The California Birthday Book Part 10

MARCH 13.

HER KING.

A winsome maiden planned her life-- How, when she was her hero's wife, He should be royal among men, And worthy of a diadem.

Through all the devious ways of earth She sought her king; The snows of Winter fell before-- She walked o'er flowers of vanished Spring Into the Summer's fragrant heat; She bent her quest, with rapid feet, Then saddened; still she journeyed down The Autumn hillsides, bare and brown, Through shadowy eves and golden morns; And lo! she found him--crowned with thorns.

ANNA MORRISON REED.

MARCH 14.

The area of San Francis...o...b..y proper is two hundred and ninety square miles; the area of San Pablo Bay, Carquinez Straits, and Mare Island, thirty square miles; the area of Suisun Bay, to the confluence of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, is sixty-three square miles. The total bay area is therefore four hundred and eighty square miles; and there are hundreds of miles of slough, river, and creek. A yachtsman, starting from Alviso, at the southern end of the bay, may sail in one general direction one hundred and fifty-four miles to Sacramento, before turning. All of this, of course, in inland waters.

CHARLES G. YALE, in _The Californian._

MARCH 15.

It was the green heart of the canyon, where the walls swerved back from the rigid plain and relieved their harshness of line by making a little sheltered nook and filling it to the brim with sweetness and roundness and softness. Here all things rested. Even the narrow stream ceased its turbulent down-rush long enough to form a quiet pool.

Knee-deep in the water, with drooping head and half-shut eyes, drowsed a red-coated, many-antlered buck.

On one side, beginning at the very lip of the pool, was a tiny meadow, a cool, resilient surface of green, that extended to the base of the frowning wall. Beyond the pool a gentle slope of earth ran up and up to meet the opposing wall. Fine gra.s.s covered the slope--gra.s.s that was spangled with flowers, with here and there patches of color, orange and purple and golden. Below, the canyon was shut in. There was no view. The walls leaned together abruptly and the canyon ended in a chaos of rocks, moss-covered and hidden by a green screen of vines and creepers and boughs of trees. Up the canyon rose far hills and peaks, the big foot-hills, pine covered and remote. And far beyond, like clouds upon the border of the sky, towered minarets of white, where the Sierra's eternal snows flashed austerely the blazes of the sun.

JACK LONDON, in _All Gold Canyon._

MARCH 16.

Except you are kindred with those who have speech with great s.p.a.ces, and the four winds of the earth, and the infinite arch of G.o.d's sky, you shall not have understanding of the desert's lure.

IDAH MEACHAM STROBRIDGE, in _Miner's Mirage Land._

MARCH 17.

ST. PATRICK'S DAY IN CALIFORNIA.

This day we celebrate is a day of faith, faith in G.o.d and the motherland. It is a day of grat.i.tude to the G.o.d whose grace brought our fathers into the Christian life, a day of grat.i.tude to the nations which received our fathers and blessed them with the privileges of citizens.h.i.+p. Let us not mind the minor chord of sorrow and persecution. Let us rather take the major chord of glory and of honor, and from the days of scholars.h.i.+p and of freedom to the present moment of a world's national power, let us chant the hymns of glory and sing of victory.

BISHOP THOMAS J. CONATY.

MARCH 18.

Said one, who upward turned his eye, To scan the trunks from earth to sky: "These trees, no doubt, well rooted grew When ancient Nineveh was new; And down the vale long shadows cast When Moses out of Egypt pa.s.sed, And o'er the heads of Pharaoh's slaves And soldiers rolled the Red Sea waves."

"How must the timid rabbit shake, The fox within his burrow quake, The deer start up with quivering hide To gaze in terror every side, The quail forsake the trembling spray, When these old roots at last give way, And to the earth the monarch drops To jar the distant mountain-tops."

PALMER c.o.x, in _The Brownies Through California._

MARCH 19 AND MARCH 20.

A WINDOW AND A TREE IN ALTADENA.

By my window a magician, breathing whispers of enchantment, Stands and waves a wand above me till the flowing of my soul, Like the tide's deep rhythm, rises in successive swells that widen All my circ.u.mscribed horizon, till the finite fades away; And the fountains of my being in their innermost recesses Are unsealed, and as the seas sweep, sweep the waters of my soul Till they reach the sh.o.r.es of Heaven and with ebb-tide bear a pearl Back in to the heart's safe-keeping, where no thieves break through nor steal.

By my window stands confessor with his hands outstretched to bless me, And on bended knee I listen to his low "Absolvo te."

Ne'er was ma.s.s more sacramental, ne'er confessional more solemn, And the benediction given ne'er shall leave my shriven soul.

Just a tree beside my window--just a symbol sent from Heaven-- But with Proteus power it ever changes meaning--changes form-- And it speaks with tongues of angels, and it prophesies the rising Of the day-star which shall s.h.i.+ne out from divinity in man.

LANNIE HAYNES MARTIN.

MARCH 21.

IN THE REDWOOD CANYONS.

Down in the redwood canyons cool and deep, The shadows of the forest ever sleep; The odorous redwoods, wet with fog and dew, Touch with the bay and mingle with the yew.

Under the firs the red madrona s.h.i.+nes, The graceful tan-oaks, fairest of them all, Lean lovingly unto the st.u.r.dy pines, In whose far tops the birds of pa.s.sage call.

Here, where the forest shadows ever sleep, The mountain-lily lifts its chalice white; The myriad ferns hang draperies soft and white Thick on each mossy bank and watered steep, Where slender deer tread softly in the night-- Down in the redwood canyons dark and deep.

LILLIAN H. SHUEY, in _Among the Redwoods._

MARCH 22.