The California Birthday Book Part 32

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 sh.o.r.e. 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, j.a.pan 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 cl.u.s.ters, 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 n.i.g.g.ardly 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 att.i.tudes and relationships "which are G.o.d's."

CHARLES REYNOLDS BROWN.