for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling
granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's
mountain streams--out of the earth washed into California's great
valleys by her mighty rivers--out of this the sons of California are
made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their
mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of
Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled
Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do
return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native
land--back to the soil which gave us birth--and at the last back to
Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we
repose our tired bodies when 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