the bold world pass

The fair green rampart of hills.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

The rains of the winter fell

In benison on its sod;

And the smiling fields of the spring looked up,

A thanksgiving glad, to God;

And the little children laughed to see

The wild-flowers star the sod.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Hark! hark! to the thundrous roar!

Like a demon of fable old,

The fiery steed of the rail hath swept

Thro' the ancient mountain-hold.

And the green hills shudder to feel his breath—

The challenge of New to Old.

FRANCES MARGARET MILNE,
in For Today.

Decorative line

MAY 8.

JOAQUIN MILLER TO THE MONEY GETTER.

Yes! I am a dreamer.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

While you seek gold in the earth, why, I

See gold in the steeps of the starry sky;

And which do you think has the fairer view

Of God in heaven—the dreamer or you?

JOAQUIN MILLER.

Decorative line

MAY 9.

THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT AT CATALINA.

When you land in the beautiful Bay of Avalon, on Santa Catalina Island, you are met, not by hackmen, but by glass-bottom boatmen: "Here you are! Marine Jimmie's boat, only fifty cents." "Take the Cleopatra," or "Right away now for the Marine Gardens." These craft, that look like old-fashioned river side-wheelers are made on the Island, and some range from row-boats with glass bottoms to large side-wheel steamers valued at $3000. There is a fleet of them, big and little, and they skim over the kelp beds, and have introduced an altogether new variety of entertainment and zoological study combined.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER.
in The Glass Bottom Boat.

Decorative line

MAY 10.

THE HANGING SEA GARDENS AT CATALINA.

The animals of the hanging gardens are not confined to the kelp or the rocks of the bottom. The blue water where the sunlight enters brings out myriads of delicate forms, poising, drifting, swimming, the veritable gems of the sea; some are red as the ruby; others blue like sapphire; some yellow, white, brown, or emitting vivid flashes of seeming phosphorescent light. Ocean sapphires they are called; the true gems of the sea, thickly strewn in the deep blue water. Sweeping by, poised in classic shapes, are the smaller jelly-fishes; crystal vases, so delicate that the rich tone of the ocean can be seen through them, changing to a steely blue. Some are mere spectres, a tracery of lace; others rich in colors and flaunting long trains.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Life in the Open.

Decorative line

MAY 11.

BUILDING THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILWAY.

Few can realize the problem before those intrepid men, who, with little money and large hostility behind them, hauled their strenuously obtained subsistence and material over nearly a thousand miles of poorly equipped road. They fought mountains of snow as they had never before been fought. They forced their weak, wheezy little engines up tremendous grades with green wood that must sometimes be coaxed with sage-brush gathered by the firemen running alongside of their creeping or stalled iron horses. There were no steel rails. Engineers worked unhelped by the example of perfected railroad building of later times. No tracks or charts of the man-killing desert! No modern helps, no ready, over-eager capital seeking their enterprise! Only skepticism, hatred from their enemies, and "You can't do it!" flung at them from friend and foe.

SARAH PRATT CARR,
in The Iron Way.

Decorative line

MAY 12.

ANGLING THE SWORDFISH.

As he brought the great fish around again, a wonderful sight with its gaudy fins, enormous black eyes and menacing sword, the head boatman hurled the heavy spear into it. The swordfish fairly doubled up under the shock, deluging with water the fishermen, its sword coming out and striking the boat. A moment more and it might have escaped; but one of the men seized it by the sword, while another threw a rope around it, and the big game was theirs; in all probability the first large swordfish ever taken with a rod and reel.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Big Game at Sea.

Decorative line

MAY 13.

The old Greeks taught their children how to sing, because it taught them how to be obedient. This is a difficult universe to the man who drives dead against it, but to the man who has learned the secret of harmony through obedience it is a happy place. Discord is sickness; harmony is health. Discord is restlessness; harmony is peace. Discord is sorrow; harmony is joy. Discord is death; harmony is life. Discord is hell; harmony is heaven. He who is in love and peace with his neighbors, filling the sphere where God has placed him, hath heaven in his heart already. Only through blue in the eye, the scientist tells us, can blue out of the eye be seen. Only through C in the ear can C out of the ear be heard. Only through Heaven down here can Heaven up there be interpreted.

MALCOLM McLEOD,
in Earthly Discords.

Decorative line

MAY 14.

As one approaches the mission from the road, it defines itself more and more as a distinct element in the view: the hills … seem to distribute themselves on either side, as though realizing that here, at least, they are subordinate and must not intrude. This brings Santa Lucia into view, directly behind the mission, and thus the two most prominent, most interesting, most beautiful objects in the landscape are brought together in one perfect whole: Mt. Santa Lucia—Nature's grandest creation for miles around; Mission San Antonio—man's noblest, most artistic handiwork between Santa Barbara and Carrnelo.

CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in Some By-Ways of California.

Decorative line

MAY 15.

There is what may be called a sense of the sea, which is indefinable. No lesser body of water, no other aspect of Nature affords this. It is in the air, like a touch of autumn, and we know it as much through feeling as through seeing. The coast is saturated for some distance inland with this presence of the sea, much as the beach is soaked with salt water. It is music and poetry to the soul and as elusive as they, wrapping us in dreams and yielding fugitive glimpses of that which we may never grasp, but which skirts, like a beautiful phantom, the mind's horizon. Like music, it is an opiate, and unlocks for us new states of mind in which we wander, as in halls of alabaster and mother-of-pearl, but where, alas, we may not linger. We can as readily sound the ocean as fathom the feelings it inspires. It is too deep for thought. As often as the sea speaks to us of the birth of Venus and of Joy, so also does it remind of Prometheus bound and the thrall of Nature.

STANTON DAVIS KIRKHAM,
in In the Open.

Decorative line

MAY 16.

The morning breeze with breath of rose

Steals from the dawn and softly blows

Beneath the lintel, where is hung

My little bell with winged tongue;

Steals from the dawn, that it may be

An oracle of peace to me;

For hark! athwart my fitful dreams

There mingles with the Orient beams

A wakening psalm of tinkling bell:

"God brings the day, and all is well."

CLIFFORD HOWARD,
in The Wind Bell.

Decorative line

MAY 17.

CATCHING A SWORDFISH.

The swordfish was not disturbed by reflections of any kind. Of an uncertain and vicious temper it was annoyed, then maddened by being held by something it could not see, and dropping into the water it dashed away in blind fear and fury, still feeling the strange, uncanny check which seemed to follow it as a sheet of foam. Cutting the water one hundred, two hundred feet, it shot ahead with the speed of light, then still held, still in the toils, it again sprang into the air with frenzied shake and twist, whirling itself from side to side, striking terrific blows in search of the invisible enemy. Falling, the swordfish plunged downward, and reached two hundred feet below the surface and the bottom, then turned, and rose with a mighty rush, going high into the air again, whirling itself completely over in its madness, so that it fell upon its back, beating the sea into a maelstrom of foam and spume, in its blind and savage fury.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Big Game at Sea.

Decorative line

MAY 18.

One is disposed to put "climate" in the plural when writing of so large a state as California and one so wonderfully endowed with conditions which make health, comfort and beauty in all seasons. Its great length of coast-line and its mountain ranges irregularly paralleling that, offer a wealth of resource in varying temperature, altitudes, shelter from the sea breezes or exposure to them, perhaps unequaled by any state in the union, or indeed by any country in the world.

MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in The Mother of Clubs.

Decorative line

MAY 19.

A GLOUCESTER SKIPPER'S SONG.

Oh, the roar of shoaling waters, and the awful, awful sea,

Busted shrouds and parting cables, and the white death on our lee!

Oh, the black, black night on Georges, when eight score men were lost!

Were ye there, ye men of Gloucester? Aye, ye were; and tossed

Like chips upon the water were your little craft that night—

Driving, swearing, calling out, but ne'er a call of fright.

So knowing ye for what ye are, ye masters of the sea,

Here's to ye, Gloucester fishermen, a health to ye from me!

JAMES B. CONNOLLY,
in Scribner's, May, 1904.

Decorative line

MAY 20.

DEDICATION TO HIS FIRST BOOK.

 ∗ ∗ ∗  It is the proudest boast of the profession of literature, that no man ever published a book for selfish purposes or with ignoble aim. Books have been published for the consolation of the distressed; for the guidance of the wandering; for the relief of the destitute; for the hope of the penitent; for uplifting the burdened soul above its sorrows and fears; for the general amelioration of the condition of all mankind; for the right against the wrong; for the good against, the bad; for the truth. This book is published for two dollars per volume.

ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
in The Rise and Fall of the Mustache.

Decorative line

MAY 21.

THE YOSEMITE ROAD.

There at last are the snow-peaks, in virginal chastity standing!

Through the nut-pines I see them, their ridges expanding.

Ye peaks! from celestial sanctities benisons casting,

Ye know not your puissant influence, lifting and lasting;

Nothing factitious, self-conscious or impious bides in you;

On your high serenities

No hollow amenities

Nor worldly impurities cast their dread blight;

August and courageous, you stand for the right;

The gods love you and lend you their soft robes of white.

BAILEY MILLARD,
in Songs of the Press.

Decorative line

MAY 22.

ON THE STEPS OF THE LECONTE MEMORIAL LODGE,
YOSEMITE VALLEY.

I wonder not, whether it is well with this true seer,

Who saw, while dwelling in the flesh, foundations strong and broad;

I do not doubt that when he ceased to worship in this temple,

Serene, he passed from beauty unto beauty, from God to God.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.

Within, a whole rainbow is condensed in one of these magnificent shells.

JOSIAH KEEP,
in West Coast Shells.

Decorative line

MAY 23.

TO YOSEMITE.

The silence of the centuries,

The calm where doubtings cease,

And over all the brooding of God's presence

And the spell of perfect peace!

O Granite Cliffs that steadfast face the dawn,

O Forest Kings that heard Creation's sigh!

Teach me thy simple creed, that, living, I

May live like thee, and as serenely die!

E.F. GREEN.

TO THE UNNAMED FALL IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.

Thou needest not that any man should name thee;

God counts thine ethereal jewels, one by one;

And, lest some selfish, inappropriate word should claim thee,

Silent, we watch thee sparkle in the sun.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.

Decorative line

MAY 24.

The white man calls it Bridal Veil. To the Indian it is Po-ho-no, Spirit of the Evil Wind.

The white man, in passing, pauses to watch the filmy cloud that hangs there like a thousand yards of tulle flung from the crest of the rocky precipice, wafted outward by the breeze that blows ever and always across the Bridal Veil Meadows. By the light of the mid-afternoon the veil seems caught half-way with a clasp of bridal gems, seven-hued, evanescent; now glowing with color, now fading to clear white sun rays before the eye.

BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.

Decorative line

MAY 25.

MATCHLESS YOSEMITE.

High on Cloud's Rest, behind the misty screen,

Thy Genius sits! The secrets of thy birth

Within its bosom locked! What power can rend

The veil, and bid it speak—that spirit dumb,

Between two worlds, enthroned upon a Sphinx?

Guard well thine own, thou mystic spirit! Let

One place remain where Husbandry shall fear

To tread! One spot on earth inviolate,

As it was fashioned in eternity!

FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in Old Abe and Other Poems.

You ask for my picture. I have never had one taken. I have my reasons. One is that a man always seems to me most of an ass when smirking on cardboard.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in Rulers of Kings.

Decorative line

MAY 26.

INVITATION TO AN INDIAN FEAST IN YOSEMITE.

As the time of the feast drew near, runners were sent across the mountains, carrying a bundle of willow sticks, or a sinew cord or leaf of dried grass tied with knots, that the Monos might know how many suns must cross the sky before they should go to Ah-wah-nee to share the feast of venison with their neighbors. And the Monos gathered together baskets of pinion nuts, and obsidian arrow-heads, and strings of shells, to carry with them to give in return for acorns and chinquapin nuts and basket willow.

BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.

Decorative line

MAY 27.

It is owing to the ever active missionary spirit among the Friars Minor (Franciscans) that millions upon millions of American Indians have obtained the Christian faith. The children of St. Francis were, indeed, the principal factors in the very discovery of America, inasmuch as the persons most prominently connected with that event belonged to the Seraphic Family. Fr. Juan Perez de Marchena, the friend and counsellor of Christopher Columbus, was the guardian or superior of the Franciscan monastery at La Rabida;  ∗ ∗ ∗  and the great navigator likewise belonged to the Third Order.

FR. ZEPHYRIN,
in Missions and Missionaries of California.

Decorative line

MAY 28.

JUNIPERO SERRA.

Not with the clash of arms or conquering fleet

He came, who first upon this kindly shore

Planted the Cross. No heralds walked before;

But, as the Master bade, with sandalled feet,

Weary and bleeding oft, he crossed the wild.

Carrying glad tidings to the untutored child

Of Nature; and that gracious mother smiled,

And made the dreary waste to bloom once more.

Silently, selflessly he went and came;

He sought to live and die unheard of men—

Praise made his pale cheek glow as if with shame.

A hundred years and more have passed since then.

And yet the imprint of his feet today

Is traced in flowers from here to Monterey.

MARY E. MANNIX.

Decorative line

MAY 29.

San Gabriel!

I stand and wonder at thy walls

So old, so quaint; a glory falls

Upon them as I view the past.

And read the story which thou hast

Preserved so well.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

San Gabriel!

What souls were they who fashioned thee

To be a blessed charity!

What faith was theirs who bore the cross,

And counted wealth and ease but loss,

Of Christ to tell!

   ∗   ∗   ∗

San Gabriel!

A glamour of the ancient time

Remains with thee! Thou hast the rhyme

Of some old poem, and the scent

Of some old rose's ravishment

Naught can dispel!

   ∗   ∗   ∗

LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN,
in A Parable of the Rose.

Decorative line

MAY 30.

Wherever a green blade looks up,

A leaf lisps mystery,

Whereso a blossom holds its cup

A mist rings land or sea,

Wherever voice doth utter sound

Or silence make her round—

There worship; it is holy ground.

JOHN VANCE CHENEY,
The Grace of the Ground, in Poems.

Decorative line

MAY 31.

TO MOUNT WILSON.

Thou mystic one! Thou prophet hoar!

Thy teachings quicken—man's shall fade.

Ere man was dust thou wert before;

Thy bosom for his resting place was made.

And when thou tak'st in thy embrace

And hold'st me up against the sky

And Earth's fair 'broideries I trace—

All girdled in by circling bands that tie

Unto her side my destiny—

Then unto me thou dost make clear

Why with Life's essence here I'm thrilled.

Then all thy prophecies I hear,

And in my being feel them all fulfilled.

And as the narrow rim of eye

Contains the vast and all-encircling sky.

So in the confines of the soul

The undulating universe may roll.

And out in space, my soul set free,

I turn an astral forged key

Which opes the door 'twixt God and me,

I hear the secrets of Eternity!

In Immortality I trust,

Believing that the cosmic dust—

Alike in man and skies star-sown—

Is pollen from the Amaranth blown.

LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.

Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the sea

'Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded tapestry.

'Neath Mt. Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the storied pile,

And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the while.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds mark every side,

And where once the busy courtyard searching winds find crevice wide.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL,
in A California Pilgrimage.

Decorative line

JUNE 1.

In fifteen years the Mission of San Juan Bautista had erected one of the most beautiful and ornate chapels in Alta California, which, together with the necessary buildings for the padres, living rooms and dormitories for the neophytes, storehouses and corrals for the grain and cattle, formed three sides of a patio two hundred feet square, with the corrals leading away beyond. The Indians, with only a few teachers and helpers, had done all this work.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons.

Decorative line

JUNE 2.

From his (the Indian's) point of view there is perhaps love; even, it may be, romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from the mountain.  ∗ ∗ ∗  For the world over, under white skin or skin of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are brothers—aye, brothers all!

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in Loom of the Desert.

We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself arrived at the land of Beulah.  ∗ ∗ ∗  It was the hour of vespers at the Old Mission.

BEN C. TRUMAN,
in Semi-Tropical California.

Decorative line

JUNE 3.

The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It attracted the eye—this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint buttresses. The picture was perfect—but since then the chill hands of both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted the pride of all of the California Missions—San Gabriel Archangel.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons.

Decorative line

JUNE 4.

Obey my word, O Ten-ie-ya, and your people shall be many as the blades of grass, and none shall dare to bring war unto Ah-wah-nee. But look you ever, my son, against the white horsemen of the great plains beyond, for once they have crossed the western mountains, your tribe will scatter as the dust before the desert wind, and never come together again.

BERTHA H. SMITH,
in Yosemite Legends.

San Juan, Aunt Phoebe, is one of the places where there is an old Mission. People in this country (California) think a great deal of them. I've remarked to Ephraim, "Many's the time," says I, "that the Missions seem to do more real good than the churches. They get hold of the people better, somehow. I'll be real glad to set me down in one, and I do hope they'll have some real lively hymns to kind of cheer us up."

ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in The Travels of Phoebe Ann.

Decorative line

JUNE 5.

In proper California fashion we made our nooning by the roadside, pulling up under the shade of a hospitable sycamore and turning Sorreltop out to graze. We drew water from a traveling little river close at hand, made a bit of camp-fire with dry sticks that lay about, and in half an hour were partaking of chops and potatoes and tea to the great comfort of our physical nature.

CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in A Pala Pilgrimage, The Travel Magazine.

Decorative line

JUNE 6.

Yellow-white the Mission gleamed like an opal in a setting of velvety ranges under turquoise skies. About its walls were the clustered adobes of the Mexicans, like children creeping close to the feet of the one mother; and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and valley, of live-oak groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs and canyons of mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and over all, eloquent, insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark cutting clearly through the hoof-beats of the herd and the calls of the vaqueros.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in For the Soul of Rafael.

The missions should be thought of today as they were at their best, when, after thirty years of struggle and hardship, they had attained the height of their usefulness, which was followed by thirty years of increase and prosperity, material as well as spiritual—the proud outcome of so humble a beginning—before their final passing away.

CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in The Missions of Nueva California.

Decorative line

JUNE 7.

Already the Emperor has given to us many fine paintings, vestments and a chime of sweetest bells. How we long to hear them calling out over the sea of vast silence, turning the white quiet into coral hues of deeper thrill! The church bells singing to the people of Al-lak-shak, recall the wandering Padres' labors among your thousands here in California. Those who cannot understand the great words of the teachers may look upon the beauteous pictures of the Madonna and the Child; all can understand that love.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons.

Decorative line

JUNE 8.

JUNE.
(IN CALIFORNIA.)

Oh June! thou comest once again

With bales of hay and sheaves of grain,

That make the farmer's heart rejoice,

And anxious herds lift up their voice.

I hear thy promise, sunny maid,

Sound in the reapers' ringing blade.

And in the laden harvest wain

That rumbles through the stubble plain.

Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks.

Of busy mills and floury sacks,

Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads,

Hard curving down their iron roads

Of vessels speeding to the breeze.

Their snowy sails in stormy seas.

While bearing to some foreign land

The products of this Golden Strand.

PALMER COX,
in Comic Yarns.

Decorative line

JUNE 9.

MADAME MODJESKA'S DEVOTION TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

During the hey-day of A.P.A.-ism in this section, Madame Modjeska returned from a triumphant tour and played for a week in Los Angeles.  ∗ ∗ ∗  She selected as her principal piece—Mary Stuart. ∗ ∗ ∗ At the final scene of the play, as Mary Stuart passes out to her execution, Modjeska in the title-role held us spellbound by the intense emotions of the situation. The sight of her beautiful face, upturned to heaven, showing the expression of the zeal and fervor of her Catholic heart, was intensified by the manner in which she carried the crucifix and rosary in her hand, and was the last glimpse of her as she disappeared from the stage. There was a thrill passed over the audience, which had its effect, not only upon the unbeliever, but likewise upon the pusillanimous member of the church.

JOSEPH SCOTT,
in The Tidings.

Decorative line

JUNE 10.

The Mission floor was with weeds o'ergrown,

And crumbling and shaky its walls of stone;

Its roof of tiles, in tiers on tiers,

Had stood the storms of a hundred years.

An olden, weird, medieval style

Clung to the mouldering, gloomy pile,

And the rhythmic voice of the breaking waves

Sang a lonesome dirge in its land of graves.

Strangely awed I felt, that day,

As I walked in the Mission old and gray—

The Mission Carmel at Monterey.

MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in Mystery of Carmel.

Decorative line

JUNE 11.

Up to the American invasion, the traveler in California found welcome in whatsoever house. Not food and bed and tolerance only, but warm hearts and home. Fresh clothing was laid out in his chamber. His jaded horse went to the fenceless pasture; a new and probably better steed was saddled at the door when the day came that he must go. And in the houses which had it, a casual fistful of silver lay upon his table, from which he was expected to help himself against his present needs. It was a society in which hotels could not survive (even long after they were attempted) because every home was open to the stranger; and orphan asylums were impossible. Not because fathers and mothers never died, but because no one was civilized enough to shirk orphans.

CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
in The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West, August, 1892.

Decorative line

JUNE 12.

Go as far as you dare in the heart of a lonely land, you cannot go so far that life and death are not before you. Painted lizards slip in and out of rock crevices, and pant on the white-hot sands. Birds, humming-birds even, nest in the cactus scrub; woodpeckers befriend the demoniac yuccas; out of the stark, treeless waste rings the music of the night-singing mocking bird. If it be summer and the sun well down, there will be a burrowing owl to call. Strange, furry, tricksey things dart across the open places, or sit motionless in the conning towers of the creosote.

MARY AUSTIN,
in The Land of Little Rain.

Decorative line

JUNE 13.

EL CAMINO REAL.

El Camino Real—"The Royal Road," is the poetic name given to the original government road of Spanish California that joined the missions from San Diego to San Francisco de Solano. The route selected by the Franciscan Fathers was the most direct road that was practicable, connecting their four Presidios, three Pueblos and twenty-one Missions. By restoring this road and making it a State Highway with the twenty-one missions as stations, California will come to possess the most historic, picturesque, romantic and unique boulevard in the world.

MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in Missions and Landmarks.

Decorative line

JUNE 14.

Because we have such faith in the charms of California; because we have such faith in the future of our city that we believe that once strangers come here they will remain in it, as of old the hero remained in the land of the ever-young; because we believe that this state can support ten, aye, twenty times its present population, we extend an invitation to all home-seekers, no matter where found. Come to California! Its valleys are wide open for all to come through and build therein their homes of peace. Its coasts teem with wealth. The riches of its mountains have not been half exploited. We believe that all that is necessary to fill this State with a great and prosperous population is that the people should see the State and know it as it is.

FATHER P.C. YORKE,
in The Warder of Two Continents.

Decorative line

JUNE 15.

EL CAMINO REAL.

It's a long road and sunny, and the fairest in the world—

There are peaks that rise above it in their sunny mantles curled,

And it leads from the mountains through a hedge of chaparral,

Down to the waters where the sea gulls call.

It's a long road and sunny, it's a long road and old.

And the brown padres made it for the flocks of the fold;

They made it for the sandals of the sinner-folk that trod

From the fields in the open to the shelter-house of God.

   ∗   ∗   ∗

We will take the road together through the morning's golden glow,

And will dream of those who trod it in the mellowed long ago.

JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in Just California.

Decorative line

JUNE 16.

Mrs. Bryton surveyed the coarse furnishings of the adobe with disgust as she was led to the one room where she could secure sleeping accommodation. It contained three beds with as many different colored spreads, queer little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on a nail. The floor had once been tiled with square mission bricks; but many were broken, some were gone, and the empty spaces were so many traps for unwary feet.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in For the Soul of Rafael.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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).

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

AUGUST 23.

THE PÆAN 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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

SEPTEMBER 10.

Gay little oriole, fond little lover,

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

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.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 10.

GOD IS EVERYWHERE.

Under the grass, the flowers, and the sod

Go deep enough and you will find God.

The royal red-gold of the sunset glow

A veil for His unseen face doth show.

And all the star-cool vastnesses of night

Still hide Him not from the Spirit's sight.

I will see Him in all, I will trust Him in all,

I will love but the God, to the God will I call.

Till God, full and perfect, every soul shall reveal,

And God's glorious purpose each life shall fulfill;

Till the earth showeth whole, without break, without seam,

Till God's truth and God's beauty stand clear and supreme.

MARY RUSSELL MILLS,
in Fellowship Magazine.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 11.

THE KILLING OF THE DEVIL,
AS TOLD IN THE LANGUEDOC FOLK-TALE OF
THE THREE STRONG MEN.

Oh! that was a desperate struggle—terrific and horrible to see! The devil shrieked and howled; he scratched and bit; while Crowbar, dumb and purple in the face, gave telling blows with his fists. He could not strike the devil's head, because of the horns, and he could not grab his body, because it was so sleek and slimy. At length the devil's strength gave out. Crowbar siezed him by the throat, threw him on his back, put a knee upon his breast, and, with the cane in his right hand, gave him a blow between the horns that split his head in two. But he died hard. His head was split open, yet he was struggling, whipping the ground with his tail, and foaming at the mouth. At last he was still.

SAMUEL JACQUES BRUN,
in Tales of Languedoc.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 12.

FROM "AFTER HEARING PARSIFAL."

The century new announces, "Victory!"—

Through Music's witchery o'er Sin and Hell

Man is redeemed. The Christ is here! The Soul

Now claims its own! Nor hope nor fear

Nor prayer nor hunger now, for lo! 'tis here,

The expected Kingdom—God's and Man's! 'Tis here!

Day-dawn has come! The world-wide quest is o'er!

The Grail was never lost! 'Twas folded safe

Within the petals of my heart, and thou

Enchanter wise, reveal'st to me, my Self!

HENRY HARRISON BROWN,
in Now, May, 1904.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 13.

THE VOICE OF THE SNOW.

Silently flying through the darkened air, swirling, glinting, to their appointed places, they seem to have taken counsel together, saying, "Come, we are feeble; let us help one another. We are many, and together we will be strong. Marching in close, deep ranks, let us roll away the stones from these mountain sepulchers, and set the landscape free. Let us uncover these clustering domes. Here let us carve a lake basin; there a Yosemite Valley; here, a channel for a river with fluted steps and brows for the plunge of songful cataracts. Yonder let us spread broad sheets of soil, that man and beast may be fed; and here pile trains of boulders for pines and giant sequoias. Here make ground for a meadow; there for a garden and grove."

JOHN MUIR,
in The Mountains of California.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 14.

It was winter in San Francisco—not the picturesque winter of the North or South, but a mild and intermediate season, as if the great zones had touched hands, and earth were glad of the friendly feeling. There is no breath from a cold Atlantic to chill the ardor of these thoughts. Our great, tranquil ocean lies in majesty to the west. It can fume and fret, but it does so in reason. It does not lash and storm in vain.

FRANCES CHARLES,
in The Siege of Youth.

May the tangling of sunshine and roses never cease upon your path until after the snows of Winter have covered your way with whiteness.

MARTIN V. MERLE,
in The Vagabond Prince, Act IV.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 15.

It was one of those wonderful warm winter days given to San Francisco instead of the spring she has never experienced. After a week's rain the sun shone out of a sky as warmly blue as late spring brings in other climates. The world seemed in a very rapture of creation. The bay below the garden, new washed and sparkling like a pale emerald, spread gaily out, and the city's streets terraced down to meet it. The peculiar delicacy and richness of California roses coaxed by the softness of the climate to live out-doors sent up a perfume that hot-house flowers cannot yield. The turf was of a thick, healthy, wet green, teeming with life. The hills beyond were green as summer in California cannot make them, and off to the west against the tender sky the cross on Lone Mountain was etched.

MIRIAM MICHELSON,
in Anthony Overman.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 16.

The story is never fully told, and the power of paint or pen can never express entirely the glory or the strength of the conception which impelled it. The best is still withheld, inexpressible in human terms.

Our best songs are still unsung; our best thoughts are still unuttered and must so remain until eyes and ears and hands are quickened by a diviner life to a keener sensibility.

W.L. JUDSON,
in The Building of a Picture.

Another value in dialect is the fact that sounds are often retained that are lost in the standard speech, or softer, sweeter tones are fostered and developed.

JAMES MAIN DIXON,
in Dialect in Literature.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 17.

It is a compensation for many ills to awaken some December morning and feel in the air the warmth of summer and see in the foliage the glad green of spring. Children play in the parks, and the sun shines, and even the older folks grew merry.  ∗ ∗ ∗  It had been such a day as comes during Indian summer in other countries. The air had been very kindly and had breathed nothing but gentleness toward man and vegetation. Toward February people would be out searching for wild flowers on the suburban hills.

FRANCES CHARLES,
in The Siege of Youth.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 18.

FROM THE FRENCH.

How vain is life!

Love's little spell,

Hate's little strife,

And then—farewell!

How brief is life!

Hope's lessening light

With dreams is rife,

And then—good night!

BLANCHE M. BURBANK.

"Everyone for himself," is the law of the jungle. But slowly a new form of expression is shaping and we are beginning to take pride in the things that are "ours," rather than in that which alone is "mine."

DANA W. BARTLETT,
in Our Governtnert in Social Service, or a Nation at Work in Human Uplift.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 19.

"BACK THERE."

"Back there," the gambler-wind the snow is shuffling,

Flake after flake down—dealing in despair;

The bladeless field, the birdless thicket muffling,

But now no more the river's stillness ruffling.

Oh, bitter is the sky, and blank its stare—

Back there!

"Back there," the wires are down. The blizzard, meaning

No good to man or beast, shakes loose his hair.

The storm-bound train and locomotive preening

His sable plume, the ferry-boat, careening

Between the ice-cakes, icy fringes wear—

Back there!

TRACY and LUCY ROBINSON,
in Out West.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 20.

"OUT HERE."

"Out Here," a mocker trills his carol olden,

High-perched upon some eucalyptus near.

The meadow lark replies; oranges golden

Peer from the green wherewith they are enfolden,

And perfume fills the winey atmosphere—

Out Here!

"Out Here," through virgin soil, in sunlight mellow—

Ay, and in moonlight!—man his plow may steer,

Nor lose life's edge in friction with his fellow;

Nor, parchment-bound, with yellowing creeds turn yellow,

But feel his heart grow younger every year—

Out Here!

TRACY and LUCY ROBINSON,
in Out West.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 21.

HAPPY HEART.

As I go lightly on my way

I hear the flowers and grasses talk:

I listen to the gray-beard rock:

I know what 'tis the tree-tops say.

A thousand comrades with me walk

As I go lightly on my way.

As I go lightly on my way

A bonnie bird a greeting sings,

And gossip from a far clime brings;

A grumbling bee growls out "Good-day";

A jest the saucy chipmonk flings,

As I go lightly on my way.

As I go lightly on my way

The brook trips by with dancing feet,

And Song and Laughter soft repeat

Their cadence as I watch its play;

And whispers low the wind, and sweet,

As I go lightly on my way.

CHARLES E. JENNEY,
in Country Life in America, September, 1902.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 22.

EUCALYPTUS BLOSSOMS.

I fell asleep beneath a fragrant

Arrow-leafed tree;

And all night long its drooping branches

Showered sweet dreams on me.

But when the dawn-wind stirred the tree tops

I saw, oh wondrous sight!

My dreams, pale spheres amid the leafage,

Ethereal, poised for flight.

MARGARET ADELAIDE WILSON,
in Out West Magazine.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 23.

TO MODJESKA.

Crowned with the glory of artistic achievement, with the love and devotion of friends and family, with the homage of the world, her royal yet sweet and gentle spirit has risen from the earth to shine above like a brilliant star, perpetually transmitting its pure white light to a reverently admiring multitude.

BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH,
Inscribed on banner accompanying floral tribute of the Fine Arts League.

NIGHT ON THE DESERT.

All daylight he followed through endless hot marches

The trail of a plodding desire:

Now with night he has lost the fierce fever of getting,

Adrowse by his dull-embered fire.

Immeasurable silences compass him over,

His body grows one with the streams

Of sands that slide and whisper around him;

The stars draw his soul: and he dreams.

MARGARET ADELAIDE WILSON,
in Pall Mall Magazine.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 24.

CHRISTMAS.

The sun's glory lies on the mountain

Like the glow of a golden dream,

Or the flush on a slumbering fountain

That wakes to dawn's roseate beam.

So the year's day dies in a glory,

And dying, like sunrays unfurled,

Casts the peace and love of Christ's story

Over the heart of the world.

HAROLD T. SYMMES.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 25 AND 26.

THE NAZARINE.

A manger-cradled child, his mother near,

And one they call his father standing by,

Shepherd and Magi, with the gifts they bear,

An angel chorus rolling through the sky—

Once more the sacred mystery we scan,

And wonder if the Christ be God's best gift to man.

Pale, patient Pleader, for the poor and those

Whose hearts are homes of sorrow and of pain,

Thy voice is as a balm for all their woes;

Through twenty centuries it calleth plain

As when it breathed the invitation blest—

"Ye weary, come to Me, and I will give you rest."

Reason may seek to ruin, science scorn,

But that great love of Thine hath made us wise

In wisdom not of understanding born,

That bids us turn to Thee with longing eyes

And outstretched hands. We know that Thou art He.

Nor do we seek a sign as did the Pharisee.

Sweet festival that bringeth back once more

The golden dreams of childhood, let us turn

Like little children to the Christmas lore

That once did hold us spellbound, till we learn

Again the lesson of Thy love; for we

Must be like children, Lord, ere we can come to Thee.

LOUIS ALEXANDER ROBERTSON,
in Cloistral Strains.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 27.

MEMORIES.

I watched the dying embers, my vision blurred apace—

I trod once more that hallowed ground, of kith, of kin, of race.

I saw again the turf-fire send its living flame on high,

Saw youthful figures grouped around the Yule board, laden, nigh.

The latch went up, the neighbors came and instantly good cheer

Went 'round the festive gathering 'till the Christ-child hour drew near,

The piper played, the dance began, and child and parent fond

Tripped back and forth, tripped high and low, with smile of loving bond.

ELLEN DWYER DONOVAN,
in The Christinas Card.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 28.

MOUNT SHASTA.

As lone as God, and white as Winter moon,

Mount Shasta's peak looks down on forest gloom.

The storm-tossed pines and warlike-looking firs

Have rallied here upon its silver spurs.

Eternal tower, majestic, great and strong,

So silent all, except for Heaven's song—

For Heaven's voice calls out through silver bars

To Shasta's height; calls out below the stars,

And speaks the way, as though but quarter rod

From Shasta's top unto its maker, God.

WILLIAM F. BURBANK.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 29 AND 30.

WHERE THE CREAMY YUCCA BLOOMS.

Say mate, I'm in the foothills;

Got a tent to sleep in nights,

Far away from beaten highways

And the talk of human rights;

Far away from din and tumult,

Where the greed of pelf consumes—

I've a corner, here, of heaven

Where the creamy yucca blooms.

God! the newborn sense of freedom!

Down in chain and bolt and bar,

Rent the vain that kept in hiding

Lore of sky and silver star.

Wisdom dwelleth not in cities;

'Tis the foothill night illumes—

Where the insects chant their hymnals,

And the creamy yucca blooms.

Get a move on, mate, come out here,

Leave the deadly fever-dreams

Of the street and of the market

Where the "rocky yellow" gleams.

Here you live in every moment,

And the soul its own assumes

In this blessed bit of heaven,

Where the creamy yucca blooms.

ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN,
in West Coast Magazine.

Decorative line

DECEMBER 31.

ELECTRICITY ON THE COMSTOCK.

Born from nothing, it leaps into existence with the full-fledged strength of a giant, dies, is born again; lives a thousand lives and dies a thousand deaths in a single pulsating second of time.

It soars to every height, plunges to every depth, and stretches its vast arms throughout illimitable space.

It plants the first blush upon the cheek of dawn; with brush of gold upon the glowing canvas of the west, it tells the story of the dying day.

At its mere whim and caprice, a thousand pillars of light leap from the dark and sullen seas which surge about the poles, while from its shimmering loom it weaves the opalescent tapestry of the aurora to hang against the black background of the arctic night.

It rouses nature from her winter sleep, breaks the icy fetters of the frost that binds the streams, lifts the shroud of snow from off the landscape, woos the tender mold and bids the birth of bud and blossom; dowers the flower with perfume and clothes the earth with verdure of the spring.

It rides the swift courses of the storms that circle round the bald crest of old Mount Davidson; cleaves the black curtain of the night with scimitar of flame; rouses the lightnings from their couch of clouds and wakes the earthquake.

Beneath its touch, the beetling crag, which took omnipotence a thousand years to rear, crumbles into dust, the mere plaything of the idle wind; it lays its hand upon the populous city with its teeming, restless multitude. And yesterday, where stood the glittering spire, the shining tower, the frowning battlement, today the cold gray ocean rolls in undisputed might.

It gathers the doings of the day from the four corners of the world, the tales of love and death, of fire and flood, of strife and pestilence, and under eight thousand miles of shivering sea, whispers the babble of two hemispheres.

It turns the wheels of peace where poor men toil, and helps the husbandman to plow and plant and reap his whispering grain.

It rides the wings of war where brave men die; and when it stalks between contending hosts, exalts the kingly crest and helps an empire plant its flag of conquest.

It glows in lonely attics where weary workers toil to earn their crust. It shines o'er scenes where feet of feasters tread the halls of revelry. It lights the mourners on their pathway to the tomb. It glares in haunts where jeweled ringers lift the cup of pleasure to the month of sin, 'mid the sobbing of the sensuous music and flow of forbidden wine; and speeding on its way illumes the dim cathedral aisle, where surpliced priest proclaims the teachings of the master, and golden-throated choirs lift their hosannas to the King of Kings.

It was the Maker's ally at the dawn of time, and when God from the depths of infinite space, said "Let there be light," it sent the pulse of life along creation's veins, baptized earth's cold brow with floods of fire, and stood the sponsor of a cradled world.

SAM P. DAVIS.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES

ANGIER, BELLE SUMNER, (Mrs. Walter Burn.) Special training in floricultural and horticultural subjects. Staff writer on Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Express. Writer on garden and floral topics for California newspapers and many magazines. Author: Garden Book of California. Address: 1036 N. Washington St., Los Angeles, Calif.

ARCHER, RUBY, b. Kansas City, Mo., Jan. 28, 1873. Ed. Kansas City High School and private tutors. Contributor of poems, translations from French and German dramas and lyrics, prose articles on Art, Architecture, Music, Biblical Literature, Philosophy, etc., for papers and magazines. Author: Little Poems. $1.25. Thought Awakening. $1.00. Address: R.F.D. No. 8, Box 11-A, Los Angeles, Calif. (The Studio is at Granada Park, on the Covina Electric Line.)

AUSTIN, MARY. Author: The Land of Little Rain, an account of the California Desert. $2.00. The Basket Woman, a book of Indian myths and fanciful tales for children. $1.50. Isidro, a romance of Mission days. $1.50. The Flock, an account of the shepherd industry of California. $2.00. Santa Lucia, a novel. $1.50. Lost Borders, the people of the desert. Address: Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, or care of Harper Bros., New York.

BAMFORD, MARY ELLEN, b. Healdsburg, Calif. Author: Up and Down the Brooks. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 75¢. Her Twenty Heathen. Pilgrim Press. 50¢. My Land and Water Friends. D. Lothrop & Co. The Look About Club. D. Lothrop & Co. Second Year of the Look About Club. D. Lothrop & Co. Janet and Her Father. Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Marie's Story. Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Miss Millie's Trying. Hunt & Eaton. Number One or Number Two. Hunt & Eaton. A Piece of Kitty Hunter's Life. Hunt & Eaton. Father Lambert's Family. Phillips & Hunt. Thoughts of My Dumb Neighbors. Phillips & Hunt. Eleanor and I. Congregational S.S. & Pub. Soc. Talks by Queer Folks. D. Lothrop Co. Jessie's Three Resolutions. Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. In Editha's Days. Am. Baptist Pub. Soc. Three Roman Girls. Am. Baptist Pub. Soc. Out of the Triangle. D.C. Cook Pub. Co. 25¢. Ti: A Story of San Francisco's Chinatown. D.C. Cook Co. 25¢. The Denby Children at the Fair. D.C. Cook Co. Address: 621 E. 15th St., East Oakland, Calif.

BANCROFT, HUBERT HOWE, b. May 5, 1832, Granville, Ohio. Ed. Granville Academy until sixteen years of age. Clerk in bookstore in Buffalo, N.Y. Came to San Francisco March, 1852. While building up a large book-selling and publishing house, Mr. Bancroft worked for 30 years on the colossal history which bears his name, issued in Vols. as follows: The Native Races of the Pacific States, 5 vols. History of Central America, 3 vols. History of Mexico, 6 vols. North Mexican States and Texas, 2 vols. California, 7 vols. Arizona and New Mexico, 1 vol. Colorado and Wyoming, 1 vol. Utah and Nevada, 1 vol. Northwest Coast, 2 vols. Oregon, 2 vols. Washington, Idaho and Montana, 1 vol. British Columbia, 1 vol. Alaska, 1 vol. California Pastoral, 1 vol. California Inter Pocula, 1 vol. Popular Tribunals, 2 vols. Essays and Miscellany, 1 vol. Literary Industries, 1 vol. Also Book of the Fair, Book of Wealth, Resources of Mexico, The New Pacific, etc. Address: 2898 Jackson St., San Francisco.

BANDINI, HELEN ELLIOTT (Mrs. Arturo), b. Indianapolis, Ed. in public schools. Came to California in 1874 when father was president of Indiana Colony, which founded Pasadena. Writer for newspapers and magazines. Author: History of California (Am. Book Co.) The Romance of California History (in press.) Address: 1149 San Pasqual St., Pasadena. Calif.

BARTLETT, DANA WEBSTER, b. Bangor, Me., Oct. 27, 1860. Ed. Iowa College (Grinnell, La.,) 1882. Attended Yale and Chicago Theol. Sems. Pastor Phillips Church, Salt Lake. Since 1896 pastor Bethlehem Inst. Church, Los Angeles, which now covers six city lots. Author: The Better City: "Our Government in Social Service." Address: Bethlehem Institutional Church, Los Angeles, Calif.

BARUCH, BERTHA HIRSCH, b. Province of Posen, Germany. Came to New London, Conn., with father in 1876. Wrote poetry in her teens and was encouraged by Rose Hawthorne Lathrop in her literary efforts. Active in College Settlement and Univ. Ext. work. Attended Penn. Univ. and Yale. On editorial staff Los Angeles Times. Address: 1168 W. 36th St., Los Angeles, Calif.

BASHFORD, HERBERT, b. Sioux City, Ia., 1871. Contributor to leading magazines on literature and the drama. Author: The Wolves of the Sea; The Tenting of the Tillicums: At the Shrine of Song, etc. Writer of several successful plays, The Defiance of Doris, etc. Address: San Jose, Calif.

BINGHAM, HELEN, b. San Francisco, Aug. 23, 1885. Ed. private tutors, with special reference to Archaeology. Author: In Tamal Land. $2.00. Address: 785 Cole St., San Francisco, Calif.

BLAND, HENRY MEADE, b. Suisun, Solano Co., Calif., April 21, 1863. Ed. public schools, University of the Pacific (Ph.D., 1890), Stanford University (M.A., 1895). Professor English Literature since 1898 at State Normal School, San Jose. Contributor leading magazines. Author: A song of Autumn and Other Poems. 1908. $1.00. Address: State Normal School, San Jose, Calif.

BOHAN, MRS. ELIZABETH BAKER, b. England, August 18. When 4 years old came to Milwaukee, Wisc. Ed. in public schools. Married in Milwaukee and began to write short stories, poems, and philosophical articles. Author: The Drag-net, 1909, C.M. Clark, Boston. The Strength of the Weak, Grafton Co., Los Angeles $1.50 each. Address: 1844 Santa Cruz Street, Los Angeles, California.

BOOTHS, CHARLES BEACH, b. Stratford, Conn., July 3, 1851. Ed. Stratford Acad. 1894 came to Los Angeles. Pres. Nat. Irrigation Congress, 1896-7. Writer on Conservation of National Resources. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

BRANNICK, LAURENCE, b. Scardene, Co. Mayo, Ire., May 24, 1874. Ed. St. Jarlath's College, Tuam and Maynooth College. B.A. 1907 Univ. S. Calif. Writer for papers and magazines. Especially interested in perpetuation of Gaelic language. Address: Station K., Los Angeles, Calif.

BRIGMAN, MRS. ANNIE W., b. Honolulu, Dec. 3. Came to California in young girlhood. Writer of verses to accompany her own artistic photographs. Address: 647 32nd St., Oakland, Calif.

BRININSTOOL. E.A., b. Warsaw, Wyoming Co., N.Y., October 11, 1870. Attended common school until 17. In 1887 learned printer's trade. In 1895 came to Calif. In 1900 began to write humorous verse for the Los Angeles Times, Record, Examiner and Express. Since 1905 on Los Angeles Express in editorial paragraphs and a short column of verse and miscellaneous matter, dubbed, "Lights and Shadows." Address: The Express, Los Angeles, Calif.

BROOKS, FRED EMERSON, b. Waverly, N.Y., Dec. 5, 1850. Grad. Madison (now Colgate) Univ., 1873. Lived in S.F. 1873-1891. S.F. Call styled him California's Celebration Poet. Writer of plays, magazine articles, etc. Author: Old Ace and Other Poems. Pickett's Charge and Other Poems, (both by Forbes & Co., Chicago.) Address: 564 W. 182nd St., New York.

BROWN, HENRY HARRISON, b. June 26, 1840, Uxbridge, Mass. Ed. at public schools, Nichols Academy at Dudley, Mass., and Meadville, Penn., Divinity School. Began to teach school when he was 17, and with the exception of three years in service during the Civil War continued teaching till he was 30. Preacher in Unitarian churches for 7 years; lectured for 17 years on reformatory topics. Pub. in San Francisco from 1900 to 1906, Now: A Journal of Affirmation. Is contributor to progressive magazines and lectures extensively. Author: Concentration: The Road to Success. 50¢ and $1.00. How to Control Fate Through Suggestion. 25¢. Not Hypnotism, But Suggestion. 25¢. Man's Greatest Discovery. 25¢. Self Healing Through Suggestion. 25¢. The Call of the Twentieth Century. 25¢. Dollars Want Me: The New Road to Opulence. 10¢. Address: "Now" Home, Glenwood, Santa Cruz Co., Calif.

BRUN, SAMUEL JACQUES, b. Mime, Province of Gard, France, of Huguenot parents. Grad. French Univ. Instructor in French at Haverford College, Cornell Univ., Stanford Univ. Now an attorney. Author: Tableaux de la Revolution (a French reader, 9th ed.) Tales of Languedoc (Folk Lore.) $1.50. Address: 110 Sutter St., and 1467 Willard St., San Francisco.

BRUN, MRS. S.J., nee Hanna Otis, b. Auburn, N.Y. Writer for magazines. Address: 1467 Willard St., San Francisco.

BURBANK, BLANCHE M., b. West Troy, N.Y. Has lived most of her life in California. Has written poems for the magazines. Author: Reed Notes, 1905. Address: Union Square Hotel, San Francisco, Calif.

BURBANK, LUTHER, b. Lancaster, Mass., March 7, 1849. Ed. at Lancaster, and in the schools of adversity, Nature, and prosperity. Author: The Training of the Human Plant. Address: Santa Rosa, Calif.

BURBANK, WM. F., b. in San Francisco. Ed. Oakland High School and State University. Written poems for magazines, etc. Address: Union Square Hotel, San Francisco, Calif.

BURDETTE, ROBT. JONES, b. July 30, 1844. Greensboro, Greene Co., Penn. Grad. High School, Peoria, Ill., 1861. D.D. Kalamazoo College, 1905. Writer on Peoria Transcript and Evening Review. Writer and afterwards editor Burlington Hawkeye. Large contributor to newspapers and magazines. Pastor Temple Baptist Church, July, 1903, to August, 1909. Resigned through ill health. Author: The Sons of Asaph. The Life of William Penn. Smiles Yoked With Sighs, 1900. Rise and Fall of a Mustache, 1877. Chimes From a Jester's Bells, 1897. Address: Sunnycrest, Orange Grove Ave., Pasadena, Calif.

BURGESS, GELETT, b. Boston, January 30, 1866. Ed. public schools, Boston. Grad. Massachusetts Institute Technology, B.S., 1887. Instructor topo. drawing University of California, 1891-4. Ass. Ed. The Wave, 1894-5. Edited Lark, San Francisco, 1895-7. Author: Vivette, (novelette.) Copeland & Day, 1897. $1.25. The Lively City O'Ligg, (Juvenile.) F.A. Stokes Co., 1899. $1.50. Goops, and How to be Them, (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1900. $1.50. A Gage of Youth, (Poems, chiefly from "The Lark.") Small, Maynard & Co., 1901. $1.00. The Burgess Nonsense Book, (Prose and Verse.) Stokes Co., 1901. $2.00. The Romance of the Commonplace. Elder & Shepherd, S.F., 1901. $1.50. More Goops, and How Not to Be Them, (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1903. $1.50. The Reign of Queen Isyl. Short stories in collaboration with WILL IRWIN. McClure, Phillips & Co., 1903. $1.50. The Picaroons. Short stories in collaboration with WILL IRWIN. McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904. $1.50. The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne. (Satire and Parody.) Stokes, 1904. 75¢. Goop Tales. (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1904. $1.50. A Little Sister of Destiny. (Short Stories.) Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1904, $1.50. The White Cat. (Novel.) Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1907. $1.50. The Heart Line. (Novel.) Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1907. $1.50. The Maxims of Methuselah. (Satire and Parody.) Stokes Co., 1907. 75¢. Blue Goops and Red. (Juvenile.) Stokes Co., 1909. $1.35 net. Lady Mechante. (4-wart Novel.) Stokes Co., 1909. $1.50. Address: 1285 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Mass.

CARR, SARAH PRATT, b. Maine, 1850. Taken to California 1852. Ed. in public schools of California. Wrote for newspapers and magazines. Short time Unitarian minister. Author: The Iron Way, McClurg's, $1.50. Waters of Eden, run serially in Alaska-Yukon magazine. Billy Tomorrow. (Juvenile book.) McClurg's. Address: The Hillcrest, Seattle, Wash.

CARTER, CHARLES FRANKLIN, b. Waterbury, Conn., July 19, 1862. Grad. School of Fine Arts, Yale University. Pupil of J. Alden Weir, New York City. Resided in California 1891-95, 1898-1900. Author: The Missions of Nueva California, 1900. The Whitaker & Ray Company. $1.50. Out of print. Some By-Ways of California, 1902. The Grafton Press, New York. $1.25. Address: 232 S. Main St., Waterbury, Conn.

CHARLES, FRANCES, b. San Francisco, Cal., April 10, 1872. Ed. S.F. public schools. Author: In the Country God Forgot. The Siege of Youth. The Awakening of the Duchess. Pardner of Blossom Range. All by Little, Brown & Co. $1.50 each. Address: 370 26th Ave., Richmond District, San Francisco, Calif.

CHENEY, JOHN VANCE, b. Groveland. N.Y., Dec. 29, 1848. Grad. Temple Hill Acad., Geneseo, N.Y., at 17. Practiced law, 1875. Came to California in 1876. Librarian Pub. Library, San Francisco, 1887-94. Newberry Lib., Chicago, 1894-1909. Author: The Old Doctor, 1881. Thistle Drift (poems) 1887. Wood Blooms, 1888. The Golden Guess, 1872. That Dome in Air, 1895. Queen Helen, 1895. Out of the Silence, 1897. Lyrics, 1901. Poems, 1905. Editor 3 Caxton Club pubs. Address: 3390 Third St., San Diego, Calif.

CLARK, GALEN, 96 years old. Went to Yosemite in 1853. Known as Father of Yosemite. Author: Big Trees of California: Their History and Characteristics. The Indians of Yosemite: Their History, Customs and Traditions. $1.00. Paper 50¢. Address: 216 11th St. Oakland, Calif.

CONNOLLY. JAMES, b. County Cavan, Ireland July 12, 1842. In 1852 came to Dennis, Mass. Ed. public schools. At 13 went to sea, at 18 second mate, at 21 first mate. Later master. For 18 years has resided at Coronado. Writer of poems and short stories for magazines. Author: The Jewels of King Art. Address: Coronado, Calif.

COX, PALMER, b. Granby, Quebec, Can., April 28, 1840. Grad. Granby Academy. In 1862 came to San Francisco via. Panama. Contributed to Golden Era, Alta California, and Examiner, etc. Author: Squibs of California, 1874. (Later republished as Comic Yarns.) Hans Von Petter's Trip to Gotham. How Columbus Found America. That Stanley. Queer People. All now o.p. Then he invented the Brownies and in quick succession were published The Brownies, Their Book; Another Book; The B.'s at Home; The B.'s Around the World; The B.'s Through the Union; The B.'s Abroad; The B.'s in the Philippines. $1.50 each. The B. Clown in B. Town. $1.00. The B. Primer. 40¢. All by Century Co. The B. Calendar, McLoughlin Bros., N.Y. $1.00. Palmer Cox's Brownies. Spectacular play. The B.'s in Fairyland (Children's Cantata.) Also articles in leading magazines. Address: Pine View House, East Quogue, L.I.

DAGGETT, MARY STEWART, b. Morristown. O., May 30, 1856. Ed. Steubenville, O., Seminary, 1873. Writer for newspapers and magazines. Author: Mariposilla, 1895. The Broad Isle, 1899. Address: Columbia Hill, Pasadena, Calif.

DAVIS, SAM P., b. Branford, Conn., April 4, 1850. Newspaper and magazine writer for 40 years. Lecturer and public speaker—also politician. Author: One book Short Stories and Poems, and The First Piano in Camp. Address: Public Industrial Commission, Carson City, Nevada.

DILLON, HENRY CLAY, b. Lancaster, Wis., Nov. 6, 1846. Ed. public schools and Lancaster Academy. Grad. Racine College, 1872 (Gold Medalist, 1870.) Came to California in 1888. Writer of clever short stories and law. Lecturer on Common Law Pleading, etc., University of Southern Calif. Address: Colorado Orchards, Long Beach, Calif., and Los Angeles, Calif.

DONOVAN, ELLEN DWYER, b. Castletown, Beara, Co. Cork, Ire. Ed. Academy Sisters of Mercy. Came to Calif, and contributor to leading magazines on Art Criticism. Writer of short stories. Will shortly publish a Romance of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century. Address: Ashbury St., San Francisco, Calif.

EDHOLM-SIBLEY, MARY CHARLTON, b. Freeport, Ill., Oct. 28, 1854. Ed. public schools and college. Writer and lecturer on social and economic subjects. Founded Lucy Charlton Memorial for unfortunate women and children, in Oakland. Author: Traffic in Girls. 30¢. Sales go to help the Memorial. Address: 904-6 Security Bldg., Los Angeles, Calif.

EDWARDS, ADRIADNE HOLMES, b. Placerville, Cal., May 7. Student of Grand Opera. Writer and composer of songs. Author: My Nightingale, Sing On (words and music.) O Bonniest Lassie Yet. Enticement. Address: Hotel Hargrave, 112 W. 72nd St., New York.

EMERSON, WILLIS GEORGE, b. near Blakesburg, Monroe Co., Iowa, March 28, 1856. Ed. district school, Union Co., Ia. Attended Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. Studied law. Admitted to practice in District U.S. and other courts. Taught country school for four years. Platform orator. His speech replying to "Coin" Harvey's Financial School was issued as a Republican campaign document, 1896, and in 1900 over half a million copies of his speech on sound money were circulated throughout the country. Author: Winning Winds, 1901. Fall of Jason, 1901. My Pardner and I, 1901. Buell Hampton, 1902. The Builders, 1905. The Smoky God, 1908. Has written over 100 stories of travel and sketches of mining camps and mountain scenery. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

EVANS, TALIESIN, b. Manchester, Eng., Nov. 8, 1843. Ed. private schools England and Wales. Author: Fisher's Advt. Guide to Calif., 1870. Editor and author of Popular History of Calif. (Revised and enlarged. First edition by Lucia Norman), 1883. American Citizenship, 1892. Municipal Government, 1892. Address: 212 Fourth St., Oakland, Calif.

EYSTER, MRS. NELLIE BLESSING, b. Frederick, Md. Lived in California since 1876. Active in W.C.T.U., Indian and Chinese mission work. Contributor to magazines. Lost the MSS. of two books in S.F. fire of 1906. Author: Sunny Hours, or The Child Life of Tom and Mary. Chincapin Charlie. On the Wing. Tom Harding and His Friends. A Colonial Boy. A Chinese Quaker. Address: 2618 Hillegass Ave., Berkeley, Calif.

FAIRBANKS, HAROLD WELLMAN, b. Conewango, Cattaraugus Co., N.Y., Aug. 29, 1860. Ed. State Normal, Fredonia, N.Y. Grad. B.S., University Mich., 1890. Ph.D., University Calif., 1896. Engaged in geological and geographical work: State Mining Bureau. 1890-1894. Asst. U.S. Geological Survey, 1897-98. Author: text books: Stories of Our Mother Earth. 60¢. Home Geography. Rocks and Minerals. All by Ed. Pub. Co., Boston. Physiography of California. Macmillan. The Western United States. D.C. Heath. Practical Physiography for High Schools. Allyn & Bacon. Address: Arch St., Berkeley, Calif.

FORBES, MRS. A.S.C. (nee Harrye Smith) b. Pennsylvania. Came California 1895. Works for re-establishment of El Camino Real. Created and established Nat. Naval Memorial. Author: Mission Tales in Days of the Dons. $1.50. California Missions and Landmarks. 25¢. Address: 1104 Lyndon St., South Pasadena, Calif.

GATES, ELEANOR (Mrs. R.W. Tully.) Ed. Stanford, Univ. of Calif. Leaped into fame with her first book. Biography of a Prairie Girl, first pub. in Century Magazine. Author: Biography of a Prairie Girl, 1904. The Plow Woman, 1907. Cupid, the Cow Punch, 1908. Good Night, 1908. Address: Alma, Calif.

GUINN, J.M., writer of History of Southern California. Secretary S. Cal. Hist. Soc. Member Los Angeles Board of Education. Address: 5539 Monte Vista St., Los Angeles, Calif.

HART, JEROME ALFRED, b. San Francisco. Sept. 6, 1854. Ed. Cal. public schools. Asso. editor, 1880-91. editor, 1891-1906. San Francisco Argonaut, to which contributed letters of foreign travel (1887-1904), and translations from French, German, Spanish, etc. Sec. 1880-91, pres. 1891-1906, of The Argonaut Publishing Co. Author: Argonaut Letters, 1900. Two Argonauts in Spain. 1904. A Levantine Log-Book, 1905. Argonaut Stories (edited) 1906. Contributor to magazines, etc. Address: Weyewolde, Santa Clara Co.. Calif.

HIBBARD, GRACE, b. Mass. Ed. in Mass. Author: Wild Poppies. Moulton, Buffalo, N.Y. $1.00. California Violets. Robertson, S.F. $1.00. Wild Roses of California. Robertson. $1.00. Forget-Me-Nots From California. Robertson. $1.00. Booklets: More California Violets. 25¢. California Christmas Songs. 25¢. Daffodils. 25¢. Songs of the Samisen. 25¢. 'Neath Monterey Pines. 25¢. Del Monte Oaks. 25¢. Santa Claus Cheated, and Other Christmas Stories. Twenty-eight poems have been set to music. Address: Pacific Grove, Calif.

HOLDEN, EDWARD SINGLETON, b. St. Louis, Nov. 5. 1846. Grad. Wash. Univ., 1866. West Point 1870. Pres. Univ. of Cal. 1885-8. Director Lick Observatory 1888-98. Librarian U.S. Military Acad. since 1901. Author: many scientific works. See Who's Who. Handbook Lick Observatory, 1888. Mountain Observatories, 1896. Pacific Coast Earthquakes, 1898, etc. Address: West Point, N.Y., and Century Club, New York.

HOWARD, CLIFFORD, b. October 12, 1868, Bethlehem, Penn. Came to Calif, in 1906. Author: Thoughts in Verse, 1895; (out of print.) Sex Worship: An Exposition of the Phallic Origins of Religion, 1897. $1.50. The Story of a Young Man: a Life of Christ, 1898. $2.50. Graphology, 1904. 50¢. Curious Facts, 1905. 50¢. Washington as a Center of Learning, 1905. $1.00. The Passover. What Happened at Olenberg. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

HUNT, ROCKWELL DENNIS, b. Sacramento, Calif., Feb. 3, 1868. Grad. Napa College. Ph.B., 1890. A.M., 1902. Johns Hopkins Univ. Ph.D., 1895. Prof. Hist. Napa College, 1891-3. Prof. Hist. and Political Sc., Univ. of Pacific, 1895-1902. Prin. San Jose High School, 1902-1908. Lect. Stanford Univ., 1898. Prof. Economics and Sociology, Univ. of S. Calif., 1908, Author: California the Golden. Address: 1319 W. 37th Place, Los Angeles, Calif.

IRWIN, WALLACE, b. Oneida, N.Y., Mar. 15, 1875. Grad. Denver High School, 1895. At Stanford Univ., 1896-9. Special writer S.F. Examiner, Ed. S.F. News-Letter 1901, and Overland Monthly 1902. Author: Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum. Paul Elder, S.F. 25¢ and 50¢. Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam, Jr. Paul Elder, S.F. 50¢ and 75¢. Nautical Lays of a Landsman. Dodd, Mead Co., N.Y. $1.00. At the Sign of the Dollar. Duffield & Co., N.Y. $1.00. Chinatown Ballads. Duffield & Co., N.Y. $1.00. Random Rhymes and Odd Numbers. Macmillan Co., N.Y. $1.50. Shame of the Colleges. Outing Pub. Co. Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy. Doubleday, Page & Co. $1.50. Address: 273 W. 84th St., New York.

IRWIN, WILL, b. Oneida, N.Y., Sept. 14, 1873. Grad. Denver High School, 1892. Stanford Univ. A.B. 1899. Contr. fiction, etc., to mags. Ed. S.F. Wave 1900. Ed. McClure's 1906-7. Author: Stanford Stories (with C.K. Field), 1900. The Reign of Queen Isyl (with Gelett Burgess), 1903. The Picaroons (with G. Burgess), 1904. The Hamadyads (verse), 1904. The City That Was, 1907. Address: 42 E. 28th St., New York.

JAMES, GEORGE WHARTON, b. Gainsborough, Eng., Sept. 27, 1858. Ed. Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. Litt.D. Santa Clara College. Author: In and Around the Grand Canyon, 1900. $2.50, $10.00. Indian Basketry, 1903. $2.50. Indians of the Painted Desert Region, 1903. $2.00. Traveler's Hand-Book to S. Calif., 1904. $1.00. How to Make Indian and Other Baskets, 1903. $1.00. In and Out of the Missions of Calif., 1905. $3.00. The Story of Scraggles, 1906. $1.00. The Wonders of the Colorado Desert, 1906, 2 vols. $5.00. What the White Race May Learn From the Indian, 1906. $1.50. Through Ramona's Country, 1908. $2.00. The Grand Canyon of Arizona, 1909. $1.00. The Hero Book of California, 1909. $1.50. Address: 1098 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, California.

JENNEY, CHARLES ELMER, b. Mattapoisett, Mass., Sept. 5, 1872. Ed. common schools. Came to Calif. (Fresno) 1891. Author: Scenes of My Childhood, 1900. $1.50. Address: 219 Glenn Ave., Fresno, Calif.

JEPSON, WILLIS LINN, b. Vacaville township, August 19, 1867. Ed. at California and Cornell Univ. Ph.B. 1889. Ph.D. 1898. Research student at Harvard 1896. Royal Gardens at Kew, England and Royal Gardens at Berlin, Germany, 1905-1906. Ed. of Erythea, 7 vols., 1893-1900, the first journal of botany published west of the Mississippi River. Author: Flora of Western Middle California. Cunningham, Curtis & Welch. $5.00. High School Flora for the Pacific Coast. D. Appleton & Co. 50¢. The Silva of California. Univ. of Calif. Press, in type since August, 1908. The Trees of California. Cunningham, Curtis & Welch, S.F., in press. Also numerous botanical papers in journals and proceedings of societies and institutions. Address: 2704 Hillegass Ave., Berkeley. Calif.

JORDAN, DAVID STARR, b. Gainesville, Wyoming Co., N.Y., Jan. 19, 1851. Grad. Cornell Univ. M.S. 1872. L.L.D. 1886. L.L.D., Johns Hopkins, 1902. Indiana Univ. 1909. Pres. Indiana State Univ., 1883-1891. Came to Calif, as Pres. Stanford 1891. Author: Manual of Vertebrates. A.C. McClurg & Co. $1.50. Science Sketches. A.C. McClurg & Co. $1.25. Animal Life. Appleton. $1.25. Animal Studies. Appleton. $1.75. Footnotes to Evolution. Applcton. $1.50. Evolution and Animal Life. Appleton. $1.50. Imperial Democracy. Appleton. $1.50. Book of Knight and Barbara. Appleton. $1.50. The Fate of Iciodorum. Henry Holt & Co. $1.00. Fishes. Henry Holt & Co. $3.00. Guide to the Study of Fishes. Henry Holt & Co. $8.00. Fish Stories. Henry Holt & Co. $1.50. Standeth God Within the Shadow. Thos. Y. Crowell & Co. 75¢. College and the Man. 75¢. Philosophy of Hope. 75¢. The Innumerable Company. 75¢. Life's Enthusiasms. 75¢. The Strength of Being Clean. 75¢. The Call of the Twentieth Century. 75¢. Religion of a Sensible American. 75¢. The Higher Sacrifice. 75¢. All by C.L. Stebbins, Boston. The California Earthquake of 1906. A.M. Robertson. $2.50. Luther Burbank. A.M. Robertson. $1.50. The Care and Culture of Men. Whitaker & Ray. $1.50. Matka and Kotik. Whitaker & Ray. $1.50. The Voice of the Scholar. Paul Elder & Co. $1.50. The Stability of Truth. Address: Stanford University, Calif.

JUDSON, WILLIAM LEES, b. Manchester, Eng., April 1, 1842. Studied art New York, London, Paris. Studios in London, Ont., and Chicago, Ill. Came to California 1893. Dean of Fine Arts Department University of Southern California since 1906. Contributor magazines on art subjects. Author: The Building of a Picture, 1898. 30¢. Address: College of Fine Arts, 212 Thorne St., Los Angeles, Calif.

KEELER, CHARLES, b. Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 7, 1871. Ed. Milwaukee and New York, and Berkeley High Schools. Special course Univ. of Calif. Contr. to magazines. Author: (Many books out of print.) Bird Notes Afield. $2.00. San Francisco and Thereabouts. Address: 2727 Dwight Way, Berkeley, Calif.

KEEP, JOSIAH, b. Paxton, Mass, May 11, 1849. Ed. Amherst College. A.B. 1874. A.M. 1877. Came to Calif. 1877. Since 1885 Prof. of Nat. Sc. in Mills College. Author: Common Sea Shells of California, 1881. West Coast Shells, 1887. Shells and Sea Life, 1901. West American Shells, 1904. (Most of these destroyed in S.F. fire, 1906.) New edition of West American Shells now out. Address: Mills College, Calif.

KEITH, ELIZA D., b. San Francisco. Ed. S.F. High School. Writer editorial, descriptive, current topics for newspapers and magazines. Public speaker on Civics and Patriotism. Introduced Flag Salute in S.F. schools. Address: 1519 Jackson St., San Francisco, Calif.

KERCHEVAL, ROSALIE, b. Nov. 8, San Antonio, Texas. Came to Calif, when a few months old. Wrote poems for papers and magazines. Joint author with her father of book of poems, pub. in 1883. Address: 1817 N. Rosetta St., Los Angeles, Calif.

KINNEY, ABBOTT, b. Brookside, N.J., Nov. 16, 1850. Was spl. contr. with Helen Hunt Jackson to report on Calif. Mission Indians. Chairman State Bd. Forestry. Author: Conquest of Death, 1893. Tasks by Twilight, 1893. Eucalyptus, 1895. Forest and Water, 1901. Address: Venice, Calif.

KIRKHAM, STANTON DAVIS, b. Nice, France, Dec. 7, 1868. Ed. Calif, public schools and Mass. Inst. of Technology. Author: Mexican Trails. A record of travel in Mexico, 1904-1907, and a glimpse at the life of the Mexican Indian. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.75. The Philosophy of Self-Help. An application of Practical Psychology to daily life. G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York. $1.25. In the Open. Intimate studies and appreciations of Nature. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco. $1.75. Where Dwells the Soul Serene. Philosophical essays. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco. $1.50. The Ministry of Beauty. Philosophical essays. Paul Elder & Co., San Francisco. $1.50. Address: Canandaigua, N.Y.

KREBS, MRS. ABBIE E., b. Providence, R.I., March 19, 1842. Brought around Cape Horn to San Francisco in childhood. Writer for newspapers and magazines. Address: Fair Oaks, San Mateo Co., or The Fairmount, San Francisco, Calif.

LAWRENCE, ALBERTA, b. Cleveland, O., July 20, 1875. Ed. New York City. Writer in magazines. Eighteen months Assistant Ed. Literature, Art and Music. Came to California 1904. Organized Strangers' League, an interdenominational work among churches for care of strangers. Author: The Travels of Phoebe Ann. $1.50. Address: 1565 E. Colorado St., Pasadena, Calif.

LAWRENCE, MARY VIOLET, MRS., b. Indiana. Came to California in early fifties. Wrote sketches and poems for newspapers and magazines. Made selection of poems to which Bret Harte's name was attached, known as "Outcroppings." Address: 1034 Vallejo St., San Francisco, Calif.

LONDON, CHARMIAN (Kittridge), writer of poems and sketches for newspapers and magazines. Author: The Log of the Snark—Jack London's sea voyage around the world. Address: Glen Ellen, Calif.

LONDON, JACK, b. San Francisco, Jan. 12, 1876. Ed. Oakland High School and Univ. of Calif. Writer of short stories and essays on Political Economy. Author: Song of the Wolf, 1900. The God of His Fathers, 1901. A Daughter of the Snows, 1902. The Children of the Frost, 1902. The Cruise of the Dazzler, 1902. The People of the Abyss, 1903. Kempton-Wace Letters, 1903. The Call of the Wild. 1903. The Faith of Men, 1904. The Sea Wolf, 1904. The Game, 1905. War of the Classes, 1905. Tales of the Fish Patrol, 1905. Moon Face, 1906. White Fang, 1907. Before Adam, 1907. Love of Life, 1907. The Iron Heel, 1907. The Road, 1907, etc. Address: Glen Ellen, Calif.

LOUGHEAD, MRS. FLORA HAINES, b. Milwaukee, Wis. Journalist and writer of short stories for magazines. Reviewer for S.F. Chronicle for several years. Author: Libraries of California, 1878. The Man Who Was Guilty, 1886. Handbook of Natural Science, 1886. Quick Cooking, 1890. The Abandoned Claim, 1892. The Man From Nowhere, 1892. The Black Curtain, 1897. Address: Alma, Calif.

LOWE, GEORGE N., b. near Leicester, England, in 1867. Ed. in the school of stern life, and is still getting his education. Writes verse for the newspapers and magazines. Address: 2004 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, California.

LUMMIS, CHARLES FLETCHER, b. Lynn, Mass., Mar. 1, 1859. Ed. Harvard. A.B. Litt. D. Santa Clara College. City editor Los Angeles Times 1885-7. Editor Out West Magazine. Librarian Los Angeles Public Library since June 21, 1905. Founder and president Landmarks Club. Founder (1902) and chairman Exec. Com. Sequoia League. Founder and secretary South West Society Archaeol. Inst. Am. 1903. Author: A New Mexico David, 1891. A Tramp Across the Continent, 1892. Some Strange Corners of Our Country, 1892. Land of Poco Tiempo, 1893. The Spanish Pioneers, 1893. The Man Who Married the Moon, 1894. The Gold Fish of Gran Chimu, 1896. The Enchanted Burro, 1897. The Awakening of a Nation. Mexico Today, 1898. Address: 200 E. Ave. 43, Los Angeles, Calif.

LYNCH, A.E., b. Tara Hall, Co. Heath, Ire., Nov. 7, 1845. Ed. Jesuit Colleges, Ire., and Belgium. Came to California 1873 for 2 years. Again in 1886 under Gen. Miles. Six years in Arizona on cattle ranch. Contributor poems and articles to magazines and newspapers. Address: Commissary Dept., State School, Whittier, Calif.

MANNIX, MRS. MARY E., b. New York City. Removed with parents to Cincinnati when very young. Ed. at Mt. Notre Dame, Reading, Ohio. Grad. of Convent of the Sisters of Namur. First story and verses published in the Catholic World, when nineteen years of age. Since that time has written for nearly all the Catholic magazines, principally the Ave Maria. Writes fiction, children's stories, verses, biographies, reviews, sketches, and translations from the French, German and Spanish. Author: Life of Sister Louise of Cincinnati, Ohio, Superior of the Mother House of America, Sisters of Notre Dame of Namur. The Tales That Tim Told. A Life's Labrynth. Chronicles of the Little Sisters. The Fortunes of a Little Emigrant. Pancha and Panchita. As True as Gold. The Children of Cupa. Cupa Revisited. The Haldeman Children. Lives of the Saints for Catholic Youth, 3 vols. The Pilgrim From Ireland (translated from the German of Dom Maurus Carnot, O.S.B.) Two books in press—My Brother and I, and The Eagle and the Chamois, translated from the German of Dom Maurus Carnot. Address: 1804 Fourth St., San Diego, Calif.

MARTIN, LANNIE HAYNES, b. Jan. 9, 1874. Blountville, Tenn. Ed. Sullins College, Bristol, Va., and privately. Came to Calif. 1905. Contributor to eastern, southern and western magazines. Volume of verse in preparation. Address: Altadena, Calif.

MATHEWS, AMANDA, b. Peoria, Ill., Jan. 31, 1866. Came to Calif. 1877. Ed. Univ. of Cal. Teacher. Author: The Hieroglyphics of Love. $1.00. Address: 313 East Ave. 60, Los Angeles. Calif.

McCRACKIN, MRS. JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD, b. 1838, Castle Petershagen, on the Weser, Prussia. Came to St. Louis, Mo., 1846. Ed. private school. Came to Calif, in early sixties. One of earliest writers on Overland. Writer ever since for leading magazines. Organized Bird and Tree Protection Soc. of Calif. Author: Overland Tales, 1876. Another Juanita, 1892. Address: 31 Union St., Santa Cruz, Calif.

McGLASHAN, C.F., b. Janesville, Wis., Aug. 12, 1847. Crossed the plains to Calif, in 1854. Editor Truckee Republican. Specially interested in historic writing of the Calif, pioneers, etc. Has made an interesting collection of relics of the Donner and other pioneer parties. Author: History of the Donner Party. Address: Truckee, Calif.

McGROARTY, JOHN S., b. Penn., Aug. 20, 1862. Ed. public and parochial schools and at Hillman Acad. In 1890 he came to Calif. Writer of songs and descriptive stories for newspapers and magazines. On editorial staff Los Angeles Times. Editor West Coast Magazine. Author: Just California, 1907. Wander Songs, 1908. Address: Care of West Coast Magazine, Los Angeles, Calif.

McLEOD, MALCOM, b. Prince Edward Island, Canada, May 24, 1867. Ed. Dalhousie College, Halifax. N.S., and Princeton, N.J. Author: Heavenly Harmonies. Earthly Discords. The Culture of Simplicity. A Comfortable Faith, all by F.H. Revell Co. Address: 969 San Pasqual St., Pasadena, Calif.

MERLE, MARTIN V., b. San Francisco, Calif., May 27, 1880. Ed. Cooper public school, St. Ignatius College and Polytechnic High School, San Francisco. Grad. A.M., 1906, Santa Clara College, Santa Clara. Author of plays: The Light Eternal. The Vagabond Prince. And a one-act play, The Lady O'Dreams. Address: 714 Broderick St., San Francisco.

MIGHELS, MRS. ELLA STERLING, b. California. Began authorship early. Lady manager for San Francisco at Chicago World's Fair. M. in 1896 Philip Verrill Mighels. Author: The Little Mountain Princess. Loring, Boston. Portrait of a California Girl, in collection of Stories by California Authors. Wagner, S.F. Story of Files of California. Serial: Society and Babe Robinson. Grizzly Bear Co., L.A. The Full Glory of Diantha. Forbes & Co., Chicago. Address: 1605 Baker St., San Francisco, Calif.

MIGHELS, PHILIP VERRILL, b. Carson City, Nevada, April 19, 1869. Ed. Carson schools. Studied law in Nev. Art in N.Y. M. Ella Sterling Cummings June, 1896. Author: Out of a Silver Flute (poems.) Nella, the Heart of the Army. The Crystal Scepter. Bruvver Jim's Baby. The Ultimate Passion. Dunny, a Mountain Romance. Sunnyside Tad. Beechy Daw and Other Tales. When a Witch is Young. The Furnace of Gold. Address: Care of Harper & Bros., New York.

MILLARD, BAILEY, b. Markesan, Wis., Oct. 2, 1859. Lit. Ed. S.F. Examiner. Author: Great American Novel (essays.) She of the West, 1900. Songs of the Press, 1902. The Lure O'Gold, novel, 1904. Many short stories in magazines, etc. Address: Palisade, N.J.

MILLARD, GERTRUDE B., b. July 8th, 1872, Sheboygan, Wis. Came to California Feb., 1893, from Jamestown, N. Dak. Ed. Boston, Mass., and Jamestown, N.D. Author of short stories for magazines. Address: San Jose, Calif.

MILLER, JOAQUIN—the Poet of the Sierras, b. in Wabash Dist., Ind., Nov. 10, 1841. Editor (1863) Eugene, Ore., Democratic Register. Author: The Building of the City Beautiful, a poetic romance. Complete Poems, 6 vols., 1909. Address: The Hights, Dimond, Calif.

MILLER, OLIVE THORNE, b. Auburn, N.Y., June 25, 1831; Author: True Bird Stories. $1.00 net. The First Book of Birds. $1.00. School edition, 60¢ net. The Second Book of Birds. $1.00 net. Upon the Tree-Tops. $1.25. Little Brothers of the Air. $1.25. A Bird-Lover in the West. $1.25. Bird-Ways. 16mo, $1.25. In Nesting Time. $1.25. With the Birds in Maine. $1.10. Our Home Pets. $1.25. Address: 5928 Hays Ave., Los Angeles, Calif.

MILLS, BENJAMIN FAY, b. Rahway, N.J., June 4, 1857. Evangelical Minister, 1878-1897. Liberal Minister, lecturer, writer and social reformer, 1897. Founded The Fellowship, representing "Religion Without Superstition," 1904. Lived in California 1875-6, 1899—. Author: God's World. The Divine Adventure. Twentieth Century Religion. The New Revelation. Editor Fellowship Magazine. Address: Los Angeles. Calif.

MILLS, MARY RUSSELL (Hill), b. Minneapolis. June 24, 1859. M. to Benjamin Fay Mills, 1879. Co-founder of The Fellowship, 1904. Teacher of Emerson and the Spiritual Life. Minister of the Los Angeles Fellowship, 1904-8. Associate editor of the Fellowship Magazine. Author: The Art of Living. The Fellowship Religion, and numerous essays and poems. Address: Los Angeles.

MILNE, MRS. FRANCES MARGARET, b. Ireland, County of Tyrone. Came to Calif. in 1869. Ed. at home. Author: For To-Day. (Poems.) James H. Barry Co., S.F. A Cottage Gray, and Other Poems. C.W. Moulton, Buffalo. Heliotrope, a San Francisco Idyll. The J.H. Barry Co. Address: The Public Library, San Luis Obispo, Calif.

MITCHELL, EDMUND, b. Glasgow, Scotland, Mar. 19, 1861. Ed. Elgin Acad. Aberdeen Univ. Grad. 1881. (Gold Medalist Eng. Lit.) Ed. writer Glasgow Herald. In 1886 Asst. Ed. Times of India, Bombay. In 1889 editorial staff of Melbourne Age. In 1904, editorial staff Los Angeles Times. Author: The Temple of Death. 75¢ net. Towards the Eternal Snows. 75¢ net. Plotters of Paris. 75¢ net. The Lone Star Rush. $1.50 net. Only a Nigger. $1.50 net. The Belforts of Culben. $1.50 net. The Despoilers. $1.50 net. Chickabiddy Stories, $1.00 net. In Desert Keeping. $1.50 net. All except the last, originally pub. in England. Now imported. To be had from author. Address: 1710 Hobart Boulevard, Los Angeles, Calif.

MUIR, JOHN, b. Dunbar, Scot., Apl. 21, 1838 Ed. in Scotland and Univ. of Wis. Discoverer of the Muir Glacier, Alaska. Author of many articles in magazines, newspapers, etc., on physiography and natural history of the Pacific Coast, etc. Author: The Mountains of California, 1894. Our National Parks, 1901. Editor Picturesque California. Address: Martinez, Calif.

MUNK, JOSEPH A., b. Colnmbiana Co., Ohio, Nov. 9, 1847. Ed. public schools Salem, O. Fought in Civil War. In 1865 Mt. Union College, Alliance, O. Grad. Eclectic Med. Inst. of Cinn., in 1867. Came to Los Angeles in 1892. Has great collection Arizoniana. Author: Arizona Sketches, 1906. Arizona Bibliography, 1908. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

NORTH, ARTHUR WALBRIDGE, b. Marysville, Cal. Oct. 26, 1874. Grad. Oakland High School, and Univ. of Cal. A.B. 1896. Contributor to magazines and reviews. Author: Mother of California, an historical and geographical review of Lower California (Mex.) Paul Elder & Co., 1908. $2.00. Camp and Camino in Lower California (in press.) Baker & Taylor Co. Address: 126 North St., Walton, N.Y.

OLDER, MRS. FREMONT (Cora Baggerly), b. New York. Ed. private teachers and Syracuse Univ. Author: The Socialist and the Prince, 1902. Funk & Wagnalls. The Giants, 1905. Address: The Fairmount, San Francisco, Calif.

PAYNE, EDWARD B., b. Vermont. Ed. Iowa College and Oberlin. Grad. in 1874. Congr. preacher, Berkeley, Calif. Became Unitarian. Preached Springfield, Mass., 4 years; Manchester, N.H., 2½ years; Leominster, 5 years; Berkeley, Calif., 5 years. Founded Altruria, near Santa Rosa, a co-operative settlement of 60 members and pub. a magazine, "Altruria." Address: Glen Ellen, Calif.

PERCIVAL, OLIVE, b. July 1, 1868, Sheffield, Ill. Ed. public schools Sheffield, Ill., and Cleveland, Ohio. Author: Mexico City: An Idler's Note Book. Address: 906 Union Trust Bldg., Los Angeles, Calif.

RADER, WILLIAM, b. Cedarville, Chester Co., Pa., Dec. 17, 1862. Pastor 2nd Cong. Church, San Francisco, ten years. Now pastor Calvary Pres. Church. Editorial writer San Francisco Bulletin. Author: The Elegy of Faith, 1902. Truths for Today, 1902. Uncle Sam, or the Reign of the Common People, (in Notable Speeches of Greater West.) Liberty and Labor. Address: 2702 Laguna St., San Francisco, Calif.

RICHARDSON, DANIEL S., b. Mar. 19, 1851, West Acton, Mass. Came to Calif. in 1855. Ed. public schools of S.F. and Univ. of Calif. Twice decorated by Emperor of Japan. Writer of short stories and poems for magazines. Author: Trail Dust (poems) 1909. Address: 221 Sansome St., San Francisco, Calif.

REED, ANNA MORRISON, MRS., b. Dubuque, Ia. Came to Calif. when an infant. Ed. Mrs. Perry's Seminary, Sacramento. Writer and lecturer. Editor and founder Northern Crown Magazine; Petaluma, Sonoma Co., Independent. Author: Poems, 1880. Later Poems. Address: Petaluma, Calif.

SAIN, CHARLES McKNIGHT, b. Mt. Pleasant, O., Mar. 11, 1863. Traveler and writer for magazines, etc. Author: An Expectant Heir to Millions, 1896. The Serpent, 1902, both out of print. The Call of the Muse (poems.) Where Rolls the Oregon (poems.) Address: Care Mrs. Lou A. Curran, Hollywood, Calif.

SAMUELS, MAURICE V., b. San Francisco, Oct. 3, 1874. Grad. 1894 Univ. Calif. Lawyer in S.F. for 7 years. Playwright. Author: The Florentines, blank-verse art-comedy, Brentano, 1904. $1.00. Address: Hotel St. Margaret, 129 W. 47th St., New York City.

SAUNDERS, CHARLES FRANCIS, b. July 12, 1859, Bucks County, Penn. Ed. in Philadelphia. Grad. Friends' Central School. Came first to California 1902. Resided in Pasadena since 1905. Contributor to magazines of both coasts on subjects covering travel, plant life, the Indians of the Southwest, etc., besides occasional verse. Editor 1894-7 of "The United Friend," religious monthly, Philadelphia. Author: In a Poppy Garden. R.G. Badger, Boston, 1903, and wrote descriptive text for Mrs. Saunders's published collection of color prints entitled, California Wild Flowers. W.M. Bains, Philadelphia, 1905. Address: 580 N. Lake Ave., Pasadena, Calif.

SAUNDERS, MARSHALL, b. in Nova Scotia. Lived for awhile in San Francisco and in California began study of birds and animals. Author: Beautiful Joe. $1.25. My Pets. $1.25. Several other books. Address: 28 Carleton St., Halifax, N.S., Canada.

SCHEFFAUER, HERMAN, b. San Francisco, Feb. 3, 1876. Ed. public and private schools. Studied architecture and art at Mark Hopkins Institute. Writer for newspapers, magazines and reviews in France, England, Germany and America. Author: Both Worlds poems, 1903. Looms of Life, 1908. $1.25. The Sons of Baldur, 1908. Niagara. An American Romance of four generations, 1909. Sire of Bohemian Club Jinks, 1908. Address: 184 Eldridge St., New York.

SCOTT, JOSEPH, b. Penrith, Cumberlandshire, Eng., July 16, 1867. Ed. St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Durham. Prof. Rhetoric and Eng. Lit. St. Bonaventure's College, Allegheny, N.Y. Came to Calif. 1893 Pres. Board of Ed. of Los Angeles. Writer on Educational and Civic Subjects for newspapers and magazines. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

SETON, GRACE GALLATIN, b. Sacramento, Calif., Jan. 28, 1872. Ed. Packer Collegiate Inst., Brooklyn. Writer for newspapers and magazines of America, England and France. Author: A Woman Tenderfoot. Nimrod's Wife. Doubleday, Page & Co. Address: 80 W. 40th St., New York, and Wyndygoul, Cos Cob, Conn.

SEVERANCE, CAROLINE MARIA SEYMOUR, b. Canandaigua, N.Y., Jan. 12, 1820. One of founders and first president, 1868, of New England Woman's Club. Known as "The Mother of Women's Clubs." Author: The Mother of Women's Clubs (with Mrs. Ella Giles Ruddy.) $1.00. Address: 896 W. Adams St., Los Angeles, Calif.

SEXTON, MRS. ELLA M., b. Ill. Ed. in St. Louis, Mo. Came to Calif. in 1874. Contributor to Eastern and Pacific Coast magazines. Author: Stories of California. Macmillan & Co. California at Christmas-Tide (poems). Also a collection of Mission poems and one of Children's Verse. She has also seven one-act comedies used by clubs and for amateur production. Address: 171 Parnassus Ave., San Francisco, Calif.

SHINN, CHARLES HOWARD, b. Austin, Texas, April 29, 1852. Ed. Univ. of Calif, and Johns Hopkins Univ. Taught school. Contributor to newspapers and magazines. For ten years Inspector Univ. of Calif. Experimental Stations. Appointed 1902 head forest ranger Sierra Reserve, Calif. Author: Pacific Rural Handbook, 1879. Land Laws of Mining Districts, 1884. Mining Camps, 1885. Co-operation on the Pacific Coast, 1888. Story of a Mine, 1897. Various Forestry Monographs, etc. Address: Northfork, Madera Co., Calif.

SHINN, MILLICENT WASHBURN, b. Niles, Calif., April 15, 1858. Grad. Univ. of Calif. A.B. 1880. Ph.D. 1898. Editor Californian, 1882. Editor Overland Monthly, 1883-94. Author: Notes on the Development of a Child (also in German.) The Biography of a Baby, 1901. The Development of the Senses, and the First Two Years of Childhood. Also poems, stories, essays, critiques, etc. Address: Niles, Calif.

SHUEY, LILLIAN H., MRS. Has lived in Calif, practically all her life. Ed. public schools and Napa branch of Univ. of Pacific. Taught 16 years in public schools. Author: David of Juniper Gulch. Laird & Lee. 50¢. Don Luis' Wife. Lamson & Wolffe. 50¢. California Sunshine, The Humboldt Lily. Among the Redwoods (verses.) The Necromancers (a novel, in preparation.) Address: 657 60th St., Oakland, Calif.

SIMONDS, WILLIAM DAY, b. Rockford, Ill., Mar. 31, 1855. Grad. State Normal School, Vt. Spaulding Classical Academy, Barrie, Vt., 1880. Studied Amherst College and Chicago Theological Inst. Pastor First Unitarian Church, Oakland, Calif. Author: Patriotic Addresses. Sermons From Shakespeare. Freedom and Fraternity. Address: 1233 First Ave., Oakland, Calif.

SMYTHE, WILLIAM ELLSWORTH, b. Worcester, Mass., Dec. 24, 1861. Initiated Nat. Irrigation Congress, 1891. Sec. until 1893, chairman until 1895. Est. Irrigation Age, 1891. Edited it until 1896. Lecturer and writer on Irrigation and Economic Problems. Author: The Conquest of Arid America. Constructive Democracy. History of San Diego, 2 vols. Address: 1448 C St., San Diego, Calif.

SOSSO, LORENZO, b. Mar. 2, 1867, Turin, Italy. Came to Calif. in July, 1875. Author: Poems, 1888. Poems of Humanity, 1891. In Realms of Gold, 1902. Proverbs of the People, 1903. Wisdom of the Wise, 1905. Address: 179 De Long Ave., San Francisco, Calif.

STELLMAN, LOUIS J., b. Baltimore, Md., Jan. 6, 1877. Came to Calif. July, 1896. Connected S.F. Examiner since 1897. Wrote "Observer" Sketches for L.A. Herald, published in book form 1903. Whitaker & Ray. 75¢. Address: Press Club, San Francisco, Calif.

STIMSON, JOHN WARD, b. Paterson, N.J., Dec. 16, 1850. Grad. Yale, 1872. Also Ecole des Beaux Arts, Paris. Lecturer and art teacher Princeton Univ. Assoc. editor The Arena. Contributor to various art exhibitions and magazines. Author: The Law of Three Primaries. Principals of Vital Art Education. The Gate Beautiful. Wandering Chords, etc. Address: 14 W. 48th St., New York.

STROBRIDGE, IDAH MEACHAM, b. Contra Costa Co., June 9, 1855. Ed. Mills Seminary. Contributor to newspapers and magazines. Author: In Miner's Mirage Land, 1904. DeLuxe, $6.00. The Loom of the Desert, 1907. $1.75. DeLuxe $6.00. The Land of the Purple Shadows, 1909. $1.75. DeLuxe $6.00. All pub. by Artemisia Bindery. Address: Artemisia Bindery. 231 E. Ave. 41, Los Angeles, Calif.

SUTHERLAND, HOWARD V., b. Cape Town, South Africa, Ed. England and Germany. Author: The Legend of Love. The Old, Old Story. Jacinta, a Californian Idyll. Bigg's Bar, and Other Klondike Ballads. Songs of a City. Idylls of Greece. $1.00. Ditto second series. $1.00. Address: 314 Seventeenth St., Denver, Colo.

SYMMES, HAROLD S., b. San Francisco, 1877. Ed. public schools. B.A. Univ. of California, 1899. Doctor's degree summa cum laude Univ. of Paris, 1903. Was appointed to Columbia Univ., department of English, the same year. Author: Les Debuts de la Critique Dramatique en Angleterre, 1903. Out of print. Contributor of verse and prose to American and English periodicals. Address: Garden St., Redlands, Calif.

TULLY, RICHARD WALTON. Ed. Univ. of Calif. Writer of short stories and plays. Rose of the Rancho, in collaboration with David Belasco, has had a most successful run. Address: Alma, Calif.

URMY, CLARENCE, b. San Francisco, July 10, 1858. Ed. public schools and Napa College. Contributor poetry to all the leading magazines, East and West. Author: A Rosary of Rhyme, 1884. A Vintage of Verse, 1897. Address: San Jose, Calif.

WATERHOUSE, A.J., b. May 27, 1855, in Wisconsin. Ed. public schools in Wisconsin, High School, Rochester, Minn., and Ripon College, Wis. Writer for newspapers and magazines. Asst. editor The California Weekly, S.F. Author: Some Homely Songs, 1899. Lays for Little Chaps, 1902. Address: 2422 McGee Ave., Berkeley, Calif.

WHITAKER, HERMAN, b. Huddersfield, Eng., Jan. 14, 1867. Ed. public school. Served in British army, 2nd Battalion W. Riding Reg. 1884-5. Author: The Probationer. The Settler. The Planter. All pub. by Harper Bros. $1.50 each. Address: 220 James Ave., Oakland, Calif.

WILEY, HARLEY RUPERT, b. Wisconsin, April 5, 1855. Trekked to Calif. 1865-6. Ed. Santa Rosa, Calif. Univ. of Calif. (L.L.B.) Past twelve years lecturer on Jurisprudence in Univ. of Calif. Writer on Law, and verse for magazines. Address: Faculty Club, Berkeley, Calif.

WILLARD, CHARLES DWIGHT, b. Bloomington, Ill., Jan. 20, 1860. Ed. public school, Chicago. A.B. 1883 Univ. of Mich. Came to Calif. in 1888. Writer of short stories and on civic matters. Author: History of Los Angeles. The Free Harbor Contest. History of Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. City Government. Address: Los Angeles, Calif.

WILSON, MRS. IDA MANSFIELD, play-wright, dramatic critic, actress, lecturer. Writes plays and magazine articles. Address: 2020 Clinton Ave., Alameda, Calif.

YORKE, PETER CHRISTOPHER, b. Aug. 15, 1864, Galway, Ire. Ed. St. Jarlath's College, Tuam, Maynooth, and the Cathedral University of America. Made S.T.D. by Pius X., 1906. Regent State University. Writer and lecturer on religious topics. Address: Oakland, Calif.

ZEPHYRIN, FR. (Charles Anthony Englehardt), b. Hanover, Bilshausen, Germany, Nov. 13, 1851. Came to N.Y. Dec. 8, 1852. Ed. public schools. Classics in Franciscan College. Entered Franciscan order, in Tentopolis, Ill., Sept. 22, 1872, making profession Sept. 28, 1873. Ordained June 18, 1878. In 1880 began work among Menominee Indians in Wis. 1894 to Adrian, Harbor Springs, Mich., Indian School. Studied Indian languages, etc., 21 years. Historian of Franciscan Order in Calif. Author: Franciscans in California. Franciscans in Arizona. Missions and Missionaries of California, 3 vols., (first vol. out.) Address: The Orphanage, Watsonville, Calif.

Here endeth the quotations from living California Authors selected by George Wharton James and done by him into this book at the Arroyo Guild Press, 201 Avenue 66, (Garvanza), Los Angeles, Calif., in the year of Our Salvation One Thousand Nineteen Hundred and Nine.

Decoration

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The California Birthday Book, by Various

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALIFORNIA BIRTHDAY BOOK ***

***** This file should be named 13298-h.htm or 13298-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/2/9/13298/

Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.net/license).

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that

- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.

- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.

- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org

For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
donations. To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.

Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:

http://www.gutenberg.net

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.