The California Birthday Book Part 26

And what shall be the children's tree, To grow while we are sleeping?

The maple sweet; the manzanete; The gentle willow weeping; The larch; the yew; the oak so true, Kind mother strong and tender; Or, white and green, in gloss and sheen, Queen Magnolia's splendor?

One wan, hot noon. His path was strewn, Whose love did all love quicken, With leaves of palm while song and psalm Held all the world to listen.

For His dear sake, the palm we'll take-- Each frond shall be a prayer That He will guide, whate'er betide, Until we meet Him there.

CHARLES J. WOODBURY.

JULY 22.

The landscape, glazed with heat, seemed to faint under the unwinking glare of the sun. From the parched gra.s.s-land and the thickets of chaparral, pungent scents arose--the ardent odors that the woods of foot-hill California exhale in the hot, breathless quiescence of summer afternoons. * * *

The air came over it in gla.s.sy waves, carrying its dry, aromatic perfume to one's nostrils. On its burnt expanse a few huge live-oaks rose dark and dome-like, their shadows, black and irregular, staining the ground beneath them.

GERALDINE BONNER, in _The Pioneer._

JULY 23.

With great discomfort and considerable difficulty they threaded this miniature forest, starting all sorts of wild things as they went on.

Cotton-tail rabbits fled before them. Gophers stuck their heads out of the ground, and viewed them with jewel-like eyes, then noiselessly retreated to their underground preserves. Large gray ground squirrels sat up on their haunches, with bushy tails curled gracefully around them and wee forepaws dropped downward as if in mimic courtesy, but scampered off at their approach. Flocks of birds arose from their feeding grounds, and lizards rustled through the dead leaves.

FLORA HAINES LOUGHEAD, in _The Abandoned Claim._

JULY 24.

THE SENTINEL TREE.

(CYPRESS POINT, CALIFORNIA.)

A giant sentinel, alone it stands On rocky headland where the breakers roar, Parted from piny woods and pebbled sh.o.r.e.

Holding out branches as imploring hands.

Poor lonely tree, where never bird doth make Its nest, or sing at morn and eve to thee, Nor in whose shadow wild rose calleth bee To come on gauzy wing for love's sweet sake.

Nature cares for thee, gives thee sunshine gold, Handfuls of pearls cast from the crested waves, For thee pink-throated sh.e.l.ls soft murmurs hold, And seaweed vested chorists chant in caves.

Whence came thee, lone one of an alien band.

To guard an outpost of this sunset land?

GRACE HIBBARD, in _Forget-me-nots from California._

JULY 25.

IN THE MEXICAN JUNGLE.

The jungle, however, rang with life. Brilliant birds flew, screaming at their approach--noisy parrots and macaws; the _gaucamaya_, one flush of red and gold; a king vulture, raven black save for his scarlet crest. From the safe height of a saber, monkeys showered vituperations upon them. Once an _iguana_, great chameleon lizard, rose under foot and dashed for the nearest water; again a python wound its slow length across the path. Vegetation was equally gorgeous, always strange. He saw plants that stung more bitterly than insects; insects barely distinguishable from plants. Here a tree bore flowers instead of leaves; there flowers grew as large as trees. * * *

Birds, beasts, flowers--all were strange, all were wonderful.

HERMAN WHITAKER, in _The Planter._

JULY 26.

Sitting in the white-paved pergola at Montecito. with overhead a leafy shelter of pink-flowered pa.s.sifloras, looking out over the little lake, its surface dotted with water-lilies, its banks fringed with drooping shrubs and vines, the hum of the bee and the bird in the air--I looked down over a wonderful collection of nearly 200 rare palms and listened to the music that floated up from their waving branches like that of a thousand silken-stringed eolian harp; and there came into my mind visions of a people that shall be strong with the strength of great hills, calm with the calm of a fair sea, united as are at last the palm and the pine, mighty with the presence of G.o.d.

BELLE SUMNER ANGIER, in _The Garden Book of California._

JULY 27.

THE GIANT SEQUOIAS.

O lofty giants of the elder prime!

How may the feeble lips, of mortal, rhyme A measure fitted to thy statures grand, As like a gathering of G.o.ds ye stand And raise your solemn arms up to the skies, While through your leaves pour Ocean's symphonies!

What Druid lore ye know! What ancient rites-- Gray guardians of ten thousand days and nights, Watching the stars swim round their sapphire pole, The ocean surges break about earth's br.i.m.m.i.n.g bowl.

The cyclone's driving swirl, the storm-tossed seas.

Hymning for aye their myriad litanies!

What dawn of Life saw ye, Grand Prophets old?

What pristine years? What advents manifold?

When first the glaciers in their icy throes Were grinding thy repasts; and feeding thee with snows?

What earthquake shocks? What changes of the sun?

While ye laughed down their wrack and builded on!

JOHN WARD STIMSON, in _Wandering Chords._

JULY 28.

High above on the western cliff a giant head of cactus reared infernal arms and luminous bloom. One immense clump threw a shadow across the cliff road where it leaves the river plain and winds along the canyon to the mesa above the sea--the road over which in the old days the Mission Indians bore hides to the ships and flung them from the cliffs to the waiting boats below.

MARAH ELLIS RYAN, in _For the Soul of Rafael._