The California Birthday Book Part 33

SEPTEMBER 10.

Gay little oriole, fond little lover, Watching thy mate o'er her tiny ones hover, Tell me, I pray, from your cottonwood tree, When will my true love come riding to me?

Will he come with his lariat hung at his side?

On a wild prancing bronco, my love, will he ride?

So high on your tree top you surely can see, O, how will my true love come riding to me?

Sing of my lover and tell me my fate, Will he guard me as fondly as thou dost thy mate?

Dear oriole, sing, while I listen to thee-- When will my true love come riding to me?

CHARLES KEELER, in _Overland Monthly._

SEPTEMBER 11.

LOOKING BACKWARD!

My heart aches, and a poignant yearning pains My pulse, as though from revel I had waked To find sore disenchantment.

Oh for the simple ways of childhood, And its joys!

Why have I grown so cold and cynical?

My life seems out of tune; Its notes harsh and discordant; The crowded thoroughfare doth fret me And make lonely.

Darkling I muse and yearn For those glad days of yore, When my part chorded too, And I, a merry, trustful boy, Found consonance in every friend without annoy.

Since then, how changed!

Strained are the strings of friends.h.i.+p; fled the joys; Seeming the show.

An alien I, unlike, alone!

And yet my mother! The welcome word o'erflows the eye, And makes the very memory weep.

No, love is not extinct--that sweetest name-- The covering ashes keep alive the flame.

MALCOLM McLEOD, in _Culture Simplicity._

SEPTEMBER 12.

The overgoing sun s.h.i.+nes upon no region, of equal extent, which offers so many and such varied inducements to men in search of homes and health, as does the region which is ent.i.tled to the appellation of "Semi-Tropical California."

BEN C. TRUMAN, in _Semi-Tropical California._

SEPTEMBER 13.

THE CRESTED JAY.

The jay is a jovial bird--heigh-ho!

He chatters all day In a frolicsome way With the murmuring breezes that blow--heigh-ho!

Hear him noisily call From a redwood tree tall To his mate in the opposite tree--heigh-ho!

Saying: "How do you do?"

As his top-knot of blue Is raised as polite as can be--heigh-ho!

O impudent jay, With your plumage so gay, And your manners so jaunty and free--heigh-ho!

How little you guessed When you robbed the wren's nest, That any stray fellow would see--heigh-ho!

CHARLES KEELER, in _Elfin Songs of Sunland._

SEPTEMBER 14.

It is to prevent the wholesale slaughter of songbirds that I appeal to you. The farmer or the fruit-raiser has not yet learned enough to distinguish friend from foe, and goes gunning in season and out of season, so that the cherry orchard, when the cherries are ripe, looks like a battle-field in miniature, the life-blood of the little slain birds rivaling in color the brightness of their wings and breast. And all this destruction of song, of gladness, of helpfulness, because the poor birds have pecked at a few early cherries, worthless, almost, in the market, as compared to the later, better kinds, which they do not interfere with.

JOSEPHINE CLIFFORD McCRACKIN.

SEPTEMBER 15.

THE VOICE OF THE CALIFORNIA DOVE.

Come, listen O love, to the voice of the dove, Come, hearken and hear him say, "There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love, There is only one Today."

And all day long you can hear him say, This day in purple is rolled, And the baby stars of the milky way They are cradled in cradles of gold.

Now what is thy secret, serene gray dove, Of singing so sweetly alway?

"There are many Tomorrows, my love, my love, There is only one Today."

JOAQUIN MILLER.

SEPTEMBER 16.

With the tip of his strong cane he breaks off a piece of the serried bark, and a spider scurries down the side of the log and into the gra.s.s. He chips off another piece, and a bevy of sow-bugs make haste to tumble over and play dead, curling their legs under their sides, but recovering their senses and scurrying off after the spider. The cane continues to chip off the bark, and down tumble all sorts of wood-people, some of them hiding like a flash in the first moist earth they come to; others never stopping until they are well under the log, where experience has taught them they will be safe out of harm's way.

And they declare to themselves, and to each other, that they will never budge from under that log until it is midnight, and that wicked meadow-lark is fast asleep.

ELIZABETH AND JOSEPH GRINNELL, in _Birds of Song and Story._

SEPTEMBER 17.