Oh, you live away back east, you don't know what you miss By stayin' in that measly clime, without the joy an' bliss Of knowin' what the weather is from one day to the next; It's "mebby this," "I hope it's that," er some such like pretext. Come out to Californy' whar the sky is allers bright, 'Nd where the sun shines all the while, with skeerce a cloud in sight; You'd never pine fer eastern climes—ther's no denyin' that— Fer when you want a heaven on earth, Los Angeles stands pat.

E.A. BRININSTOOL.

CALIFORNIA.

In all methinks I see the counterpart Of Italy, without her dower of art. We have the lordly Alps, the fir-fringed hills, The green and golden valleys veined with rills, A dead Vesuvius with its smouldering fire, A tawny Tiber sweeping to the sea. Our seasons have the same superb attire, The same redundant wealth of flower and tree, Upon our peaks the same imperial dyes, And day by day, serenely over all, The same successive months of smiling skies. Conceive a cross, a tower, a convent wall, A broken column and a fallen fane, A chain of crumbling arches down the plain, A group of brown-faced children by a stream, A scarlet-skirted maiden standing near, A monk, a beggar, and a muleteer, And lo! it is no longer now a dream. These are the Alps, and there the Apennines; The fertile plains of Lombardy between; Beyond Val d'Arno with its flocks and vines, These granite crags are gray monastic shrines Perched on the cliffs like old dismantled forts; And far to seaward can be dimly seen The marble splendor of Venetian courts; While one can all but hear the mournful rhythmic beat Of white-lipped waves along the sea-paved street. O childless mother of dead empires, we, The latest born of all the western lands, In fancied kinship stretch our infant hands Across the intervening seas to thee. Thine the immortal twilight, ours the dawn, Yet we shall have our names to canonize, Our past to haunt us with its solemn eyes, Our ruins, when this restless age is gone.

LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.



SEPTEMBER 1.

THE SCARF OF IRIS.

Something magical is near me—hidden, breathing everywhere, Shaken out in mystic odors, caught unseen in the mid-air. Life is waking, palpitating; souls of flowers are drawing nigh; Flitting birds with fluted warble weave between the earth and sky; And a soft excitement welling from the inmost heart of things Such a sense of exaltation, such a call to rapture brings, That my heart—all tremulous with a virgin wonderment— Waits and yearns and sings in carols of the rain and sunshine blent, Knowing more will be revealed with the dawning every day— For the fairy scarf of Iris falls across the common way.

RUBY ARCHER.



SEPTEMBER 2.

To the left as you rode you saw, far on the horizon, rising to the height of your eye, the mountains of the Channel Islands. Then the deep sapphire of the Pacific, fringed with the soft, unchanging white of the surf and the yellow of the shore. Then the town like a little map, and the lush greens of the wide meadows, the fruit-groves, the lesser ranges—all vivid, fertile, brilliant, and pulsating with vitality.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE, in The Mountains.



SEPTEMBER 3.

Never was garden more unintentionally started, and never did one prove greater source of pleasure. * * * One day, about Christmas time, my little nephew brought me two small twigs of honeysuckle—not slips or shoots, and I stuck them in the ground by the front porch. * * * When it was just eighteen months old honeysuckle vines were twining tenderly about the corner pillars of the porch, drawing their network across to the other support, and covered with bunches of white, creamy tubes, the air heavy with their perfume. * * * The climbing rose had reached the lattice work, and its yellowish flowers formed a most effective contrast to the sky-blue of the sollya blossoms, trained up on the other side of the porch. The beds were edged variously with dark blue violets and pink daisies, above which bloomed salvias, euphorbias, lantanas, tube-roses, forget-me-nots, carnations, white lilies, Japan lilies, iris, primroses, ranunculus, lilies-of-the-valley, pansies, anemones, dahlias, and roses—white, red, pink, yellow, crimson, cream—in the wildest profusion.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN, in Another Juanita.



SEPTEMBER 4.

AFTERWARD.

A dying moon fell down the sky, As one looked out to see The place where once her soul endured Its lengthened Calvary. Of all the mem'ries gathered there— Their faces wan with tears— One only smiled—a baby's smile— To rectify the years.

DOROTHEA L. MOORE.



SEPTEMBER 5.

The harvesting of hops is the conjunction of the rude essentials of farm life with the highest effect in art. What artist but would note enthusiastically the inimitable pose of that young girl tip-toeing to bring down the tuft of creamy blossoms overhead; or the modest nudity of the wee bronze savage capering about a stolid squaw in a red sprigged muslin? Indeed, there is indescribable piquancy in this unconscious grouping of the pickers and their freedom from restraint. For each artistic bit—a laughing face in an aureole of amber clusters, a statuesque chin and throat, Indians in grotesquely picturesque raiment, and the yellow visages of the Chinese—the vines make an idyllic framing with a sinking summer sun in the background lending a shimmering transparency to leaf and flower.

NINETTA EAMES, in Hop-Picking Time, The Cosmopolitan, November, 1893.



SEPTEMBER 6.

Golf has spread with great rapidity throughout California, and though many people may have taken it up from an idea that it is the correct thing, the game will always be popular, especially in the Southern part of the State, where more people of leisure live than in the Northern part, and where the large infusion of British and Eastern residents tends to foster a love of out-door sports. Golf may be played in any part of Central or Southern California on any day in the year when a gale is not blowing or heavy rain falling. Occasionally the strong winds render golfing somewhat arduous, but the enthusiast can play on about three hundred and fifty days in the year.

ARTHUR INKERSLEY, in Overland Monthly.



SEPTEMBER 7.

My roses bud and bloom and fail me never, From Lent and Whitsun to the Christmas time; Climbing in eagerness and great endeavor— Our Southland bushes ever love to climb.

JAMES MAIN DIXON, in My Garden.

How bright the world looked, to be sure; flowers covered the earth, not scattered in niggardly manner as in the older, colder Eastern states, but covering the earth for miles, showing nothing but a sea of blue, an ocean of crimson, or a wilderness of yellow. Then came patches where all shades and colors were mixed; delicate tints of pink and mauve, of pure white and deep red, and over all floated a fragrance that was never equaled by garden-flowers or their distilled perfume.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN, in Overland Tales.



SEPTEMBER 8.

The love that gives all, craves all, asks nothing, is so bitter that no one lifts the cup voluntarily, and yet if the sweetness of it could be distilled, prosperous love would regard it enviously and kings seek it on foot.

AMANDA MATHEWS, in Hieroglyphics of Love.

The world will never be saved from its sin and shame until a larger number of men are ready to lash themselves like Ulysses of old to those enduring principles of righteousness which stand erect like masts and sail on, no matter what sirens of personal indulgence sing along the course.

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.



SEPTEMBER 9.

TO CALIFORNIA:

Queen of the Sunset! Within the crown upon thy forehead glow The crystal jewels of eternal snow. Down at thy feet the broad Pacific towers, And Summer ever binds thy breast with flowers.

MADGE MORRIS WAGNER, in Debris.

The religious life of California is characterized by the spirit of freedom and tolerance. The aim has been to "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," by legislating only in regard to those secular interests in which all stand alike before the law and to leave to the free and untrammeled decision of the individual conscience those deeper, personal attitudes and relationships "which are God's."

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.



SEPTEMBER 10.

Gay little oriole, fond little lover, Watching thy mate o'er her tiny ones hover, Tell me, I pray, from your cottonwood tree, When will my true love come riding to me?

Will he come with his lariat hung at his side? On a wild prancing bronco, my love, will he ride? So high on your tree top you surely can see, O, how will my true love come riding to me?

Sing of my lover and tell me my fate, Will he guard me as fondly as thou dost thy mate? Dear oriole, sing, while I listen to thee— When will my true love come riding to me?

CHARLES KEELER, in Overland Monthly.



SEPTEMBER 11.

LOOKING BACKWARD!

My heart aches, and a poignant yearning pains My pulse, as though from revel I had waked To find sore disenchantment. Oh for the simple ways of childhood, And its joys! Why have I grown so cold and cynical? My life seems out of tune; Its notes harsh and discordant; The crowded thoroughfare doth fret me And make lonely. Darkling I muse and yearn For those glad days of yore, When my part chorded too, And I, a merry, trustful boy, Found consonance in every friend without annoy. Since then, how changed! Strained are the strings of friendship; fled the joys; Seeming the show. An alien I, unlike, alone! And yet my mother! The welcome word o'erflows the eye, And makes the very memory weep. No, love is not extinct—that sweetest name— The covering ashes keep alive the flame.

MALCOLM McLEOD, in Culture Simplicity.



SEPTEMBER 12.

The overgoing sun shines upon no region, of equal extent, which offers so many and such varied inducements to men in search of homes and health, as does the region which is entitled to the appellation of "Semi-Tropical California."

BEN C. TRUMAN, in Semi-Tropical California.



SEPTEMBER 13.

THE CRESTED JAY.

The jay is a jovial bird—heigh-ho! He chatters all day In a frolicsome way With the murmuring breezes that blow—heigh-ho! Hear him noisily call From a redwood tree tall To his mate in the opposite tree—heigh-ho! Saying: "How do you do?" As his top-knot of blue Is raised as polite as can be—heigh-ho! O impudent jay, With your plumage so gay, And your manners so jaunty and free—heigh-ho! How little you guessed When you robbed the wren's nest, That any stray fellow would see—heigh-ho!

CHARLES KEELER, in Elfin Songs of Sunland.



SEPTEMBER 14.

It is to prevent the wholesale slaughter of songbirds that I appeal to you. The farmer or the fruit-raiser has not yet learned enough to distinguish friend from foe, and goes gunning in season and out of season, so that the cherry orchard, when the cherries are ripe, looks like a battle-field in miniature, the life-blood of the little slain birds rivaling in color the brightness of their wings and breast. And all this destruction of song, of gladness, of helpfulness, because the poor birds have pecked at a few early cherries, worthless, almost, in the market, as compared to the later, better kinds, which they do not interfere with.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN.



SEPTEMBER 15.

THE VOICE OF THE CALIFORNIA DOVE.

Come, listen O love, to the voice of the dove, Come, hearken and hear him say, "There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love, There is only one Today."

And all day long you can hear him say, This day in purple is rolled, And the baby stars of the milky way They are cradled in cradles of gold.

Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove, Of singing so sweetly alway? "There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love, There is only one Today."

JOAQUIN MILLER.



SEPTEMBER 16.

With the tip of his strong cane he breaks off a piece of the serried bark, and a spider scurries down the side of the log and into the grass. He chips off another piece, and a bevy of sow-bugs make haste to tumble over and play dead, curling their legs under their sides, but recovering their senses and scurrying off after the spider. The cane continues to chip off the bark, and down tumble all sorts of wood-people, some of them hiding like a flash in the first moist earth they come to; others never stopping until they are well under the log, where experience has taught them they will be safe out of harm's way. And they declare to themselves, and to each other, that they will never budge from under that log until it is midnight, and that wicked meadow-lark is fast asleep.

ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL, in Birds of Song and Story.



SEPTEMBER 17.

SIESTA.

A shady nook where nought is overheard But wind among the eucalyptus leaves, The cheery chirp of interflitting bird, Or wooden squeak of tree-frog as it grieves. The resting eye broods o'er the running grass, Or nodding gestures of the bowed wild oats; Watches the oleander lancers pass, And the bright flashing of the oriole notes. Hushed are the senses with the drone of bees And the far glimmer of the mid-day heat; Dreams stealing o'er one like the incoming seas, Soft as the rustling zephyrs in the wheat; While on the breeze is borne the call of Love To Love, dear Love, of Majel, the wild dove.

CHARLES ELMER JENNEY, in Western Field, Dec., 1905.



SEPTEMBER 18.

One summer there came a road-runner up from the lower valley, peeking and prying, and he never had any patience with the water baths of the sparrows. His own ablutions were performed in the clean, hopeful dust of the chaparral; and whenever he happened on their morning splatterings, he would depress his glossy crest, slant his shining tail to the level of his body, until he looked most like some bright venomous snake, daunting them with shrill abuse and feint of battle. Then suddenly he would go tilting and balancing down the gully in fine disdain, only to return in a day or two to make sure the foolish bodies were still at it.

MARY AUSTIN, in The Land of Little Rain.



SEPTEMBER 19.

MEADOW LARKS.

Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy that I am! (Listen to the meadow-larks, across the fields that sing!) Sweet, sweet, sweet! O subtle breath of balm. O winds that blow, O buds that grow, O rapture of the Spring!

Sweet, sweet, sweet! Who prates of care and pain? Who says that life is sorrowful? O life so glad, so fleet! Ah! he who lives the noblest life finds life the noblest gain. The tears of pain a tender rain to make its waters sweet.

Sweet, sweet, sweet! O happy world that is! Dear heart, I hear across the fields my mateling pipe and call. Sweet, sweet, sweet! O world so full of bliss— For life is love, the world is love, and love is over all!

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



SEPTEMBER 20.

How could we spare the lark, that most companionable bird of the plains? Wherever one may wander ... his lovely, plaintive, almost human song may be heard nearly everywhere, at frequent intervals the livelong day. He is one of the blessings of this land, one which every lover of beautiful song welcomes as heartily as the ordinary mortal the warm, bright days of this climate.

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



SEPTEMBER 21.

THE MEADOW LARK AND I.

The song of life is living The love-heart of the year; And the pagan meadow-lark and I Can nothing find to fear. We build our simple homes For opulence of rest Among the hills and the meadow grass, And sing our grateful best.

RUBY ARCHER.



SEPTEMBER 22.

THE RUBY-CROWNED KNIGHT.

The dominant characteristic of the Ruby-Crown is subtlety. He conceals his nest, and even his nest-building region, so successfully that few there are who know where he breeds, or who ever find his nest, hidden in the shaggy end of a high, swinging branch of spruce or pine, deep in the California mountain recesses. His prettiest trick of concealement is the way he alternately hides and reveals the bright red feathers in his crown. You may watch him a long time, seeing only a wee bit of an olive-green bird, toned with dull yellow underneath, marked on wings and about the eyes with white; but suddenly, a more festive mood comes upon him. The bird is transformed. A jaunty dash of brilliant red upcrests itself upon his head, lighting up his quiet dress.... For several moments this flame of color quivers, then it burns into a mere thread of red and is gone.

VIRGINIA GARLAND, in Feathered Californians.



SEPTEMBER 23.

SONG OF THE LINNETS.

"Cheer!" "Cheer!" sing the linnets Through rapturous minutes, When daylight first breaks And the golden Dawn streaks Through the rose of the morning—so bright! "Gone! gone is the Night! It is light!"

"We have buried our heads Under eaves of the sheds, Where our tender broods sleep; And the long watch we keep Through the darkness and silence—till dawn. It is morn! It is morn! It is morn!"

JOHN WARD STIMSON, in Wandering Chords.



SEPTEMBER 24.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

Buz-z! whir-r!—a flash and away! A midget bejeweled mid flowers at play! A snip of a birdling, the blossom-bells' king, A waif of the sun-beams on quivering wing! O prince of the fairies, O pygmy of fire, Will nothing those brave little wings of yours tire? You follow the flowers from southern lands sunny, You pry amid petals all summer for honey! Now rest on a twig, tiny flowerland sprite, Your dear little lady sits near in delight; In a wee felted basket she lovingly huddles— Two dots of white eggs to her warm breast she cuddles! Whiz-z! whiff! off to your flowers! Buzz mid the perfume of jasmine bowers! Chatter and chirrup, my king of the fays, And laugh at the song that I sing in your praise!

CHARLES KEELER, in Elfin Songs of Sunland.



SEPTEMBER 25.

THE HUMMING BIRD.

A sudden whirr of eager sound— And now a something throbs around The flowers that watch the fountain. Look! It touched the rose, the green leaves shook, I think, and yet so lightly tost That not a spark of dew was lost. Tell me, O rose, what thing it is That now appears, now vanishes? Surely it took its fire-green hue From day-breaks that it glittered through; Quick, for this sparkle of the dawn Glints through the garden and is gone.

EDWIN MARKHAM, in Lincoln and Other Poems.



SEPTEMBER 26.

She led the way to the climbing rose at the front of the house, and carefully lifting a branch, motioned to the boys to look under it. There, hidden in the leafy covert, no higher than the young girl's chin, was the daintiest nest ever seen, made of soft cotton from the pussy willows by the brook, interwoven with the finest grasses and green mosses, and embroidered with one shining golden thread. And there was wee mother humming-bird, watching them a moment with bright, inquiring eyes, then darting off and poising in the air just above their heads, uncovering two tiny eggs about the size of buckshot, lying in a downy hollow like a thimble.

FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD, in The Abandoned Claim.



SEPTEMBER 27.

THE RUSSET-BACKED THRUSH.

He dwells where pine and hemlock grow, A merry minstrel seldom seen; The voice of Joy is his I know— Shy poet of the Evergreen!

In dawn's first holy hush I hear His one ecstatic, thrilling strain, So sweet and strong, so crystal clear 'Twould tingle e'en the soul of Pain.

At close of day when Twilight dreams He shakes the air beneath his tree With such exquisite song it seems That Passion breathes through Melody.

HERBERT BASHFORD, in At the Shrine of Song.



SEPTEMBER 28.

In Marin County birds hold a unique place, for, as the county is sparsely populated, possessing many wild, secluded valleys, and unnumbered rolling hills covered with virgin forests, it is but natural that the birds should congregate in great numbers, reveling in the solitude which man invariably destroys.

HELEN BINGHAM, in In Tamal Land.

THE ABALONE.

I saw a rainbow, for an instant, gleam, On the west edge of a receeding swell; The next soft surge, Which whispering sought the shore, Swept to my feet an abalone shell; It was the rainbow I had seen before.

JOHN E. RICHARDS, in Idylls of Monterey.



SEPTEMBER 29.

THE SEAGULL.

A ceaseless rover, waif of many climes, He scorns the tempest, greets the lifting sun With wings that fling the light and sinks at times To ride in triumph where the tall waves run.

The rocks tide-worn, the high cliff brown and bare And crags of bleak, strange shores he rests upon; He floats above, a moment hangs in air Clean-etched against the broad, gold breast of dawn.

Bold hunter of the deep! Of thy swift flights What of them all brings keenest joy to thee— To drive sharp pinions through storm-beaten nights, Or shriek amid black hollows of the sea?

HERBERT BASHFORD, in At the Shrine of Song.



SEPTEMBER 30.

TO A SEA GULL AT SEA.

Thou winged Wonder! Tell me I pray thy matchless craft, Poised in air, then slipping wave-ward, Mounting again like an arrow-shaft, Circling, swaying, wheeling, dipping, All with never a flap of wing, Keeping pace with my flying ship here, Give me a key to my wondering! Gales but serve thee for swifter flying, Foam crested waves with thy wings thou dost sweep, Wonderful dun-colored, down-covered body, Living thy life on the face of the deep!

ANNIE W. BRIGMAN.



OCTOBER 1.

THE PASSING OF SUMMER.

She smiled to the hearts that enshrined her, Then the gold of her banner unfurled And trailing her glories behind her Passed over the rim of the world.

HARLEY R. WILEY, in New England Magazine, October, 1906.

The California condor, the largest of all flying birds, is found only on this coast and only in the southern half of that, although an occasional specimen has been seen in the high Sierra Neveda. Of all the sailing or soaring birds he is the most graceful and wonderful, drifting to and fro, up and down, right or left, in straight lines or curves, for hours at a time, darting like an arrow or hanging still in air with equal ease on that motionless wing whose power puzzles all philosophy.

T.S. VANDYKE.



OCTOBER 2.

Wild fowl, quacking hordes of them, nest in the tulares. Any day's venture will raise from open shallows the great blue heron on his hollow wings. Chill evenings the mallard drakes cry continually from the glassy pools, the bittern's hollow boom rolls along the water paths. Strange and far-flown fowl drop down against the saffron, autumn sky. All day wings beat above it with lazy speed; long flights of cranes glimmer in the twilight. By night one wakes to hear the clanging geese go over. One wishes for, but gets no nearer speech from those the ready fens have swallowed up. What they do there, how fare, what find, is the secret of the tulares.

MARY AUSTIN, in The Land of Little Rain.



OCTOBER 3.

MOCKING BIRD.

Warble, whistle and ripple! wake! whip up! ha! ha! Burgle, bubble and frolic—a roundelay far! Pearls on pearls break and roll like bright drops from a bowl! And they thrill, as they spill in a rill, o'er my soul: Then thou laughest so light From thy rapturous height! Earth and Heaven are combined, in thy full dulcet tone; North and south pour the nectar thy throat blends in one! Flute and flageolet, bugle, light zither, guitar! Diamond, topaz and ruby! Sun, moon, silver star! Ripe cherries in wine! Orange blossoms divine! Genius of Songsters! so matchless in witchery! Nature hath fashioned thee out of her mystery!

JOHN WARD STIMSON, in Wandering Chords.



OCTOBER 4.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

Can anything be more ecstatic than the mockingbird's manner as he pours out his soul in song, flirting that expressive tail—that seems hung on wires, jerking those emphatic wings, which say so much, turning his dainty head this way and that, and now and then flinging himself upon the air—light as a feather—in pure delight, and floating down to place again without dropping a note. It is a poem in action to see him, so lithe, so graceful in every movement.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.



OCTOBER 5.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

Each flower a single fragrance gives, But not the perfume of the rest; Within each fruit one flavor lives, Not all the flavors of our quest; In every bird one song we note That seems the sweeter without words; Yet from the mock-bird's mellow throat Come all the songs of other birds.

FRED EMERSON BROOKS, in Pickett's Charge and Other Poems.



OCTOBER 6.

When a mocking-bird looks squarely at you, not turning his head one side, and then the other, like most birds, but showing his front face and using both eyes at once, like an owl—when he looks squarely at you in this way, he shows a wise, wise face. You almost believe he could speak if he would, and you cannot resist the feeling that he is more intelligent than he has any right to be, having behind those clear, sharp eyes, only "blind instinct," as the wise men say.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

A sunset in San Juan is truly worth crossing either a continent or an ocean to witness, when the ranges toward La Paz are purple where the sage-brush is, and rose-color where the rains have washed the steep places to the clay, and over all of mesa and mountain the soft glory of golden haze.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN, in For the Soul of Rafael.



OCTOBER 7.

THE MOCKING BIRD.

He has an agreeable way of improving upon the original of any song he imitates, so that he is supposed to give free music-lessons to all the other birds. His own notes, belonging solely to himself, are beautiful and varied, and he sandwiches them in between the rest in a way to suit the best. No matter who is the victim of his mimicry, he loves the corner of a chimney better than any other perch, and carols out into the sky and down into the black abyss as if chimneys were made on purpose for mocking-birds.

ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL, in Birds of Song and Story.



OCTOBER 8.

I love the mocking-bird; not because he is a wonderful musician, for—as I have heard him—that he is not; nor because he has a sweet disposition, for that he certainly has not, but because of his mysterious habit of singing at night, which seems to differentiate him from his kind, and approach him to the human; because of his rapturous manner of song, his joy of living; because he shows so much character, and so much intelligence.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

The lift of every man's heart is upward; to help another human soul in its upward evolution is life's greatest and most joyful privilege; to lend ourselves each to the other as an inspiration to grander living is life's highest ministry and reward.

DANA W. BARTLETT, in The Better City.



OCTOBER 9.

THE WATER OUZEL.

The vertical curves and angles of the most precipitous torrents he traces with the same rigid fidelity, swooping down the inclines of cascades, dropping sheer over dizzy falls amid the spray, and ascending with the same fearlessness and ease, seldom seeking to lessen the steepness of the acclivity by beginning to ascend before reaching the base of the fall. No matter though it may be several hundred feet in height he holds straight on, as if about to dash headlong into the throng of booming rockets, and darts abruptly up ward, and, after alighting at the top of the precipice to rest a moment, proceeds to feed and sing.

JOHN MUIR, in The Mountains of California.



OCTOBER 10.

Who can hear the wild song of the ouzel and not feel an answering thrill? Perched upon a rock in the midst of the rapids, he is the incarnation of all that is untamed, a wild spirit of the mountain stream, as free as a raindrop or a sunbeam. How solitary he is, a lone little bird, flitting from rock to rock through the desolate gorge, like some spirit in a Stygian world. Yet he sings continually as he takes his solitary way along the stream, and bursts of melody, so eerie and sylvan as to fire the imagination, come to the ear, sounding above the roar of the torrent. Like Orpheus, he seeks in the nether world of that wild gorge for his Eurydice, now dashing through the rapids, now peering into some pool, as if to discern her fond image in its depths, and calling ever to lure her thence from that dark retreat up into the world of light and love.

C.H. KIRKHAM, in In the Open.



OCTOBER 11.

TO LOS ANGELES.

May this great city of Los Angeles, destined to be a mighty metropolis, flanked by the mountains and the sea, grow in the spirit of charity and toleration between man and man, and in the fear and love of God. May our city ever remain a fair virgin, sought for by the valiant sons from all lands, adorned with the wealth of the golden orange and caressed by the clinging vine.

(Fiach Fionn) LAURENCE BRANNICK.



OCTOBER 12.

Like most of the early cities of the coast, Los Angeles owes its origin to the proselyting enthusiasm of the Spanish priesthood. The Mission of San Gabriel had been in existence ten years, and it had gathered several thousand Indians under its guardianship when it was proposed to establish a pueblo in that vicinity in order that a temporal development might proceed together with the spiritual. Had there been no mission at San Gabriel to hold the savages in check by the force of a religious awe, and to lead them to industrial pursuits, there probably would have been no founding of a city on the lands above the Los Angeles river—at least not until some date half a century later.

C.D. WILLARD, in History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

MY CREED.

I believe the best I can think, being fully persuaded that if this be not true, it is because the truth transcends my present power of thought.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.



OCTOBER 13.

THE BEAUTIES OF LOS ANGELES.

So beautiful for situation, between its guardian mountain ranges and the smiling sea, so wonderful in its resources and its possibilities is this charming valley of ours, that one cannot reasonably doubt that its manifest destiny is to be a world sanitarium. * * * To him who seeks it wisely here, no demand of necessity, comfort or luxury is impossible.

MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE, in The Mother of Clubs.



OCTOBER 14.

The entire situation with regard to manufacturing in Southern California has undergone a radical change in the last few years, by reason of the discovery of oil in great quantities in and around Los Angeles, and in other sections of Southern and Central California. This puts an entirely new face on the fuel question, and removes, in a great measure, what has always been the most serious problem in manufacturing development.

C.D. WILLARD, in History of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

A fog had drifted in during the night and was still tangled in the tops of the sycamores. The soft, humid air was sweet with the earthy scents of the canyon, and the curled fallen leaves of the live-oaks along the flume path were golden-brown with moisture. Beads of mist fringed the silken fluffs of the clematis, dripping with gentle, rhythmical insistence from the trees overhead.

MARGARET COLLIER GRAHAM, in Stories of the Foothills.



OCTOBER 15.

All believed they were located over an inexhaustible, subterranean lake of oil, and Oilville, city of tents and shacks, within a month had acquired the recklessness, the devil-may-care air of a mining camp, or the Pennsylvania oil fields. * * * Then there was a pause in the work, for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant. Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue, for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of herself, but of all the world.

MRS. FREMONT OLDER, in The Giants.



OCTOBER 16.

SAN PEDRO.

MORNING. A smooth, smooth sea of gray, gray glass; An open sea, where big ships pass Into the sun; A boat-dotted harbor; gulls, wheeling and screaming, And surf-song and fisher-cry end our night's dreaming. Day has begun.

EVENING. A broken sea of rosy jade; A rose-pink sky; black ships that fade Into the night; Across the bay, the city seems But elfin music, drowsy dreams And silver light!

OLIVE PERCIVAL.



OCTOBER 17.

SUNSET IN SAN DIEGO.

The city sits amid her palms; The perfume of her twilight breath Is something as the sacred balms That bound sweet Jesus after death, Such soft, warm twilight sense as lie Against the gates of Paradise. Such prayerful palms, wide palms upreached! This sea mist is as incense smoke, Yon ancient walls a sermon preached, White lily with a heart of oak. And O, this twilight! O the grace Of twilight on my lifted face.

JOAQUIN MILLER, in Collected Poems.



OCTOBER 18.

AT EVENTIDE.

Behind Point Loma's beacon height In shimmering waves of grey and gold The winter sunset dies; and Night Drops her dusk mantle, fold on fold, At Eventide.

And now, above yon shadowy line That faintly limns the distant bar, Through darkening paths, with steps that shine, She comes at last, our favorite star, At Eventide.

O friend, our lives are far apart As Western sea from Eastern shore! But in their orisons, dear heart, Our souls are with you, evermore, At Eventide.

MARY E. MANNIX.



OCTOBER 19.

THE DOUGLAS SQUIRREL.

One never tires of this bright chip of nature—this brave little voice crying in the wilderness—of observing his many works and ways, and listening to his curious language. His musical, piny gossip is as savory to the ear as balsam to the palate; and, though he has not exactly the gift of song, some of his notes are as sweet as those of a linnet—almost flute-like in softness, while others prick and tingle like thistles. He is the mocking-bird of squirrels, pouring forth mixed chatter and song like a perennial fountain; barking like a dog, screaming like a hawk, chirping like a blackbird or a sparrow; while in bluff, audacious noisiness he is a very jay.

JOHN MUIR, in The Mountains of California.



OCTOBER 20.

A beautiful sight it must have been, the wild-eyed graceful mustang with its gaily dressed rider sweeping hither and thither among the frightened hosts, swerving suddenly to right or left to avoid the horns of some infuriated beast, the riata flashing high in air, then, with unerring aim, descending upon the shoulders of some reluctant prisoner; amid all the confusion the bursts of musical laughter or noisier applause, then the oaths, in the liquid Spanish tongue sounding sweetly to the ear of the uninitiated.

HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI, in Camping with Fox-Hounds in Southern California, Overland Monthly, February, 1892.



OCTOBER 21.

Immediately, with that short, pumping bay that tells the trail is hot, the game near, and sends the blood rushing to one's very finger-ends, the swaying, eager line of hounds came swiftly down the rocky slope, across the gully ahead and up the other side, following, exactly, the path of the game. One directly behind the other they went, heads well up, so strong was the scent, necks out-stretched, rumps in air, tails wagging in short, fierce strokes. No thought had they for us, intent only on the game their noses told them must be close at hand.

HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI, in Hunting the Wild Cat in Southern California. From Overland Monthly, March, 1892.



OCTOBER 22.

Life is a fight. Millions fail. Only the strong win. Failure is worse than death. Man's internal strength is created by watching circumstances like a hawk, meeting her every spring stiff and straight, laughing at her pit-falls—which in the beginning of life are excess, excess, and always excess, and all manner of dishonor. Strength is created by adversity, by trying to win first the small battles of life, then the great, by casting out fear, by training the mind to rule in all things—the heart, the passions, the impulses, which if indulged make the brain the slave instead of the master. Success, for which alone a man lives, if he be honest with himself, comes to those who are strong, strong, strong.

GERTRUDE ATHERTON, in Rulers of Kings.



OCTOBER 23.

WITH THE ARIZONA COWBOYS.

The cow or steer that is selected to be roped or cut out rarely escapes. While the horse is in hot pursuit the rider dexterously whirls his riata above his head until, at a favorable moment, it leaves his hand, uncoiling as it flies through the air, and if the throw is successful, the noose falls over the animal's head. Suddenly the horse comes to a full stop and braces himself for the shock. When the animal caught reaches the end of the rope it is brought to an abrupt halt and tumbled in a heap on the ground. * * * The cowboy is out of the saddle and on his feet in a jiffy. He grasps the prostrate animal by the tail and a hind leg, throws it on its side, and ties its four feet together, so that it is helpless and ready for branding or inspection.

J.A. MUNK, in Arizona Sketches.



OCTOBER 24.

So here I am—settled at the ole Bar Y. And it'd take a twenty-mule team t'pull me offen it. Of a evenin', like this, the boss, he sits on the east porch, smokin'; the boys're strung along the side of the bunk-house t'rest and pass and laugh; and, out yonder, is the cottonwoods, same as ever, and the ditch, and the mesquite leveler'n a floor; and—up over it all—the moon, white and smilin'.

Then, outen the door nigh where the sunflowers're growin', mebbe she'll come—a slim, little figger in white. And, if it's plenty warm, and not too late, why, she'll be totin' the smartest, cutest—— * * * That's my little wife—that's Macie, now—a-singin' to the kid!

ELEANOR GATES, in Cupid: the Cow-Punch.



OCTOBER 25.

Let this be known, that a west-land ranch is no more than a farm, and a farm at the outermost edge of man's dominions is forever a school and a field of strife and a means of grace to those who live thereon.

* * * The ways of the earth, the ways of the seasons, the ways of the elements, these had something to impart, eternally. And man, no longer in the bond with the wild things all about him, wages ceaseless war against them, to protect his crops and the fowls and the animals that have come beneath his guardian-ship and know no laws of the air-folk, the brush-folk, or the forest-folk with whom they were once in brotherhood.

PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS, in Chatwit, the Man-Talk Bird.



OCTOBER 26.

And after supper, when the sun was down, and they was just a kinda half-light on the mesquite, and the old man was on the east porch, smokin', and the boys was all lined up along the front of the bunk-house, clean outen sight of the far side of the yard, why I just sorta wandered over to the calf-corral, then 'round by the barn and the Chink's shack, and landed up out to the west, where they's a row of cottonwoods by the new irrigatin' ditch. Beyond, acrost a hunderd mile of brown plain, here was the moon a-risin', bigger'n a dishpan, and a cold white. I stood agin a tree and watched it crawl through the clouds. The frogs was a-watchin', too, I reckon, fer they begun to holler like the dickens, some bass and some squeaky. And then, frum the other side of the ranch-house, struck up a mouth-organ.

ELEANOR GATES, in Cupid: the Cow-Punch.



OCTOBER 27.

EL VAQUERO.

Tinged with the blood of Aztec lands, Sphinx-like, the tawny herdsman stands, A coiled riata in his hands. Devoid of hope, devoid of fear, Half brigand, and half cavalier— This helot, with imperial grace, Wears ever on his tawny face A sad, defiant look of pain. Left by the fierce iconoclast, A living fragment of the past— Greek of the Greeks he must remain.

LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE.

His broad brimmed hat push'd back with careless air, The proud vaquero sits his steed as free As winds that toss his black, abundant hair.

JOAQUIN MILLER.



OCTOBER 28.

There was to be a rodeo on the Del Garda ranch. Out of the thousands of that moving herd could they single the mighty steer that bore their brand, or the wild-eyed cow whose yearling calf had not yet felt the searing-iron. Into the very midst of the seething mass would a vaquero dart, single out his victim without a moment's halt, drive the animal to the open space, and throw his lasso with unerring aim. If a steer proved fractious two of the centaurs would divide the labor, and while one dexterously threw the rope around his horns, the other's lasso had quickly caught the hind foot, and together they brought him to the earth.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN, in Overland Tales.



OCTOBER 29.

Near noon we came to a little cattle ranch situated in a flat surrounded by red dykes and buttes after the manner of Arizona. Here we unpacked, early as it was, for through the dry countries one has to apportion his day's journeys by the water to be had. If we went farther today, then tomorrow night would find us in a dry camp.

The horses scampered down the flat to search out alfilaria. We roosted under a slanting shed—where were stock saddles, silver-mounted bits and spurs, rawhide riatas, branding-irons, and all the lumber of the cattle business. * * * Shortly the riders began to come in, jingling up to the shed, with a rattle of spurs and bit-chains. * * * The chief, a six-footer wearing beautifully decorated gauntlets and a pair of white buckskin chaps, went so far as to say it was a little warm for the time of year.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE, in The Mountains.



OCTOBER 30.

HANDS UP!

This is a request that, in the wild and woolly West, "may not be denied"; and the braver the man is to whom it is addressed, the quicker does he hasten to comply. Indeed, it would argue the height of folly if, after a glance into the barrels of a "sawed off," and a look at the determined eyes behind them, covering your every move, you did not instantly elevate your hands, and do it with cheerful alacrity. The plea, "He had the drop on me," will clear you in any frontier Court of Honor.

A.E. LYNCH, in Self-Torture.



OCTOBER 31.

OUT WEST.

When the world of waters was parted by the stroke of a mighty rod, Her eyes were first of the lands of earth to look on the face of God; The white mists robed and throned her, and the sun in his orbit wide Bent down from his ultimate pathway and claimed her his chosen bride; And He that had formed and dowered her with the dower of a royal queen, Decreed her the strength of mighty hills, the peace of the plains between; The silence of utmost desert, and canyons rifted and riven, And the music of wide-flung forests where strong winds shout to heaven.

* * * * *

Calling—calling—calling—resistless, imperative, strong— Soldier and priest and dreamer—she drew them, a mighty throng. The unmapped seas took tribute of many a dauntless band, And many a brave hope measured but bleaching bones in the sand; Yet for one that fell, a hundred sprang out to fill his place, For death at her call was sweeter than life in a tamer race. Sinew and bone she drew them; steel-thewed—and the weaklings shrank— Grim-wrought of granite and iron were the men of her foremost rank.

* * * * *

The wanderers of earth turned to her—outcast of the older lands— With a promise and hope in their pleading, and she reached them pitying hands; And she cried to the Old World cities that drowse by the Eastern main: "Send me your weary, house-worn broods and I'll send you men again! Lo! here in my wind-swept reaches, by my marshalled peaks of snow, Is room for a larger reaping than your o'er-tilled fields can grow; Seed of the Man-seed springing to stature and strength in my sun, Free with a limitless freedom no battles of men, have won."

SHARLOT HALL, in Out West.



NOVEMBER 1.

One night when the plain was like a sea of liquid black, and the sky blazed with stars, we rode by a sheep-herder's camp. The flicker of a fire threw a glow out into the dark. A tall wagon, a group of silhouetted men, three or four squatting dogs, were squarely within the circle or illumination. And outside, in the penumbra of shifting half light, now showing clearly, now fading into darkness, were the sheep, indeterminate in bulk, melting away by mysterious thousands into the mass of night. We passed them. They looked up, squinting their eyes against the dazzle of the fire. The night closed about us again.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE, in The Mountains.



NOVEMBER 2.

THE DROUTH: 1898.

No low of cattle from these silent fields Fills, with soft sounds of peace, the evening air; No fresh-mown hay its scented incense yields From these sad meadows, stricken brown and bare.

The brook, that rippled on its summer way, Shrinks out of sight within its sandy bed, Defenseless of a covert from the ray, Dazzling and pitiless, that beams o'erhead.

The rose has lost its bloom; the lily dies; Our garden's perfumed treasures all are fled; The bee no longer to their sweetness flies, The humming-bird no longer dips his head.

The butterfly—that fairy-glancing thing— Ethereal blossom of the light and air! No longer poises on its fluttering wing; How could it hover in this bleak despair?

FRANCES M. MILNE, in For Today.



NOVEMBER 3.

During this first autumn rain, those of us who are so fortunate as to live in the country are conscious of a strange odor pervading all the air. It is as though Dame Nature were brewing a vast cup of herb tea, mixing in the fragrant infusion all the plants dried and stored so carefully during the summer. When the clouds vanish after this baptismal shower, everything is charmingly fresh and pure, and we have some of the rarest of days. Then the little seeds, harbored through the long summer in earth's bosom, burst their coats and push up their tender leaves, till on hillside and valley-floor appears a delicate mist of green, which gradually confirms itself into a soft, rich carpet—and all the world is verdure clad. Then we begin to look eagerly for our first flowers.

MARY ELIZABETH PARSONS, in The Wild Flowers of California.



NOVEMBER 4.

In basketry the Pomo Indians of California found an outlet for the highest conceptions of art that their race was capable of. Protected by their isolation from other tribes, they worked out their ideas undisturbed—with every incentive for excellence they had reached a height in basketry when the American first disturbed them which has never been equaled—not only by no other Indian tribe, but by no other people in the world in any age. These stolid Indian women have a knowledge of materials and their preparation, a delicacy of touch, an artistic conception of symmetry, of form and design, a versatility in varying and inventing beautiful designs, and an eye for color, which place their work on a high plane of art.

CARL PURDY, in Out West.



NOVEMBER 5.

WHEN IT RAINS IN CALIFORNY.

When it rains in Californy It makes the tourist mad, But folks that's got the crops to raise Is feelin' mighty glad; I stand out in the showers, Wet as a drownded rat, And watch the grain a-growin', And the cattle gettin' fat.

Sorry for them Easterners, Kickin' like Sam Hill, But the sun-kissed land is thirsty And wants to drink its fill. Oh, hear the poppies laughin', And the happy mockers sing, When it rains in Californy, Through the glory of the spring.

JOHN S. McGROARTY, in Just California.



NOVEMBER 6.

The broad valley had darkened. The mountains opposite had lost their sharp details and dulled to an opaque silver blue in the mists of twilight. They had become great shadow mountains, broad spirit masses, and seemed to melt imperceptibly from form to form toward the horizon....

There had come a harmony more perfect than life could ever give. It included all their love that had gone before and something greater, vaster—all life, all nature, and all God.

HAROLD S. SYMMES, in The Divine Benediction, Putnam's, Oct., 1906.



NOVEMBER 7.

AFTER THE RAIN.

"Sweet fields stand dressed in living green," That late were brown and bare. The twitter of the calling birds With music fills the air.

Was ever sky so heavenly blue— "Clear shining after rain!" Was ever wind so soft and pure, To breathe away our pain!

Oh, roses white, and roses red, Your fragrant leaves unfold! Oh, lily, lift your chalice pure And show your heart of gold!

FRANCES MARGARET MILNE, in For To-day.



NOVEMBER 8.

She does not appear in public, and her name is seldom seen in the newspapers. She writes no books, delivers no lectures, paints no great pictures, but remains the inconspicuous, silent worker, blessing her home, reinforcing her husband, bringing up her children, and doing the most important work God has intrusted to the hands of a woman. She is still a great force in the nation; for the hand that rocks the cradle still rules the world. Whenever you find a great man, you will find a great woman. All successful men, it will be found, depend upon some woman. So Garfield thought when he kissed his mother after kissing the Bible, when made President of the United States.

REV. WILLIAM RADER, in Lecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People.



NOVEMBER 9.

Found that "gracious hollow that God made" in his mother's shoulder that fit his head as pillows of down never could. Cried when they took him away from it, when he was a tiny baby, "with no language but a cry." Cried once again, twenty-five or thirty years afterward, when God took it away from him. All the languages he had learned, and all the eloquent phrasing the colleges had taught him, could not then voice the sorrow of his heart so well as the tears he tried to check.

ROBERT J. BURDETTE, in The Story of Rollo.



NOVEMBER 10.

Lovely color and graceful outline and clever texture are good things, but we need more, much more, for the making of a real picture. When the soul is brimming with an overflowing bounty of beauty, all means are inadequate to express the fullness of its splendor. Man has not yet come to his full heritage, but every new mode of expression is an added language which brings him a little nearer to it.

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

The future of this country depends naturally upon the caliber of the succeeding generations, and if the Catholic Church is to succeed in California or elsewhere along material as well as spiritual lines, it must keep the fear of God in our men and the love of children in our women, and if these two fundamental virtues are thoroughly sustained, we need have no anxiety as to the future.

JOSEPH SCOTT, in Speech at the Seattle Exposition.



NOVEMBER 11.

BEAUTY.

A hint is flung from the scene most fair That real beauty is not there; That earth and blossom, sea and sky, Would be empty without the seeing eye, That form and color, movement and rhythm Are not true elements of heaven Till passed through transforming power of thought; For eye seeth only what soul hath wrought. Ah! Beauty, thou the flowering art Of the upright mind and guileless heart.

MARY RUSSELL MILLS.



NOVEMBER 12.

THE BRAKEMAN AT CHURCH.

After asking the Brakeman if he had been to each of the leading churches, the querist finally suggested the Baptists. "Ah, ha!" he shouted. "Now you're on the Shore Line! River Road, eh? Beautiful curves, lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river; all steel rail and rock ballast; single track, and not a siding from the round-house to the terminus. Takes a heap of water to run it through; double tanks at every station, and there isn't an engine in the shops that can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges. * * * And yesterday morning, when the conductor came around taking up fares with a little basket punch, I didn't ask him to pass me; I paid my fare like a little Jonah—twenty-five cents for a ninety-minute run, with a concert by the passengers thrown in."

ROBERT J. BURDETTE, Pastor Emeritus Temple Baptist Church, Los Angeles.



NOVEMBER 13.

Directly opposite sat a Chinese dignitary richly apparrelled, serene, bland, bearing with courteous equanimity flirtatious overtures of an unattached blonde woman at his left, and the pert coquetry of a young girl at the other side. The mother of the girl ventured meek, unheeded remonstrances between mouthfuls of crab salad. * * *

"But you have not answered my question," he reminded her. "Do you believe in affinities?"

"I think that I do," hesitatingly.

"You are not certain?"

"N-o; if to have an affinity means to have a very dear friend, whom one trusts, and whom one desires to make happy—"

"You speak as if you had such a friend in mind," he hazarded.

"I have," she replied simply.

"Happy man!" he sighed.

"I referred to my St. Bernard dog."

"Oh!" Protracted silence. "No use," he drawled. "My pride will not let me enter the lists with a St. Bernard."

"That is not pride, but modesty," she asserted, and laughed. Her laughter reminded Horton of liquid sunshine, melted pearls, and sparkling cascades.

IDA MANSFIELD WILSON, in According to Confucius.



NOVEMBER 14.

There's only one thing to do, there can be but one—to say the thing your soul says, to live the life your heart wills, to die the death your imagination approves and your spirit sanctions!

MIRIAM MICHELSON, in Anthony Overman.



NOVEMBER 15.

TWO LITTLE CHINESE SISTERS.

Their blouses were of pink silk, and their trousers of pale lavender. They wore gay head-dresses, and were indeed beautiful to look upon.

Sai Gee, a little-footed playmate of theirs, lived a few doors from them, and they had no difficulty in finding her home. Sai Gee was also dressed up in her gayest attire. * * * Sai Gee could play the flute. It was really wonderful. She sat upon a stool, over which an embroidered robe had been thrown, and played to them. Her hair was done in a coil back of her right ear, and her little brown face was sweet and wistful as she brought forth from the flute the most wonderful sounds.

JESSIE JULIET KNOX, in Little Almond Blossoms.



NOVEMBER 16.

She was only a little yellow woman from Asia, with queer, wide trousers for skirts and rocker-soled shoes that flopped against her heels. Her uncovered black hair was firmly knotted and securely pinned and her eyes were black of color and soft of look. * * * She saw the morning sun push its way through a sea of amber and the nickel dome of the great observatory on Mount Hamilton standing ebony against the radiant East. She heard the Oriental jargon of the early hucksters who cried their wares in the ill-smelling alleys, and with tears she added to the number of pearls which the dew had strewn upon the porch.

W.C. MORROW, in The Ape, the Idiot and Other People.



NOVEMBER 17.

Sing is not included in the category of "goody-goody" boys. He is full of fun, and play, and willful pranks, and he sees the ridiculous side of everything quickly, but he seems naturally to accept only the good and to shun evil in any form. He is pure and innocent by nature and seems attracted to every person of similar characteristics. He has discernment and watches the faces of people closely, seeming to care more for their motives than for their deeds.

NELLIE BLESSING EYSTER, in A Chinese Quaker.



NOVEMBER 18.

INDIAN ARROW HEADS FOUND IN CALIFORNIA.

Obsidian is a beautiful, translucent volcanic rock, usually black, with cloudy flecks, as are seen in jade; like jade it is so hard as to be capable of taking an edge like a razor. Flaked on its flat surface and often beautifully serrated on the edge, an arrowhead or a spearhead is in itself a thing of beauty and a work of art, whether the Indian manufacturer knew it or not.

L. CLARE DAVIS in "Long Ago in San Joaquin," in Sunset Magazine.

In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe, I shall stay no more away— Then if you still are true, my love, It will be our wedding day.

In a year, in a year, when my time is past— Then I'll live in your love for aye. Then if you still are true, my love, It will be our wedding day.

JACK LONDON.



NOVEMBER 19.

Had California owed her settlement and civic life wholly to the vanguard of that pioneer host, which ... pressed steadily westward to Kansas and the Rockies, the Golden State would not have today that literary flavor that renders her in a measure a unique figure among the western states of the country.

JAMES MAIN DIXON, in California and Californians in Literature.



NOVEMBER 20.

All things are but material reflections of mental images. This is realized in picture and statue in temple and machine. The picture is but a faint representation of the picture in the soul of painter. He did his best to catch it with brush and canvas. Had it not existed for him before the brush was in his hand, it would never have been painted. * * * Concentration is the only mental attitude under which mental images (ideals) shape themselves into the material life. As long as you hold an ideal before you that long is it shaping itself into your body, your business and into your social life. When you change your ideal then the new begins to shape itself. Have you, like the sculptor, held to one till it carves itself "into the marble real?" Or have you taken the life-block and placed it into the hands of an Ideal today, another tomorrow, and another next day, till you have as many ideals as you have days? * * * Is not your life a composite of all these, not one complete? Concentration means holding to one ideal until your objective life becomes that mental picture. Thus it is true: I am that which I think myself to be.

HENRY HARRISON BROWN, in Concentration: The Road to Success.



NOVEMBER 21.

The process which we call evolution is the return of the atom to God, or the extension of consciousness in the growing creation, and this process which unifies all that exists or can exist in our world is the working out of the One Purpose and Plan by the One Power. This is what we mean by the Spiritual Constitution of the Universe, and in the light of this thought every person, animal, plant and mineral, every atom and all force, all events and circumstances and conditions and objects are more or less intelligent and conscious expressions of the One Purpose and the One Life. Man is thus led to count nothing human foreign to him, and his inner eyes open to perceive Truth, Goodness and Beauty everywhere.

BENJAMIN FAY MILLS, in The New Revelation.



NOVEMBER 22.

Laughter is the music of the soul. It is the sun falling on the rain drops. Laughter is the nightingale's voice in the night. It chases away care, destroys worry. It is the intoxicating cup of good nature, which cheers, but does not cheat. Laughter paints pictures, dreams dreams, and floods life with love. Blessed are the people who can laugh! Laughter is religion and hope; and the apostles of good nature, who see the bright side of life, the queer and funny things among men, the clowns in Vanity Fair, as well as the deep and terrible pathos of life, are missionaries of comfort and evangels of good health.

REV. WILLIAM RADER, in Lecture on Uncle Sam; or The Reign of the Common People.



NOVEMBER 23.

Given so unique a climate as ours of Southern California, one would expect it to be hailed gladly as a helper in the solution of this problem of how and where to build and how to adorn one's home. For it really meets the most trying items of the problem, making it a pure pleasure.

Instead, then, of the styles which suit the winter-climate of other states, and which, transplanted here, have grown too often into mongrel specimens of foreign style and other times—we should adapt our Southern California homes, first of all, to the climatic conditions which prevail here.

MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE, in The Mother of Clubs.



NOVEMBER 24.

Houses furnished in all the styles of modern decorative art rise in all directions, embowered in roses, geraniums, heliotropes, and lilies that bloom the long year round and reach a size that makes them hard to recognize as old friends. Among them rise the banana, the palm, the aloe, the rubber tree, and the pampas-grass with its tall feathery plumes. Here and there one sees the guava, the Japanese persimmon, Japanese plum, or some similar exotic—but grapes and oranges are the principal product. Yet there are groves of English walnuts almost rivaling in size the great orange orchards, and orchards of prunes, nectarines, apricots, plums, pears, peaches, and apples that are little behind in size or productiveness.

T.S. VAN DYKE, in Southern California.



NOVEMBER 25.

He saw a great hall furnished in the most extravagantly complete style of Indian art. The walls were entirely covered with Navaho and Hopi blankets. There was a frieze of Apache hide-shields, each painted with a brave's totem, and beneath, a solid cornice of buffalo skulls. Puma-skins carpeted the floor; at least a hundred baskets trimmed with wood-pecker and quail feathers were scattered about; trophies of Indian bows, arrows, lances, war-clubs, tomahawks, pipes and knives decorated the wall spaces. Two couches were made up of Zuni bead-work ornaments and buck-skin embroideries. In spite of all this, it was a tastefully designed room, rather than a museum, flaming with color and vibrant with vitality.

GELETT BURGESS, in A Little Sister of Destiny.



NOVEMBER 26.

She sent a hundred messages out into the hills by thought's wonderful telegraphy. She saw the yellow-green of the new shoots; the gray-green of the gnarled live oak; she felt that the mariposa was waking in the brown hillside. She almost heard the creamy bells of the tall yucca pealing out a hymn to the God who expresses himself in continual creation. Then, O, wonder of wonders! Over the same invisible wires came back the response: It all means love, the earth's rendings, the rains, winds, scorchings—it all means love in the grand consummation, nothing but love. She thrilled to the wonder of it.

ELIZABETH BAKER BOHAN, in The Strength of the Weak.



NOVEMBER 27.

THE IDEAL CALIFORNIA EDITOR.

The ideal editor must be a colossal, composite figure, one to whom no man of whatever age, race or color, is a stranger; one whose mobility of character and elasticity of temperament expands or contracts as occasion demands, without deflecting in the least from the law of perfect harmony. He must know how to smile encouragement, frown disapproval, or, at an instant's notice bow deferentially and attend with utmost courtesy to wearisome stories of stupid patrons, or listen to the fantastic schemes of radical reformers and, with apparent seriousness and ostensible amiability, nod acquiescence to the wild-eyed revolutionist upon whom he inwardly vows to keep a careful watch lest the fire-brand agitator commit serious public mischief. The ideal editor of the popular press must be the quintescence of tact; an adroit strategist, a sagacious chief executive, keenly critical, ably judicial, broad, generous, sympathetic, hospitable, aye, charitable, magnanimous, ready to forgive and forget, patient and long-suffering when subjected to the competitive lash of adverse criticism, bearing calumny rather with quiet dignity than stooping to low and vulgar forms of retaliation.

BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH, in Sunday Times Magazine.



NOVEMBER 28.

CALIFORNIA TO IRELAND.

Great! Erect! Majestic! Free! Thrilled with life from sea to sea. See the Motherland uphold To the sky her Green and Gold.

LAURENCE BRANNICK.



NOVEMBER 29.

And the books! Without final data at hand, I incline to believe that by the time the war came along to give us a new text, California had already, in a dozen years, doubled the volume of American literature. In the same way, of course, that it was doubled again—for our war literature was not mostly written upon the battle-field. In half a century this current has not ceased. It is a lean month even now which does not see, somewhere, some sort of book about California. It is certain that as much literature (using the word as it is used) has been written of California as of all the other states together. This means, of course, only matter in which the State is an essential, not an incident.

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



NOVEMBER 30.

By a queer sequence of circumstances, the essays, begun in the Lark, were continued in the Queen, and, if you have read these two papers, you will know that one magazine is as remote in character from the other as San Francisco is from London. But each has happened to fare far afield in search of readers, and between them I may have converted a few to my optimistic view of every-day incident. To educate the British Matron and Young Person was, perhaps, no more difficult than to open the eyes of the California Native Son. The fogs that fall over the Thames are not very different to the mists that drive in through the Golden Gate, after all!

GELETT BURGESS, in The Romance of the Commonplace.



DECEMBER 1.

The Bohemian Club, whose real founder is said to have been the late Henry George, was formed in the '70's by newspaper writers and men working in the arts or interested in them. It had grown to a membership of 750. It still kept for its nucleus painters, writers, musicians and actors, amateur and professional. They were a gay group of men, and hospitality was their evocation. Yet the thing which set this club off from all others in the world was the midsummer High Jinks. The club owned a fine tract of redwood forest fifty miles north of San Francisco. In August the whole Bohemian Club, or such as could get away from business, went up to this grove and camped out for two weeks. On the last night they put on the Jinks proper, a great spectacle in praise of the forest with poetic words, music and effects done by the club. In late years this has been practically a masque or an opera. It cost about $10,000. * * * The thing which made it possible was the art spirit which is in the Californian.

WILL IRWIN, in The City That Was.



DECEMBER 2.

Nearly all is now covered with a luxuriant growth of vegetation the most diverse, yet all of it foreign to the soil. Side by side are the products of two zones, reaching the highest stages of perfection, yet none of them natives of this coast.

Gay cottages now line the roads where so recently the hare cantered along the dusty cattle-trail; and villages lie brightly green with a wealth of foliage where the roaring wings of myriads of quail shook the air above impenetrable jungles of cactus.

T.S. VAN DYKE, in Southern California.



DECEMBER 3.

* * * The chief and highest function of the University is to assert and perpetually prove that general principles—laws—govern Man, Society, Nature, Life; and to make unceasing war on the reign of temporary expedients. * * * There never was a period or a country in which the reign of fundamental law needed constant assertion and more perpetual proof than our own period and our own country. * * * The living danger is that society may come to permanently distrust the reign of law. * * * A national or a personal life built on expedients of the day, like a house built on the sand, will inevitably come to ruin.

PRESIDENT HOLDEN, in Inaugural Address of University of California, 1886.



DECEMBER 4.

And now my story is told, the story of my work, and the story of my life. Looking back over all the long stretch of years that I have carried this heavy burden, though I should not care to assume it again, yet I am not sorry to have borne it. Of the various motives which urge men to the writing of books, perhaps the most worthy, worthier by far than the love of fame, is the belief that the author has something to say which will commend itsself to his fellow-man, which perchance his fellow-man may be the better for hearing. If I have fulfilled in some measure even the first of these conditions, then has my labor not been in vain.

HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT, in Literary Industries.



DECEMBER 5.

LAW IN THE EARLY MINING-CAMPS.

Here, in a new land, under new conditions, subjected to tremendous pressure and strain, but successfully resisting them, were associated bodies of freemen bound together for a time by common interests, ruled by equal laws, and owning allegiance to no higher authority than their own sense of right and wrong. They held meetings, chose officers, decided disputes, meted out a stern and swift punishment to offenders, and managed their local affairs with entire success; and the growth of their committees was proceeding at such a rapid rate, that days and weeks were often sufficient for vital changes, which, in more staid communities, would have required months or even years.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, in Mining Camps.



DECEMBER 6.

New towns were laid out in the valleys to supply the camps, and those already established grew with astonishing rapidity. Stockton, for instance, increased in three months from a solitary ranch-house to a canvas city of one thousand inhabitants. Sacramento also became a canvas city, whose dust-clouds whirled, and men, mules, and oxen toiled; where boxes, barrels, bales innumerable, were piled in the open air, no shelter being needed for months. For the City Hotel, Sacramento, thirty thousand dollars per year was paid as rent, although it was only a small frame building. The Parker House, San Francisco, cost thirty thousand dollars to build, and rented for fifteen thousand dollars per month.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, in Mining Camps.



DECEMBER 7.

The prospector is the advance agent of progress, civilization and prosperity. * * * It is for the sight of a yellow streak in his pan that he has been tempted to endure the fatigue, cold, and hunger of the mountains, and the heat, thirst and horror of the desert.

The prospector is a man of small pretensions, of peaceful disposition, indomitable will, boundless perseverance, remarkable endurance, undoubted courage, irrepressible hopefulness, and unlimited hospitality He is the friend of every man till he has evidence that the man is his enemy, and he is the most respected man in the mining regions of the West.

ARTHUR J. BURDICK, in The Mystic Mid-Region.



DECEMBER 8.

To a little camp of 1848 a lad of sixteen came one day, footsore, weary, hungry, and penniless. There were thirty robust and cheerful miners at work in the ravine; and the lad sat on the bank, watching them awhile in silence, his face telling the sad story of his fortunes. At last one stalwart miner spoke to his fellows, saying:

"Boys, I'll work an hour for that chap if you will."

At the end of the hour a hundred dollars' worth of gold dust was laid in the youth's handkerchief. The miners made out a list of tools and necessaries.

"You go," they said, "and buy these, and come back. We'll have a good claim staked out for you. Then you've got to paddle for yourself." Thus genuine and unconventional was the hospitality of the mining-camp.

CHARLES HOWARD SHINN, in Mining Camps.



DECEMBER 9.

Down in the gulch bottoms were the old placer diggings. Elaborate little ditches for the deflection of water, long cradles for the separation of gold, decayed rockers, and shining in the sun the tons and tons of pay dirt which had been turned over pound by pound in the concentrating of its treasure. Some of the old cabins still stood. It was all deserted now, save for the few who kept trail for the freighters, or who tilled the restricted bottom lands of the flats. Road-runners racked away down the paths; squirrels scurried over worn-out placers, jays screamed and chattered in and out of the abandoned cabins. And the warm California sun embalmed it all in a peaceful forgetfulness.

STEWART EDWARD WHITE, in The Mountains.



DECEMBER 10.

GOD IS EVERYWHERE.

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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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.



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. 75c. Her Twenty Heathen. Pilgrim Press. 50c. 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. 25c. Ti: A Story of San Francisco's Chinatown. D.C. Cook Co. 25c. 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. 50c. and $1.00. How to Control Fate Through Suggestion. 25c. Not Hypnotism, But Suggestion. 25c. Man's Greatest Discovery. 25c. Self Healing Through Suggestion. 25c. The Call of the Twentieth Century. 25c. Dollars Want Me: The New Road to Opulence. 10c. 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.