uncertain and vicious temper it was annoyed, then maddened by being
held by something it could not see, and dropping into the water it
dashed away in blind fear and fury, still feeling the strange, uncanny
check which seemed to follow it as a sheet of foam. Cutting the water
one hundred, two hundred feet, it shot ahead with the speed of light,
then still held, still in the toils, it again sprang into the air
with frenzied shake and twist, whirling itself from side to side,
striking terrific blows in search of the invisible enemy. Falling,
the swordfish plunged downward, and reached two hundred feet below
the surface and the bottom, then turned, and rose with a mighty
rush, going high into the air again, whirling itself completely over
in its madness, so that it fell upon its back, beating the sea into
a maelstrom of foam and spume, in its blind and savage fury.
CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in _Big Game at Sea._
MAY 18.
One is disposed to put "climate" in the plural when writing of so
large a state as California and one so wonderfully endowed with
conditions which make health, comfort and beauty in all seasons. Its
great length of coast-line and its mountain ranges irregularly
paralleling that, offer a wealth of resource in varying temperature,
altitudes, shelter from the sea breezes or exposure to them, perhaps
unequaled by any state in the union, or indeed by any country in the
world.
MADAME CAROLINE SEVERANCE,
in _The Mother of Clubs._
MAY 19.
A GLOUCESTER SKIPPER'S SONG.
Oh, the roar of shoaling waters, and the awful, awful sea,
Busted shrouds and parting cables, and the white death on our lee!
Oh, the black, black night on Georges, when eight score men were lost!
Were ye there, ye men of Gloucester? Aye, ye were; and tossed
Like chips upon the water were your little craft that night--
Driving, swearing, calling out, but ne'er a call of fright.
So knowing ye for what ye are, ye masters of the sea,
Here's to ye, Gloucester fishermen, a health to ye from me!
JAMES B. CONNOLLY,
in _Scribner's, May_, 1904.
MAY 20.
DEDICATION TO HIS FIRST BOOK.
* * * It is the proudest boast of the profession of literature, that
no man ever published a book for selfish purposes or with ignoble aim.
Books have been published for the consolation of the distressed; for
the guidance of the wandering; for the relief of the destitute; for
the hope of the penitent; for uplifting the burdened soul above its
sorrows and fears; for the general amelioration of the condition of
all mankind; for the right against the wrong; for the good against,
the bad; for the truth. This book is published for two dollars per
volume.
ROBERT J. BURDETTE,
in _The Rise and Fall of the Mustache._
MAY 21.
THE YOSEMITE ROAD.
There at last are the snow-peaks, in virginal chastity standing!
Through the nut-pines I see them, their ridges expanding.
Ye peaks! from celestial sanctities benisons casting,
Ye know not your puissant influence, lifting and lasting;
Nothing factitious, self-conscious or impious bides in you;
On your high serenities
No hollow amenities
Nor worldly impurities cast their dread blight;
August and courageous, you stand for the right;
The gods love you and lend you their soft robes of white.
BAILEY MILLARD,
in _Songs of the Press._
MAY 22.
ON THE STEPS OF THE LECONTE MEMORIAL LODGE, YOSEMITE VALLEY.
I wonder not, whether it is well with this true seer,
Who saw, while dwelling in the flesh, foundations strong and broad;
I do not doubt that when he ceased to worship in this temple,
Serene, he passed from beauty unto beauty, from God to God.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
Within, a whole rainbow is condensed in one of these magnificent
shells.
JOSIAH KEEP,
in _West Coast Shells._
MAY 23.
TO YOSEMITE.
The silence of the centuries,
The calm where doubtings cease,
And over all the brooding of God's presence
And the spell of perfect peace!
O Granite Cliffs that steadfast face the dawn,
O Forest Kings that heard Creation's sigh!
Teach me thy simple creed, that, living, I
May live like thee, and as serenely die!
E.F. GREEN.
TO THE UNNAMED FALL IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY.
Thou needest not that any man should name thee;
God counts thine ethereal jewels, one by one;
And, lest some selfish, inappropriate word should claim thee,
Silent, we watch thee sparkle in the sun.
BENJAMIN FAY MILLS.
MAY 24.
The white man calls it Bridal Veil. To the Indian it is Po-ho-no,
Spirit of the Evil Wind.
The white man, in passing, pauses to watch the filmy cloud that hangs
there like a thousand yards of tulle flung from the crest of the rocky
precipice, wafted outward by the breeze that blows ever and always
across the Bridal Veil Meadows. By the light of the mid-afternoon the
veil seems caught half-way with a clasp of bridal gems, seven-hued,
evanescent; now glowing with color, now fading to clear white sun rays
before the eye.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
MAY 25.
MATCHLESS YOSEMITE.
High on Cloud's Rest, behind the misty screen,
Thy Genius sits! The secrets of thy birth
Within its bosom locked! What power can rend
The veil, and bid it speak--that spirit dumb,
Between two worlds, enthroned upon a Sphinx?
Guard well thine own, thou mystic spirit! Let
One place remain where Husbandry shall fear
To tread! One spot on earth inviolate,
As it was fashioned in eternity!
FRED EMERSON BROOKS,
in _Old Abe and Other Poems._
You ask for my picture. I have never had one taken. I have my reasons.
One is that a man always seems to me most of an ass when smirking on
cardboard.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _Rulers of Kings._
MAY 26.
INVITATION TO AN INDIAN FEAST IN YOSEMITE.
As the time of the feast drew near, runners were sent across the
mountains, carrying a bundle of willow sticks, or a sinew cord or leaf
of dried grass tied with knots, that the Monos might know how many
suns must cross the sky before they should go to Ah-wah-nee to share
the feast of venison with their neighbors. And the Monos gathered
together baskets of pinion nuts, and obsidian arrow-heads, and strings
of shells, to carry with them to give in return for acorns and
chinquapin nuts and basket willow.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
MAY 27.
It is owing to the ever active missionary spirit among the Friars
Minor (Franciscans) that millions upon millions of American Indians
have obtained the Christian faith. The children of St. Francis were,
indeed, the principal factors in the very discovery of America,
inasmuch as the persons most prominently connected with that event
belonged to the Seraphic Family. Fr. Juan Perez de Marchena, the
friend and counsellor of Christopher Columbus, was the guardian or
superior of the Franciscan monastery at La Rabida; * * * and the great
navigator likewise belonged to the Third Order.
FR. ZEPHYRIN,
in _Missions and Missionaries of California._
MAY 28.
JUNIPERO SERRA.
Not with the clash of arms or conquering fleet
He came, who first upon this kindly shore
Planted the Cross. No heralds walked before;
But, as the Master bade, with sandalled feet,
Weary and bleeding oft, he crossed the wild.
Carrying glad tidings to the untutored child
Of Nature; and that gracious mother smiled,
And made the dreary waste to bloom once more.
Silently, selflessly he went and came;
He sought to live and die unheard of men--
Praise made his pale cheek glow as if with shame.
A hundred years and more have passed since then.
And yet the imprint of his feet today
Is traced in flowers from here to Monterey.
MARY E. MANNIX.
MAY 29.
San Gabriel!
I stand and wonder at thy walls
So old, so quaint; a glory falls
Upon them as I view the past.
And read the story which thou hast
Preserved so well.
* * * * *
San Gabriel!
What souls were they who fashioned thee
To be a blessed charity!
What faith was theirs who bore the cross,
And counted wealth and ease but loss,
Of Christ to tell!
* * * * *
San Gabriel!
A glamour of the ancient time
Remains with thee! Thou hast the rhyme
Of some old poem, and the scent
Of some old rose's ravishment
Naught can dispel!
* * * * *
LYMAN WHITNEY ALLEN,
in _A Parable of the Rose._
MAY 30.
Wherever a green blade looks up,
A leaf lisps mystery,
Whereso a blossom holds its cup
A mist rings land or sea,
Wherever voice doth utter sound
Or silence make her round--
There worship; it is holy ground.
JOHN VANCE CHENEY,
_The Grace of the Ground_, in _Poems._
MAY 31.
TO MOUNT WILSON.
Thou mystic one! Thou prophet hoar!
Thy teachings quicken--man's shall fade.
Ere man was dust thou wert before;
Thy bosom for his resting place was made.
And when thou tak'st in thy embrace
And hold'st me up against the sky
And Earth's fair 'broideries I trace--
All girdled in by circling bands that tie
Unto her side my destiny--
Then unto me thou dost make clear
Why with Life's essence here I'm thrilled.
Then all thy prophecies I hear,
And in my being feel them all fulfilled.
And as the narrow rim of eye
Contains the vast and all-encircling sky.
So in the confines of the soul
The undulating universe may roll.
And out in space, my soul set free,
I turn an astral forged key
Which opes the door 'twixt God and me,
I hear the secrets of Eternity!
In Immortality I trust,
Believing that the cosmic dust--
Alike in man and skies star-sown--
Is pollen from the Amaranth blown.
LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.
Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the sea
'Gainst pale light a shape Morisco wrought in faded tapestry.
'Neath Mt. Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the storied pile,
And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the while.
* * * * *
Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds mark every
side,
And where once the busy courtyard searching winds find crevice wide.
* * * * *
AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL,
in _A California Pilgrimage._
JUNE 1.
In fifteen years the Mission of San Juan Bautista had erected one of
the most beautiful and ornate chapels in Alta California, which,
together with the necessary buildings for the padres, living rooms and
dormitories for the neophytes, storehouses and corrals for the grain
and cattle, formed three sides of a patio two hundred feet square,
with the corrals leading away beyond. The Indians, with only a few
teachers and helpers, had done all this work.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 2.
From his (the Indian's) point of view there is perhaps love; even,
it may be, romance. Much depends upon the standpoint one takes. The
hills that look high from the valley, seem low looking down from
the mountain. * * * For the world over, under white skin or skin
of bronze-brown, the human heart throbs the same; for we are
brothers--aye, brothers all!
IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE,
in _Loom of the Desert._
We had seen the spire of the Episcopal Church, which forms so pleasing
a feature in the bosom of the valley, pale and fade from sight; the
lofty walls of the old Mission of San Gabriel were no longer visible
Suddenly from out the silence and gathering shades fell upon our ears
a chime so musical and sweet, so spiritually clear and delicate, that
had honest John Bunyan heard it he might well have deemed himself
arrived at the land of Beulah. * * * It was the hour of vespers at
the Old Mission.
BEN C. TRUMAN,
in _Semi-Tropical California._
JUNE 3.
The Mission San Gabriel and its quadrangle of buildings made a
beautiful picture. It nestled against distant hills, and neither stood
out from the dim background nor entirely melted within it. It
attracted the eye--this pink, yellow-gray of the little stone church
crowned with dull-reddish tile, and supported by a bulwark of quaint
buttresses. The picture was perfect--but since then the chill hands of
both temblor and tempest have touched rudely the charm and blighted
the pride of all of the California Missions--San Gabriel Archangel.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 4.
Obey my word, O Ten-ie-ya, and your people shall be many as the blades
of grass, and none shall dare to bring war unto Ah-wah-nee. But look
you ever, my son, against the white horsemen of the great plains
beyond, for once they have crossed the western mountains, your tribe
will scatter as the dust before the desert wind, and never come
together again.
BERTHA H. SMITH,
in _Yosemite Legends._
San Juan, Aunt Phoebe, is one of the places where there is an old
Mission. People in this country (California) think a great deal of
them. I've remarked to Ephraim, "Many's the time," says I, "that the
Missions seem to do more real good than the churches. They get hold of
the people better, somehow. I'll be real glad to set me down in one,
and I do hope they'll have some real lively hymns to kind of cheer us
up."
ALBERTA LAWRENCE,
in _The Travels of Phoebe Ann._
JUNE 5.
In proper California fashion we made our nooning by the roadside,
pulling up under the shade of a hospitable sycamore and turning
Sorreltop out to graze. We drew water from a traveling little river
close at hand, made a bit of camp-fire with dry sticks that lay about,
and in half an hour were partaking of chops and potatoes and tea to
the great comfort of our physical nature.
CHARLES FRANCIS SAUNDERS,
in _A Pala Pilgrimage, The Travel Magazine._
JUNE 6.
Yellow-white the Mission gleamed like an opal in a setting of velvety
ranges under turquoise skies. About its walls were the clustered
adobes of the Mexicans, like children creeping close to the feet of
the one mother; and beyond that the illimitable ranges of mesa and
valley, of live-oak groves and knee-deep meadows, of countless springs
and canyons of mystery, whence gold was washed in the freshets; and
over all, eloquent, insistent, appealing, the note of the meadow-lark
cutting clearly through the hoof-beats of the herd and the calls of
the vaqueros.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
The missions should be thought of today as they were at their best,
when, after thirty years of struggle and hardship, they had attained
the height of their usefulness, which was followed by thirty years of
increase and prosperity, material as well as spiritual--the proud
outcome of so humble a beginning--before their final passing away.
CHARLES FRANKLIN CARTER,
in _The Missions of Nueva California._
JUNE 7.
Already the Emperor has given to us many fine paintings, vestments and
a chime of sweetest bells. How we long to hear them calling out over
the sea of vast silence, turning the white quiet into coral hues of
deeper thrill! The church bells singing to the people of Al-lak-shak,
recall the wandering Padres' labors among your thousands here in
California. Those who cannot understand the great words of the
teachers may look upon the beauteous pictures of the Madonna and the
Child; all can understand that love.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Mission Tales in the Days of the Dons._
JUNE 8.
JUNE. (IN CALIFORNIA.)
Oh June! thou comest once again
With bales of hay and sheaves of grain,
That make the farmer's heart rejoice,
And anxious herds lift up their voice.
I hear thy promise, sunny maid,
Sound in the reapers' ringing blade.
And in the laden harvest wain
That rumbles through the stubble plain.
Ye tell a tale of bearded stacks.
Of busy mills and floury sacks,
Of cars oppressed with cumbrous loads,
Hard curving down their iron roads
Of vessels speeding to the breeze.
Their snowy sails in stormy seas.
While bearing to some foreign land
The products of this Golden Strand.
PALMER COX,
in _Comic Yarns._
JUNE 9.
MADAME MODJESKA'S DEVOTION TO THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
During the hey-day of A.P.A.-ism in this section, Madame Modjeska
returned from a triumphant tour and played for a week in Los Angeles.
* * * She selected as her principal piece--Mary Stuart. * * * At the
final scene of the play, as Mary Stuart passes out to her execution,
Modjeska in the title-role held us spellbound by the intense emotions
of the situation. The sight of her beautiful face, upturned to heaven,
showing the expression of the zeal and fervor of her Catholic heart,
was intensified by the manner in which she carried the crucifix and
rosary in her hand, and was the last glimpse of her as she disappeared
from the stage. There was a thrill passed over the audience, which had
its effect, not only upon the unbeliever, but likewise upon the
pusillanimous member of the church.
JOSEPH SCOTT,
in _The Tidings._
JUNE 10.
The Mission floor was with weeds o'ergrown,
And crumbling and shaky its walls of stone;
Its roof of tiles, in tiers on tiers,
Had stood the storms of a hundred years.
An olden, weird, medieval style
Clung to the mouldering, gloomy pile,
And the rhythmic voice of the breaking waves
Sang a lonesome dirge in its land of graves.
Strangely awed I felt, that day,
As I walked in the Mission old and gray--
The Mission Carmel at Monterey.
MADGE MORRIS WAGNER,
in _Mystery of Carmel._
JUNE 11.
Up to the American invasion, the traveler in California found welcome
in whatsoever house. Not food and bed and tolerance only, but warm
hearts and home. Fresh clothing was laid out in his chamber. His jaded
horse went to the fenceless pasture; a new and probably better steed
was saddled at the door when the day came that he must go. And in the
houses which had it, a casual fistful of silver lay upon his table,
from which he was expected to help himself against his present needs.
It was a society in which hotels could not survive (even long after
they were attempted) because every home was open to the stranger; and
orphan asylums were impossible. Not because fathers and mothers never
died, but because no one was civilized enough to shirk orphans.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS.
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out West,
August_, 1892.
JUNE 12.
Go as far as you dare in the heart of a lonely land, you cannot go so
far that life and death are not before you. Painted lizards slip in
and out of rock crevices, and pant on the white-hot sands. Birds,
humming-birds even, nest in the cactus scrub; woodpeckers befriend the
demoniac yuccas; out of the stark, treeless waste rings the music of
the night-singing mocking bird. If it be summer and the sun well down,
there will be a burrowing owl to call. Strange, furry, tricksey things
dart across the open places, or sit motionless in the conning towers
of the creosote.
MARY AUSTIN,
in _The Land of Little Rain._
JUNE 13.
EL CAMINO REAL.
_El Camino Real_--"The Royal Road," is the poetic name given to
the original government road of Spanish California that joined the
missions from San Diego to San Francisco de Solano. The route selected
by the Franciscan Fathers was the most direct road that was
practicable, connecting their four Presidios, three Pueblos and
twenty-one Missions. By restoring this road and making it a State
Highway with the twenty-one missions as stations, California will
come to possess the most historic, picturesque, romantic and unique
boulevard in the world.
MRS. A.S.C. FORBES,
in _Missions and Landmarks._
JUNE 14.
Because we have such faith in the charms of California; because we
have such faith in the future of our city that we believe that once
strangers come here they will remain in it, as of old the hero
remained in the land of the ever-young; because we believe that this
state can support ten, aye, twenty times its present population, we
extend an invitation to all home-seekers, no matter where found. Come
to California! Its valleys are wide open for all to come through and
build therein their homes of peace. Its coasts teem with wealth. The
riches of its mountains have not been half exploited. We believe that
all that is necessary to fill this State with a great and prosperous
population is that the people should see the State and know it as it
is.
FATHER P.C. YORKE,
in _The Warder of Two Continents._
JUNE 15.
EL CAMINO REAL.
It's a long road and sunny, and the fairest in the world--
There are peaks that rise above it in their sunny mantles curled,
And it leads from the mountains through a hedge of chaparral,
Down to the waters where the sea gulls call.
It's a long road and sunny, it's a long road and old.
And the brown padres made it for the flocks of the fold;
They made it for the sandals of the sinner-folk that trod
From the fields in the open to the shelter-house of God.
* * * * *
We will take the road together through the morning's golden glow,
And will dream of those who trod it in the mellowed long ago.
JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in _Just California._
JUNE 16.
Mrs. Bryton surveyed the coarse furnishings of the adobe with disgust
as she was led to the one room where she could secure sleeping
accommodation. It contained three beds with as many different colored
spreads, queer little pillows, and drawn-work on one towel hanging on
a nail. The floor had once been tiled with square mission bricks; but
many were broken, some were gone, and the empty spaces were so many
traps for unwary feet.
MARAH ELLIS RYAN,
in _For the Soul of Rafael._
JUNE 17.
Of all the old grandees who, not forty years before, had called the
Californias their own; living a life of Arcadian magnificence,
troubled by few cares, a life of riding over vast estates clad in silk
and lace, _botas_ and _sombreros_, mounted upon steeds as
gorgeously caparisoned as themselves, eating, drinking, serenading at
the gratings of beautiful women, gambling, horse-racing, taking part
in splendid religious festivals, with only the languid excitement of
an occasional war between rival governors to disturb the placid
surface of their lives--of them all Don Roberto was a man of wealth
and consequence today.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _The Californians._
JUNE 18.
The house was a ruinous adobe in the old Mexican quarter of Los
Angeles. The great, bare, whitewashed room contained only the altar
and a long mirror in a tarnished gilt frame; one, the symbol of
earthly vanity; the other, the very portal of heaven. All the carved
mahogany furniture had long since gone to buy food and charcoal or a
rare black gown.
AMANDA MATHEWS,
in _The Old Pueblo._
All sorts of men came here in early days--poor men of good family who
had failed at home, or were too proud to work there; desperadoes,
adventurers, men of middle life and broken fortunes--all of them
expecting everything from the new land, and ready to tear the heart
out of any one who got in their way. * * * Of course, there are
Californians and Californians.
GERTRUDE ATHERTON,
in _A Whirl Asunder._
JUNE 19.
Beneath the surface--ah, there lie a numerous host, sad relics of
bygone times. In our cities in poverty, wretchedness, and, alas! too
often in dissipation, or, happier fate, in canyon or on hillside where
woodman's axe is heard, one may find men wearily, sadly, often
faithfully performing their daily labor who were born heirs to leagues
of land where ranged mighty herds of cattle and horses--men who as
boys, perhaps, played their games of quoits with golden slugs from the
Indian baskets sitting about the courtyard of their fathers' houses.
HELEN ELLIOTT BANDINI,
in _Some of Our Spanish Families._
JUNE 20.
Jameson's cord led out to the Spanish quarter. Some old senoras, their
heads covered with shawls, their clothes redolent with the smell of
garlic, from time to time shambled across his pathway. They were heavy
old women, in worn flapping slippers and uncorseted figures. * * *
With them, this saying, "It is time to be old," to throw down the game
like some startled player, and cast one's self on the mercies of the
Virgin, had come twenty years or so before it should.
FRANCES CHARLES,
in _The Siege of Youth._
A JUNE WEDDING.
The sweetheart of Summer weds today--
Pride of the Wild Rose clan:
A Butterfly fay
For a bridesmaid gay,
And a Bumblebee for best man.
CHARLES ELMER JENNEY,
in _Out West, June_, 1902.
JUNE 21.
They went to a one-room adobe on the plaza. A rich, greasy odor came
out from it with puffs of the onion-laden smoke of frying things which
blurred the light of the one candle set in the neck of a bottle. * * *
In the centre of the floor a circle of blackened stones held a fire of
wood coals, on the top of which rested a big clay griddle. Cakes of
ground corn were frying there, and on the stove were _enchiladas_
and _tamales_ and _chili-con-carne_ being kept warm. The air
was thick with the pungent, strong smells.
GWENDOLEN OVERTON,
in _The Golden Chain._
JUNE 22.
The homely house furnishings seemed to leap out of the darkness; the
stove, the littered table, and the couch, the iron crucifix, and the
carved cradle in the corner--all his long life Juan will see them
so--and 'Cencion turned; the dusky veil was blown and rent like the
sea mist, revealing--Holy Mother of Heaven! her father, Cenaga, the
outlaw! Juan Lopez fell on his knees below the window, the smoking
rifle clattered from his broken grasp, and the missile sped, aimless
and harmless, high into the adobe wall.
GERTRUDE B. MILLARD,
in _An Outlaw's Daughter, S.F. Argonaut, Nov._, 1896.
IN HUMBOLDT.
Dim in the noonday fullness,
Dark in the day's sweet morn--
So sacred and deep are the canyons
Where the beautiful rivers are born.
LILLIAN H. SHUEY,
in _Among the Redwoods._
JUNE 23.