Part 10
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.