The California Birthday Book | Page 3

our work is done.
JEROME A. HART,
in Argonaut Letters.
JANUARY 9.
GIVE ME CALIFORNY.
Blizzard back in York state
Sings its frosty tune,
Here the sun
a-shinin',
Air as warm as June.
Snow in Pennsylvany,
Zero times
down East,
Here the flowers bloomin',
A feller's eyes to feast.

Its every one his own way,
The place he'd like to be,
But give me
Californy--
It's good enough for me.

JOHN S. MCGROARTY,
in Just California.
JANUARY 10.
If Mother Nature is indeed as we see her here, broad-browed and
broad-bosomed, strong and calm--calm because strong--swaying her
vain brats by unruffled love, not by fear; by wise giving, not by
privation; by caresses and gentle precepts, not by cuffs and scoldings
and hysterics--why, then she shall better justify our memories and the
name we have given her. It is well that our New England mothers had a
different climate in their hearts from that which beat at their windows. I
know one Yankee boy who never could quite understand that his
mother had gone home till he came to know the skies of California.
CHARLES F. LUMMIS,
in _The Right Hand of the Continent, Out
West,
June_, 1902.
JANUARY 11.
California, the orchid in the garden of the states, the warm motherland
of genius, the land of enchantment, the land of romance, the land of
magic; California, the beautiful courtezan land, whose ravishing form
the enamored gods had strewed with scarlet roses and white lilies, and
buried deep in her bosom rich treasure; California began the twentieth
century with another tale, fantastic, incredible. * * *
Until the oil was discovered the land had been worth from one to four
dollars an acre, but now offers were made for it from five hundred to as
many thousands.
MRS. FREMONT OLDER,
in The Giants.
JANUARY 12.
A CALIFORNIAN TO HIS OLD HOME.
I oft feel sad and lone and cold
Here in the Golden West,
When I
recall the times of old,
And fond hearts laid to rest;
The gladsome

village crowd at e'en,
The stars a-peeping down,
And all the
meadows robed in green
Around Claremorris Town.

This is, in truth, a lovely sphere,
A heaven-favored clime,
Here
Nature smiles the whole long year,
'Tis summer all the time,
With
spreading palms and pine trees tall
And grape-vines drooping down--

But gladly would I give them all
For you, Claremorris Town.
LAURENCE BRANNICK.
JANUARY 13.
The establishment of the Mission of Santa Catarina marks the close of
what may well be termed the third period of Lower California history.
It is a period remarkable for progress rather than for individual actors.
The great Junipero Serra passes quickly across the stage, figuring as a
man of physical endurance and a diplomat--not as an explorer or a
founder of many missions. His most historic act on the Peninsula was
performed when he drew a line of division between the territory of the
Dominicans and the Franciscans. He is a link between the two
Californias.
ARTHUR W. NORTH,
in The Mother of California.
JANUARY 14.
TO THE U.S. CRUISER CALIFORNIA.
Godspeed our namesake cruiser,
Godspeed till the echoes cease

'Fore all may the nation choose her
To speak her will for peace.

That she in the hour of battle
Her western fangs may show.
That
from her broadsides' rattle
A listening world may know--
She's
more than a fighting vessel,
More than mere moving steel,
More
than a hull to wrestle
With the currents at her keel;
That she bodies
a living-spirit.
The spirit of a state,
A people's strength and merit,


Their hope, their love, their fate.
HAROLD S. SYMMES.
JANUARY 15.
CALIFORNIA AND ITALY.
More and more it becomes apparent to me that the Climate of
California spoils one for any other in the world. If Californians ever
doubt that their winter weather is the finest in the world, let them try
that of sunny Italy. If they have ever grumbled at their gentle rains,
brought on the wings of mild winds from the south, let them try the raw
rain, hail, snow, and sleet storms of sunny Italy. And then forever after
let them hold their peace.
JEROME A. HART,
in Argonaut Letters.
JANUARY 16.
I see thee in this Hellas of the West,
Thy youngest, fairest child, upon
whose crest
Thy white snows gleam, and at whose dimpled feet
The
blue sea breaks, while on her heaving breast
The flowers droop and
languish for her smile,
Thy grace is mirrored in her youthful form,

She lifts her forehead to the battling storm,
As proud, as fair as thou.

Like thee, she opens wide her snowy arms,
And folds the Nations on
her mother-breast.
The brawny Sons of Earth have made their home

Where her wide Ocean casts its ceaseless foam,
Where lifts her
white Sierras' orient peak
The wild exultant love of all that makes

The nobler life; the energy that shakes the Earth
And gives new eons
birth.
S.A.S.H. of College of Notre Dame, San Jose,
in Hellas.

JANUARY 17.
THE RETURN TO CALIFORNIA.
Across the desert waste we sped;
The cactus gloomed on either hand,

Wild, weird, grotesque each frowning