ANDREW FURUSETH.

JULY 3.

Above an elevation of four thousand feet timber is quite abundant.  Along the river-bottoms and low grounds the sycamore is found as clean-limbed, tall and stately as elsewhere.  The cottonwood, too, is common, though generally dwarfed, scraggy and full of dead limbs.  A willow still more scraggy, and having many limbs destroyed with mistletoe, is often found in the same places.  The elder rises above the dignity of a shrub, or under-shrub, but can hardly be found a respectable tree.  Two varieties of oak are common, and the alder forms here a fine tree along the higher water-courses.

T.S.  VAN DYKE,
in Southern California.

JULY 4.

A WESTERN FOURTH.

  Here, where Peralta’s cattle used to stray;
  Here, where the Spaniards in their early day
  Rode, jingling, booted, spurred, nor ever guessed
  Our race would own the land by them possessed;
  Here, where Castilian bull-fights left their stain
  Of blood upon the soil of this New Spain;
  Here, where old live-oaks, spared till we condemn. 
  Still wait within this city named for them—­
  We celebrate, with bombshell and with rhyme
  Our noisiest Day of Days of yearly time! 
  O bare Antonio’s hills that rim our sky—­
  Antonio’s hills, that used to know July
  As but a time of sleep beneath the sun—­
  Such days of languorous dreaming are all done!

MARY BAMFORD,
in Fourth of July Celebration, Oakland, 1902.

JULY 5.

THE LIVE-OAKS.

  In massy green, upon the crest
  Of many a slanting hill,
  By gentle wind and sun caressed,
  The live-oaks carry still
  A ponderous head, a sinewy breast,
  A look of tameless will. 
  They plant their roots full firmly deep,
  As for the avalanche;
  And warily and strongly creep
  Their slow trunks to the branch;
  A subtle, devious way they keep,
  Thrice cautious to be stanch. 
  A mighty hospitality
  At last the builders yield,
  For man and horse and bird and bee
  A hospice and a shield,
  Whose monolithic mystery
  A curious power concealed.

RUBY ARCHER,
in Los Angeles Times.

JULY 6.

FATE AND I.

  “Thine the fault, not mine,” I cried. 
  Brooding bitterly,
  And Fate looked grim and once again
  Closed in and grappled me. 
  “Mine, not thine, the fault,” I said,
  Discerning verity,
  And Fate arose and clasped my hand
  And made a man of me.

HAROLD S. SYMMES,
in The American Magazine, April, 1909.

JULY 7.