VOL. XXXIV

No. 204

S NOT Christmas a season of biting winds and whirling snow, of leafless trees and leaden skies, when the rivers are bridged with ice, and the handiwork of the frost has traced glittering patterns upon the window-panes? We who come from the North are prone to think it so. We picture the merry skaters, we hear the sound of sleigh-bells on the frosty air, and the witchery of the snow makes the landscape setting of all our Christmas dreams. But in California the great bulk of the people live in the valleys where snow seldom falls, and where the winter season is but the meeting-ground of autumn and spring. The traditions of generations are set at naught, and Santa Claus, if he is to visit us, must doff his fur coat and come rolling in on wheels.

There is a loss in all this, no doubt. I love to think of boyhood rambles along the edge of Lake Michigan, when the shore-ice was piled high with snow dunes and the keen wind swept from its Arctic stronghold over the open plains, of tramps upon the crusted snow beneath the leafless groves, following in the footsteps of the timid rabbit, or scanning the bare trees for a glimpse of some luckless butcher-bird or owl that might brave the inclement season. Yes, there is a charm in every aspect of Nature if we but go to her with open eyes and hearts, be she gentle or stern; but in California she is more prodigal of her gifts than in most lands. Do we miss the snow and bracing air of the home we have forsaken we need only go to the mountains to be buried beneath deeper drifts than New York has ever known. Here are concentrated all

seasons in one. At Christmas-time we may enjoy spring about San Francisco Bay, summer at San Diego, autumn in the foothills of Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, and winter in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Despite this diversity of climate, however, to most of us the old-time Christmas is little more than a happy memory of other days, and we have hardly learned as yet to adjust ourselves to the new. It is a simple matter to become physically acclimated in a new land, but to become traditionally acclimated requires generations. Children who have never seen a flake of snow must still adorn their Christmastrees with cotton and be entertained with picture-books of skaters and sleigh-riders. The new country demands a new child literature and a working over of the conceptions of Yule-tide, but before this can be done we must look abroad at nature and see what things surround us, we must see our hills and valleys in their winter raiment, we must know what birds are abroad and what flowers have opened their petals to the December rain; we must know what trees are in leaf and what the mice and squirrels are about during these days when the afternoon so early wanes into the twilight and the morning is so late in flushing the eastern sky.

In the valleys of California there is practically no winter, but there is nevertheless a very considerable diversity in the seasons. After the drought of summer, which leaves the grass parched and the frail wild flowers withered even along the coast where the heavy fog wraps the landscape in its folds, come the first autumn

rains. As the big drops splash upon the dusty roads and parched herbage, I fancy there is an answering thrill of life in many a dry clod. Certain it is that the magic of the rain calls forth the green blades from their slumber as if an enchanter's wand had been waved over the sere fields and hillsides. The ground is soaked by the downpour, the dust is washed from the oak-trees, and as the big clouds roll aside and the sun dispels the mist what a transfigured world is revealed! Distance is annihilated, and we look through the crystal air at far-away mountains until we might be easily persuaded that an hour's walk would suffice to take us to their crests. And what color the scene presents! Royal purples, and the hue of turquoise, with deep-blue scars where cañons have plowed their course down the mountain-side fifty miles away!

After the early showers of autumn a few wild flowers push prematurely into the light-the fine gold of the wild mustard is sprinkled amid the green blades, and here and there the pale pink clusters of wild radish-two humble bearers of the cross in the floral procession of the seasons. In some favored fields occasional dwarfed eschscholtzias, or even a mass of them, may be found opening their orange petals to the November sun, and in the cañons the ferns are uncurling their graceful fronds and the mosses are slowly creeping up the boles of the laurel-trees.

It would be difficult to say whether this season heralded the approach of winter or of summer, were it not for certain crisp tang in the air, and an occasional cluster of scarlet leaves in a patch of poison-oak; but the birds are an unfailing index of the season, and the coming of the robins and the snowbirds, the kinglets and goldencrowned sparrows is proof positive that winter is approaching. Almost before we know it the shortening of the days gives warning that Christmas is at hand. The streets of San Francisco are crowded with women doing their holiday shopping, braving the heaviest rain in their mackintoshes, and vainly trying to hold an umbrella in one hand, their skirts in the other, and an armful of packages as well. At this season, of all times, thought and interest centers about the home, and it is not strange that the beautiful outdoor

world is slighted or wholly overlooked. Visions of sloppy streets and leaden skies are forbidding, and the average mortal feels that Nature can have no charms when city thoroughfares are so uninviting.

But come, let us away to the redwoods! Innumerable baby trees have been slaughtered for this Christmas merry-making, and we are too easily contented with one little nursling bespangled with holiday splendor when the whole grove is summoning us to its winter revelry. Here are Christmas-trees worthy of the name-trees that may have been planted by the tender gardener Nature in commemoration of the birth of Christ, still standing as witnesses in a world of change-trees that were venerable when Columbus first stood upon the shore of the new world, but which we today with reckless greed saw down that the hungry steel teeth of the mill may tear them limb from limb, plowing into their very hearts and casting the quivering fragments aside as so much lumber for the market. We do not even spare that part of the forest which we can not use, but the firebrand of the incendiary is lighted in God's primeval temples and a hideous waste of charred stumps alone tells of the grandeur which has fallen before the despoiler's hand. The Vandals of old may have destroyed the temples of Rome, but the Vandals of to-day are annihilating the temples of Heaven!

Haste, then, while ye may, O friends of the greenwood tree, and see what wonders are about you at Christmas-time! If perchance the rain ceases and the clouds are scattered, you may behold a scene of glory by night as well as by day,-Christmastrees towering aloft in black grandeur into the clear night air, their boughs spangled with the fairy lamps of stars which seem set amidst them, and ever upon the still night air the rhythmic cadence of the surf breaking on the distant shore and the near-by singing of the swollen stream. He must be deaf indeed who cannot hear at such a time the chant of angels singing, "Peace on earth, good will to men."

With the coming of the day there are new visions revealed in the midwinter redwood groves. There is a sacred calm, a peace that passeth understanding, a repose that uplifts the spirit, amid these towering columns. Tender leaves and blades are

pushing through the dank earth in every shady hollow, their tips changed to golden green by the sunlight slipping in between the down-drooping boughs of the trees. The turbid stream sweeps and whirls upon its way, bearing now a treetrunk and then a leaf on its seaward course, and teasing the foliage on the bank with its insistent splash. The chickadees The chickadees overhead are chattering in their merry, cracked falsetto, the big-crested jays are calling hither and yon, and a woodpecker is sounding his clear rat-ta-tat-tat upon a dead limb high overhead.

Passing on from the redwood-trees of the coast valleys to the mountains somewhat removed from the sea, we encounter a region of pine woods, and here let us tarry for a glimpse of the Christmas

A Winter Day

landscape. The golden leaves of the oaks were long since whirled away, and much of the undergrowth is bare of foliage. The manzanita bushes still remain in leaf, however, looking like tufts of bluish green, propped by their smooth red and twisting stems. At the cañon's brim stand the fragrant laurels, huge bristling balls of dark-green foliage, and by the stream a patch of misty yellow shows where a clump of willows has been thus early coaxed into bloom by the mild rains. We may look for cloudy pictures in our midwinter our midwinter glimpses of the coast mountains, with wintry purples, cold and leafless trees, and the somber pines afar standing in deadblue tones against the leaden sky. It is in

keeping with such a scene that we should linger beside an old dead oak, stocky, with two huge boughs outreaching scraggily, and clustered round about with great stumps broken close upon the trunk. The bark is velvety with brown and red moss, and strands of yellow lichens sway in long streamers from its limbs. About its base half concealing the fragments of rotting limbs, are weed-stalks of last summer, their shriveled leaves and still unscattered seeds rustling in the winter air.

I recall many a late afternoon walk over the hills to a park-like glade at the edge of the forest where the deer came out to graze, not by ones and twos, but by tens and twenties, with their slender limbs and their alert ears ever ready to detect an unaccustomed sound. How the timid creatures

would turn and bound into the forest as we drew too near! A favorite walk was down an old road to an abandoned cabin. I can see the spot now beneath an afternoon sky, when the blue of heaven was varied with fine crisp wisps of cloud, and the purple mountains were ribbed with snow. Beside the cabin stood a noble oak, pitch black in silhouetted skeleton against a white cloud, and all about it dark-green fir-trees breaking the outline of the mountains behind. Quail were chuckling amid the manzanita-bushes and every now and then a gray squirrel would break out into a gulping bark.

Even during the rain it was a delight to stray into the forest when every leaf and spray was studded with glistening drops. How the dampness brought out the aroma of the pine woods, and how the carpet of moss expanded into green velvet cushions beneath our feet! What if a shower of spray was flirted into our faces every time we touched a drooping bough? Were we not as well off as the jays and the robins above us? Indeed, one can never know the woods unless he has been about in them during the rain, for then they are more silent and mysterious, more fresh and exhilarating than at any other period.

It not infrequently happens that Christmas in these mountain fastnesses assumes

more of a wintry aspect. After weeks of springlike weather have started the flowers and enticed the birds into song, a cold snap follows, and we may be surprised to awaken some morning to find the ground white with snow. The flakes are still whirling out of the leaden sky and the young fir-trees are so overweighted with their mantle that they droop and hang their heads in despair. At such a time as this there is work to be done at a cattleranch in the mountains. The great mass of snow may break in the barn roof, if allowed to accumulate, and all hands must fall to to shovel it off with a will. Then the cattle, which range over the mountains

whitening the sidewalks and sometimes embroidering the grass-blades with its tracery. In the valleys the oak-trees grow to their prime, and along the coast the live-oaks attain their noblest proportions. They are always in leaf except during certain unlucky years when the tent-caterpillars are so numerous as to practically defoliate them for a brief season. During the winter months the foliage is very dark as compared with the fresh green of spring, but it is none the less beautiful in its serious hue. I know of no tree more full of character than the live-oak. As seen in a landscape setting it is generally rather symmetrical, a single, or sometimes a

for miles, must be fed, and the choppers go out with keen axes to lop off green boughs for fodder. When the day's work is ended the men come in, stamping off the snow at the door, to put on dry clothes and sit down to the smoking venison-stew and apple-butter. Then follows the evening. by the crackling open fire, with apples and cider, and with stories of bear and mountain-lion.

In the valleys a real snow-storm is an event in a child's life, and school is not to be thought of upon that memorable day. As a rule the severest of winter weather implies no more than a heavy hoar frost,

double stem, seldom perfectly erect, lifting up an evenly rounded mass of foliage. The leaves are small, with scalloped edges, sometimes almost as sharp as holly, and the stems are crooked and angular. But step under one of these trees and see what a glorious tent enfolds you-see the noble sweep of its limbs, like great bold arms holding aloft the dark foliage; mark its outward reach, like some creature of large heart protecting the herbage from the sun. See the blue sky in the interstices, with the dark foliage showing still darker and the blue void appearing a deeper blue. How beautiful is the gray bark with its