Sweetest little violet,
  Delight of every heart;
  No flow’ret rare is like thee fair,
  None praised as thou art.

BERTHA HIRSCH BARUCH.

AUGUST 8.

August is a word of dire import in the bird-lover’s calendar.  It means virtually the end of the bird season.  The wooing and nesting and rearing the family are all over, and now looms before the feathered population that annual trouble—­the change of dress, the only time in his life—­happy soul!—­that he has to concern himself about clothes.

In the business of getting a new suit he has more trouble than a fine lady, for he has to shake off the old garments, while getting the new, bit by bit, here a feather and there a feather, today a new wing-quill; tomorrow a new plume on his dainty breast.

OLIVE THORNE MILLER.

AUGUST 9.

CHILDREN IN A CALIFORNIA GARDEN.

Legendry and literature may be taught to your children in the garden.  Tell them the pretty story of how Cupid’s mother gave the rose its thorns; the tale of the sensitive plant; and point out to them the equipment of the cacti for their strange, hard life on the desert; the lovely human faces filled with the sweetness of remembrance that we find in the pansy bed.  Show them the delight of the swift-flying hummingbird in the red and yellow blossoms of the garden, and the sagacity of the oriole in building his nest near the lantana bush—­so attractive to the insects upon which the scamp feeds.

BELLE SUMNER ANGIER,
in The Garden Book of California.

AUGUST 10.

ON JOAQUIN MILLER.

  Sierra’s poet! high and pure thy muse
  Enthroned doth sit amongst the stars and snows;
  And from thy harp olympian music flows,
  Of glacier heights and gleaming mountain dews. 
  Of western sea and burning sunset hues. 
  And we who look up—­who on the plain repose,
  And catch faint glimpses of the mount that throws
    Athwart thy poet-sight diviner views. 
  And not alone from starry shrine is strung
  Thy lyre, but timed to gentler lay,
  That sings of children, motherhood and home,
  And lifts our hearts and lives to sweeter day. 
  Oh, bard of Nature’s heart! thy name will rest
    Immortal in thy land—­our Golden West!

DORA CURETON,
in Sunset Magazine.

AUGUST 11.

THE PESSIMIST.

The pessimist leads us into a land of desolation.  He makes for the sight blossoms of ugliness; for the smell repellant odors; for the taste bitterness and gall; for the hearing harsh discord, and death for the touch that is the only relief from a desert whose scrawny life lives but to distress us.