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FEBRUARY 6.
It is a peculiar feature of our sailing that within a few hours we may change our climate. Cool, windy, moist, in the lower bays; and hot, calm, and quiet in the rivers, creeks, and sloughs. As you go to Napa, for instance, the wind gradually lightens as the bay is left, the air is balmier, and finally the yacht is left becalmed. We can, moreover, in two hours run from salt into fresh water. In spring the water is fresh down into Suisun Bay; and at Antioch, fresh water is the rule.
The yachts frequently sail up there so that the barnacles will be killed by the fresh water.
CHARLES G. YALE, in _The Californian._
FEBRUARY 7.
Across San Pablo's heaving breast I see the home-lights gleam, As the sable garments of the night Drop down on vale and stream.
Hard by, yon vessel from the seas Her cargo homeward brings, And soon, like sea-bird on her nest, Will sleep with folded wings.
The fisher's boat swings in the bay, From yonder point below, While ours is drifting with the tide, And rocking to and fro.
LUCIUS HARWOOD FOOTE, in _A Red-Letter Day._
FEBRUARY 8.
A few years ago this valley of San Gabriel was a long open stretch of wavy slopes and low rolling hills; in winter robed in velvety green and spangled with myriads of flowers all strange to Eastern eyes; in summer brown with sun-dried gra.s.s, or silvery gray where the light rippled over the wild oats. Here and there stood groves of huge live-oaks, beneath whose broad, time-bowed heads thousands of cattle stamped away the noons of summer. Around the old mission, whose bells have rung o'er the valley for a century, a few houses were grouped; but beyond this there was scarcely a sign of man's work except the far-off speck of a herdsman looming in the mirage, or the white walls of the old Spanish ranch-house glimmering afar through the hazy sunshine in which the silent land lay always sleeping.
T.S. VAN d.y.k.e, in _Southern California._
FEBRUARY 9.
The surroundings of Monterey could not well be more beautiful if they had been gotten up to order. Hills, gently rising, the chain broken here and there by a more abrupt peak, environ the city, crowned with dark pines and the famous cypress of Monterey (_Cypressus macrocarpa_.) Before us the bay lies calm and blue, and away across, can be seen the town of Santa Cruz, an indistinct white gleam on the mountain side.
JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN, in _Another Juanita._
LOS ALTOS.
The lark sends up a carol blithe, Bloom-billows scent the breeze, Green-robed the rolling foot-hills rise And poppies paint the leas.
HANNA OTIS BRUN.
FEBRUARY 10.
SANTA BARBARA.
A golden bay 'neath soft blue skies, Where on a hillside creamy rise The mission towers, whose patron saint Is Barbara--with legend quaint.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI, in __History of California._
Dare to be free. Free to do the thing you crave to do and that craves the doing. Free to live in that higher realm where none is fit to criticise save one's self. Free to scorn ridicule, to face contempt, to brave remorse. Free to give life to the one human soul that can demand and grant such a boon--one's own self.
MIRIAM MICHELSON, in _Anthony Overman._
FEBRUARY 11.
In Carmel pines the summer wind Sings like a distant sea.
O harps of green, your murmurs find An echoing chord in me!
On Carmel sh.o.r.e the breakers moan Like pines that breast the gale.
O whence, ye winds and billows, flown To cry your wordless tale?
GEORGE STERLING, in _A Wine of Wizardry and Other Poems._
OAKLAND--BERKELEY--ALAMEDA.
O close-clasped towns across the bay, Whose lights like gleaming jewels stray, A ruby, golden, splendid way, When day from earth has flown.
I watch you lighting night by night, O twisted strands of jewels bright, The altar-fires of home, alight-- I who am all alone.
GRACE HIBBARD, in _Forget-me-nots from California._
FEBRUARY 12.
On the Berkeley Hills for miles away I went a-roaming one winter's day, And what do you think I saw, my dear?
A place where the sky came down to the hill, And a big white cloud on the fresh green gra.s.s, And bright red berries my basket to fill, And mustard that grew in a golden ma.s.s-- All on a winter's day, my dear!
CHARLES KEELER, in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._
FEBRUARY 13.
