The California Birthday Book Part 24

JULY 3.

Above an elevation of four thousand feet timber is quite abundant.

Along the river-bottoms and low grounds the sycamore is found as clean-limbed, tall and stately as elsewhere. The cottonwood, too, is common, though generally dwarfed, scraggy and full of dead limbs. A willow still more scraggy, and having many limbs destroyed with mistletoe, is often found in the same places. The elder rises above the dignity of a shrub, or under-shrub, but can hardly be found a respectable tree. Two varieties of oak are common, and the alder forms here a fine tree along the higher water-courses.

T.S. VAN d.y.k.e, in _Southern California._

JULY 4.

A WESTERN FOURTH.

Here, where Peralta's cattle used to stray; Here, where the Spaniards in their early day Rode, jingling, booted, spurred, nor ever guessed Our race would own the land by them possessed; Here, where Castilian bull-fights left their stain Of blood upon the soil of this New Spain; Here, where old live-oaks, spared till we condemn.

Still wait within this city named for them-- We celebrate, with bombsh.e.l.l and with rhyme Our noisiest Day of Days of yearly time!

O bare Antonio's hills that rim our sky-- Antonio's hills, that used to know July As but a time of sleep beneath the sun-- Such days of languorous dreaming are all done!

MARY BAMFORD, in _Fourth of July Celebration, Oakland_, 1902.

JULY 5.

THE LIVE-OAKS.

In ma.s.sy green, upon the crest Of many a slanting hill, By gentle wind and sun caressed, The live-oaks carry still A ponderous head, a sinewy breast, A look of tameless will.

They plant their roots full firmly deep, As for the avalanche; And warily and strongly creep Their slow trunks to the branch; A subtle, devious way they keep, Thrice cautious to be stanch.

A mighty hospitality At last the builders yield, For man and horse and bird and bee A hospice and a shield, Whose monolithic mystery A curious power concealed.

RUBY ARCHER, in _Los Angeles Times._

JULY 6.

FATE AND I.

"Thine the fault, not mine," I cried.

Brooding bitterly, And Fate looked grim and once again Closed in and grappled me.

"Mine, not thine, the fault," I said, Discerning verity, And Fate arose and clasped my hand And made a man of me.

HAROLD S. SYMMES, in _The American Magazine, April_, 1909.

JULY 7.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF TREES.

Dear brotherhood of trees! With you we find Robust and hearty friendship, free from all The laws of petty G.o.ds men travail for.

No wrangle here o'er things of small avail-- No knavery, nor charity betrayed-- But comrade beings--'Stalwart, steadfast, good.

You help the world in the n.o.blest way of all-- By living n.o.bly--showing in your lives The utmost beauty, the full power and love That through your wisdom and your long desire Thrill in your vibrant veins from heart of earth.

Open your arms, O Trees, for us who come With woodland longings in our pilgrim souls!

RUBY ARCHER.

JULY 8.

The scene was a ravine that had been cloven into the flank of a mighty mountain as if by the stroke of a giant's axe. For about half a mile this gash ran sharp and narrow; but at the upper end, the resting place of the travelers, it widened into a s.p.a.cious amphitheatre, dotted with palm trees that rose with clean cylindrical boles sixty to eighty feet before spreading their crowns of drooping leaf.a.ge against the azure of a cloudless sky--a wonderful touch of Egypt and the East to surroundings typical of the American Far West.

EDMUND MITCh.e.l.l, in _In Desert Keeping._

The n.o.blest life--the life of labor; The n.o.blest love--the love of neighbor.

LORENZO SOSSO, in _Wisdom for the Wise._

JULY 9.

THE LIVE OAKS AT MENLO PARK.

The road wound for some half mile through a stretch of uncultivated land, dotted with the forms of huge live-oaks. The gra.s.s beneath them was burnt gray and was brittle and slippery. The ma.s.sive trees, some round and compact and so densely leaved that they were impervious to rain as an umbrella, others throwing out long, gnarled arms as if spellbound in some giant throe of pain, cast vast slanting shadows upon the parched ground. Some seemed, like trees in Dore's drawings, to be endowed with a grotesque, weird humanness of aspect, as though an imprisoned dryad or gnome were struggling to escape, causing the mighty trunk to bow and writhe, and sending tremors of life along each convulsed limb. A mellow h.o.a.riness marked them all, due to their own richly subdued coloring and the long garlands of silvery moss that hung from their boughs like an old, rich growth of hair.

GERALDINE BONNER, in _Tomorrow's Tangle._

JULY 10.

MADRONA.

No other of our trees, to those who know it in its regions of finest development, makes so strong an appeal to man's imagination--to his love of color, of joyful bearing, of sense of magic, of surprise and change. He walks the woods in June or July and rustles the ma.s.s of gold-brown leaves fresh fallen under foot, or rides for unending weeks across the Mendocino ranges--and always with a sense of fresh interest and stimulation at the varying presence of this tree.

W.L. JEPSON, in _Trees of California._