Gass 1 -- '-- ^3- 
 
 /^^.o-^ 
 

 § 
 
 ROSES 
 
 an</RAIN 
 
 ANNIE LA URIE 
 
Roses -anc/- Rain 7^ 
 
 Annie • Laurie 
 
 Annie Laurie Series 
 
 Published by the Author 
 762-766 Mission Street 
 San Francisco, Calif. 
 

 Copyright 1920 
 By W. B. Bonfils 
 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 WALTER N. BRUNT 
 
 7«2 - 766 MISSION ST. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 
 
 1920 
 
 JAN 31 192! 
 
The sketches in this little book are reprinted 
 by the courtesy and kindness of the San Fran- 
 cisco Examiner. 
 
 Let's sit down together and think again of the 
 roses and rain, the sunshine and fog, the wild 
 wind and deep peace, the joyous beauty and 
 proud generosity that is — California. 
 
 \/l/(AyUyU^ (A^C 
 
 OiAjy^Aji 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 ROSES AND RAIN. 
 
 Last night we sat in the quiet room — a few 
 friends together — and heard the wind ratthng 
 the palm leaves outside in the garden, like some 
 ghostly senorita clicking a pair of invisible caste- 
 nets in tune to some haunting rhythm. 
 
 The fire burned on the hearth, a fire of eucalyp- 
 tus logs, with now and then a branch of aromatic 
 leaves, flaming suddenly into leaping life and 
 filling the room with their pungent and somehow 
 exotic perfume. 
 
 We put out the bright lights from the center 
 of the room, and let the shadows fall from the 
 little gleaming lamps that are like fire-flies, flit- 
 ting in the dusk like so many swiftly passing 
 thoughts and pleasant memories. 
 
 There we were, the young couple so dead in 
 love with each other, and so full of the joy of 
 living. Sweet Sixteen, a little terrified at her 
 vague glimpse of life — Twenty-one, virile and 
 modest and somehow eagerly hopeful. 
 
 The Home Woman, the Woman of the World, 
 the Artist, the Genius, the Singer and the Priest. 
 A strange company, strangely mixed, and yet 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 there we sat in the quiet little room — together, 
 like passengers on a raft picked up from the wild 
 sea and held together by some strange accident 
 of fate. 
 
 We talked, not of politics, not of war or of 
 diplomacy — not even of the high cost of living, 
 or of the effect of the vote upon women. 
 
 We talked of books and poetry, and of music, 
 and one told a quaint little story of a wounded 
 pigeon, and the rescue of it, and the fire burned 
 and the wind sang, and gradually the stress of 
 the world and the anxiety and restless, uneasy 
 ambition of it fell from us like an outworn cloak. 
 And there we were, like little children, talking 
 together in the twilight of some great primeval 
 forest. 
 
 And one sang — a simple song of love and 
 memory and tears. 
 
 "Roses and rain" and the artist smiled, and the 
 Woman of the World sighed, and there were 
 tears in the eyes of the Home Woman. 
 
 The Genius it was who sang — and the Singer 
 sat by the fire and listened. 
 
 The Young Wife's hand stole to the hand of 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 her Husband, and the Priest sat Hke one in a deep 
 reverie. Was he thinking of. the roses that 
 bloomed in the dooryard of his home across the 
 sea, and the fragrance of them in the sweet June 
 rain ? 
 
 And we didn't care who was elected or who 
 was defeated, and somewhere, far down in the 
 city below, the boys were calling extras, extra — 
 extra — all about something or other very impor- 
 tant, which concerned us not in the very least. 
 
 And the Singer was generous, and poured out 
 for us like a libation on the altar of friendship his 
 voice of molten silver — French songs he sang 
 full of the quick and glancing grace of a fountain 
 leaping in the moonlight. German lieder, simple 
 and brooding, like the lullabies a mother sings 
 to her child. Italian, too, he sang, and the room 
 glowed with the fire and the passion of the melt- 
 ing music of Italy. 
 
 "Eileen AUana" — ^how he sang it — the simple 
 old ballad, and how we drank every lilting note of 
 it, like thirsty travelers in a dry and arid desert. 
 
 And so the quiet evening spent itself, and at 
 the end she sang again, the woman with the 
 
8 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 strange dark eyes — "Roses and Rain" — and we 
 were one with the sunshine and the dew and 
 knew again the sweet and rapturous pang of 
 youth and moonHght and the mystery of the stars. 
 "Roses and Rain" — the wind in the palm trees, 
 the fire on the hearth, dear faces in the soft dim- 
 ness of the quiet room. What is there sweeter, 
 what more beautiful, what more to be gained in 
 life than these ? 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 COME HOME, CARELESS LOVE. 
 
 "Come home, Careless Love — oh, do come home ! 
 
 ril weep like a willow, and Til mourn like a 
 
 dove. 
 Come home, Careless Love — oh, do come home." 
 
 Careless Love has gone — far and far he flew 
 out of the garden, over the wall, past the great 
 eucalyptus, up and up, higher and higher, his 
 wings flashed in the sun, he turned toward the 
 shining water, and like a flash he was gone. 
 
 And in the cage that stands on the garden wall 
 his mate sits on the perch and mourns for him — 
 "Poo-roo," she says, "Poo-roo," and will not be 
 comforted — ^no, not by rice, or by corn, or even 
 by wheat, no matter how daintily it is scattered. 
 
 "Poo-roo — Poo-roo,'' and what is there on 
 earth that can mourn so musically as a ring dove 
 mourning for her mate? 
 
 There were four of them the other day. We 
 brought them home from the great, broad acres 
 in the warm country. 
 
 They lived in a netted enclosure, just back of 
 the chicken yard — the mourning doves and the 
 pouter pigeons and the fan-tails. And how they 
 
10 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 did strut and preen and turn their glossy necks 
 from side to side to catch every angle of the sun- 
 light. They were named — the most of them. It 
 was a little cruel perhaps to call the pouter pigeon 
 "J. Hamilton Lewis" — and whoever named that 
 gray little dove "Mrs. Pankhurst" ? We stood in 
 the shade and watched them for hours, the pretty, 
 graceful, gracious creatures. And when we went 
 away the generous giver of a generous day 
 loaded us down with presents and in one package 
 was a box and in that box were the four doves. 
 
 "Dinna ye mind the cushat dooes at Inverquar- 
 ity?" That was the message she sent to her old 
 sweetheart, the poor woman dying in cruel Lon- 
 don, far away from her girlhood's home. 
 
 "Dinna ye mind the cushat dooes Aaron 
 Latta?" and Aaron Latta minded and came up 
 to London and took the forlorn children the 
 dying woman left behind her and gave them a 
 home, all because of the woman who had stood 
 with him on a fairing day and listened to the 
 mourning of the cushat doves. 
 
 I thought of her all the way home, the poor 
 woman who died in London, and of the faithful 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 11 
 
 sweetheart who came to help her when she 
 minded him of the mourning doves — pretty 
 things, pretty, graceful, gentle things. We made 
 them a little house out of a great box and set 
 them high upon the wall in the scarlet and green 
 of the geraniums. 
 
 And one we named "Careless Love" and one 
 we named "Poor Soul" and one we called, oh, the 
 light-mindedness of youth in these strange days 
 of ours — "Oo-Long," and the other "So-Long." 
 
 And we scattered grain and set clear, cool 
 water and went into the house and planned the 
 building of an old world dove-cote high on a tall 
 pole, with little doors and windows — a door for 
 "Poor Soul" and one for "Careless Love" and 
 one for "Oo-Long" and one for "So-Long." And 
 then we all went to sleep and dreamed of carrier 
 doves and sweet messages sent from far seas. 
 But in the morning when we went to feed the 
 little visitors, one of them edged close to the door, 
 and, wh-rrr, before you could catch your breath, 
 he was gone. 
 
 He lit for a moment in the weeping willow 
 tree, stopped an instant to catch bearings and 
 
13 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 then as straight as an arrow, away he went 
 across the bay, in the exact direction of the broad 
 acres from which he came. 
 
 I'm expecting every minute to hear from the 
 generous giver, he who gathers forlorn children 
 around him and protects them and makes them 
 happy — I wonder if they will recognize "Careless 
 Love," the little city boys out there in the country 
 for their vacation, and bid him welcome, and put 
 him back in the enclosure with "J. Hamilton 
 Lewis" and "Mrs. Pankhurst" ? 
 
 And will "Careless Love" be a great hero, 
 returned from the wars, and will he tell them 
 fine tales of his wild adventures, and will he 
 mourn for "Poor Soul," or will he find another 
 mate and forget all about her? 
 
 And now what to do about "Oo-Long" and 
 "So-Long?" Shall we dare to build the dove-cote 
 and put them in it ? Will they stay with us if we 
 do, or will they rise high in the air and strike a 
 straight course over to "Careless Love" and the 
 pouter pigeon and the fan-tails ? 
 
 We would take such good care of them, if only 
 they would stay with us. They should have the 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 13 
 
 whole world to fly in by day, if only they would 
 come back at night, and in the morning, and at 
 twilight, mourn just a little for us over the sor- 
 rows of the world and ease by their music the 
 aching of some lonely heart. 
 
 Must we shut them in some hateful enclosure 
 — just to protect them from the wild beasts and 
 the dangers of their little world, or — 
 
 Now, I know the meaning of the expression in 
 the eyes of the little mother who cannot make up 
 her mind whether to keep her daughter "safe'' 
 and caged at home or let her seek freedom — and 
 peril — abroad. 
 
 "Come home. Careless Love — oh, do come 
 home." "Poor Soul" is watching for you. 
 
14 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 UP THE SAN JOAQUIN. 
 
 The Harvest Moon — how big and round and 
 red it is when it first rises — and how it floods the 
 dull, old, everyday world with silver when it is 
 high in the sky ! 
 
 Where have you seen it this time? 
 
 Out at the Beach — with the great waves roll- 
 ing in and rolling in — looking like rows and rows 
 of prancing horses tossing their white manes for 
 the very joy of living? In the Park, with the tall 
 eucalyptus throwing their ragged shadows on 
 the ground like beggars playing dice against time 
 and laughing in the wind to lose their stakes? 
 Out at Land's End, with the light darting across 
 from the Light House as an inspiration flashes 
 upon the brain and the dark hills of Marin shoul- 
 dering up as if some jealous giant had built him 
 a fortress to shut out even the envious glances of 
 a wistful world ? 
 
 I saw my Harvest Moon up the San Joaquin — 
 what a country ! Have you been there of late ? 
 
 I hadn't — and I thought of it as a kind of low, 
 level stretch of flat country, with nothing much to 
 relieve the monotony save the silver river creep- 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 15 
 
 ing in and out among the shadows. But, dear 
 me, they've been doing things in the San Joaquin 
 — ^big things, I suppose — ^but what I noticed most 
 were the fields and fields and fields of ripening 
 melons — millions of them, striped and russet and 
 fragrant. Why, you could feed an army on 
 melons and never even touch the San Joaquin 
 crop. And the figs — orchards of the great, 
 broad, generous trees that always make me think 
 of an old-fashioned grandmother with plenty of 
 room in her capacious lap for all the grandchil- 
 dren and a few of the neighbors' children too. 
 How beneficient and kindly they are — the fig 
 trees laden to the ground with their rich harvest. 
 Olives, too, and late peaches. The air is heavy 
 with the richness and the sweetness and the 
 promise of the ripe fruit. Talk about the Gar- 
 den of Eden — if Adam had ever seen California 
 in September or early October he wouldn't have 
 cared a cent about that flaming sword — ^not if 
 he could have found an airship to get down here 
 — not he. 
 
 And as for Eve — what a country for a woman 
 it is — Cailfornia. Not too clear, the beckoning 
 
16 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 distances; not too sharp the outlines — curved, 
 gracious, gentle, smiling — so are the quiet hills 
 dressed in their autumn yellow. 
 
 And, oh, the fields of the San Joaquin ! What- 
 ever is that little, waving, yellow blossom there — 
 that holds up its gay head so late in the year, as 
 if it were the Spring and all the birds were mat- 
 ing? The fields themselves are primrose colored 
 — so delicate they are. But the miles and miles 
 of waving flowers are almost orange — and 
 there's a rich perfume about them like mandrakes 
 ripening in the sun. What can they be ? 
 
 And then the miles of vivid blue — who are 
 they? — the wistful strangers who have taken 
 possession of the rich lands near the river, now 
 that the crops are over — blue and blue — the deep, 
 clear blue of sapphires. They have a poignant, 
 heavy flavor in their haunting perfume — some- 
 thing that is like the bouquet of a fine, old white 
 wine. And what is that pungent, aromatic scent 
 that haunts the air like a spirit? Why, it's mint 
 — wild mint all along the river bank, growing 
 under the willows and the quaking aspens. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 1^ 
 
 Look! There's a storm breaking somewhere. 
 See how the sun draws water, and how red the 
 angry clouds rise upon the horizon ! What's that 
 in the distance? Snow, and plenty of it — on the 
 peaks — ^you can feel the tang of it in the air. 
 
 Look! There she rises — the Harvest Moon — 
 serene, generous — a queen among moons, smil- 
 ing, well-content. 
 
 Come, come — not so matronly, Madame Moon, 
 if you please. We know you love the perfume of 
 the harvest fields, and we rejoice with you at the 
 abundance of the garnered vintages. 
 
 But we look to you for romance, for fancy — 
 for a magic veil of silver to soften the rough 
 edges of a too practical world. 
 
 Ah ! it smiles again, the argent mystery of the 
 moonlight — and all the rustling night is silver 
 and amethyst — and far and far a dog barks, and 
 some sheep fold stirs, and even the cattle feel the 
 spell of it, and move restlessly in their accus- 
 tomed places. 
 
 What the river, the Stanislaus — the fork of it 
 for the mountain climb? What is it he said — 
 the poet — of some one who breasted high water 
 
18 ROSES AND RAI N 
 
 and swam the North Fork and all, just to dance 
 with old Follansby's daughter, the "Lily of Pov- 
 erty Flat"? Ah, well, no wonder he swam the 
 North Fork — who wouldn't want to dance in 
 such a country under such a moon as this ? 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 19 
 
 THE DANCING FIRE. 
 
 The other evening it was chilly. A great 
 cloud rolled up from the west and there was rain, 
 and right in the midst of summer sturdy autumn 
 thrust his head in at the window and laughed to 
 see us shiver. 
 
 And I sent the children out for some wood and 
 we built a fire in the fireplace and made a great 
 pitcher of chocolate and had some thin bread and 
 butter and little cakes, and we sat by the fire and 
 laughed and sang and told stories. Old stories, 
 about witches and ghosts and goblins and where 
 the wood came from that we burned. 
 
 Pine, from great forests in the high Sierras, 
 where the snow falls and the wind howls all win- 
 ter, tamaracks from the swamps near the sea, 
 and redwood from the great groves that are like 
 cathedrals. 
 
 Applewood from the old trees in some half- 
 forgotten orchard. Who planted it, I wonder — 
 the bride or the groom ? The orchard grew close 
 to the door on the old place, there in the hills. A 
 branch of willow — did this come from "Haunted 
 Pond,'' where the old-fashioned water lilies grow 
 
20 
 
 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 and where it is so still and mysterious at twi- 
 light? 
 
 Eucalyptus — ah, there's California for you — 
 Oregon, Georgia, Maine — what a storehouse of 
 memories an old wood box can sometimes be! 
 
 Of mermaids we talked, and sprites and pixies, 
 and gnomes and the little folk of Ireland, and 
 brownies and the tree people, who live in the 
 trunks of trees, and elves and fairies, and wish- 
 ing rings and traveling carpets, and invisible 
 cloaks — don't you know the kind you put on 
 when you want to walk abroad and not let any 
 one see you? — and wishbones and magic wells. 
 Oh, we had a lovely time, sitting in the twilight 
 by the light of a dancing fire ! 
 
 And suddenly one of our number laughed 
 aloud, and then she caught her breath and sighed. 
 
 "Look !" she said. "Out of the window !" We 
 looked, and there, reflected on the clear pane, was 
 the dancing fire, brighter, wilder, more leaping 
 than the one on the hearth. 
 
 "When fire outside burns merrily, there the 
 witches are making tea," she quoted. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN ^ 
 
 And we laughed and looked and wondered. 
 
 It was so real with its dancing flames — so full 
 of life and vitality, it didn't seem possible that it 
 was nothing but a reflection. Was that some one 
 standing beside it, smiling through the window 
 at us, with, oh, that unf orgotten smile ? 
 
 Proud head, rosy cheeks, clear eyes, and, oh, 
 the honest, boyish love in them. Did they see it, 
 the others who looked with me ? 
 
 No, no ; that vision was for me alone. 
 
 For an instant it paused, turned, smiled, and 
 with love and yearning tenderness in every ges- 
 ture looked back and was gone. 
 
 How he used to love to see the fire burning out- 
 side in the cool night — ^he loved the fire on the 
 hearth, too, but he would leave it any time to 
 stand and watch the gay reflection that was like 
 some vagrant spirit, leaping, calling, beckoning 
 him — whither ? 
 
 And now he is gone and does not sit with us 
 by the fire and cannot tell the quaint stories that 
 he loved. But, perhaps — is it possible, I wonder 
 — that when the fire leaps upon the hearth of his 
 old home, he is permitted for an instant to come 
 
^ ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 and stand by the phantom flames that intrigued 
 his imagination so deeply, and smile and look in 
 upon us for just an instant? 
 
 How can we know ? How shall we ever know ? 
 
 Fragrant pine, clear flames of redwood, strange 
 incense of the eucalyptus — ah, call him back 
 again just for one sweet moment ! 
 
 So you wait outside the door, do you, bluff Sir 
 Autumn, with your followers in red and gold, the 
 heaped vintage of your harvest purple and yellow 
 and crimson — ^you bring chill and frost and 
 brown quiet for all the growing things. But, oh, 
 you bring, too, the dancing fire ! 
 
 And so, with warm hearts, we will welcome 
 you when it is your time to come. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN S3 
 
 PASSIN' THROUGH. 
 
 He's out in the garden — this very minute — the 
 Mysterious Stranger. 
 
 Night before last I heard him just at sunset 
 calHng from the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree 
 in the neighborhood. 
 
 "Happy days," he cried, "happy, happy, happy 
 d-a-y-s !" 
 
 I went out on the porch with the opera glass 
 and tried my best to see him — did he notice me, 
 and was he laughing to think of a being so dull 
 of the senses that such a thing as an opera glass 
 was necessary anywhere, any time? 
 
 He sounded as if he did, for there was a dis- 
 tinct chuckle at the end of the next "happy," and 
 something like a friendly giggle in the "days." 
 
 I watched and watched, and the eucalyptus 
 tree turned from electric blue to dull green in the 
 changing light of the sunset hour and then to 
 deep and melancholy purple, and then almost to 
 black with a fringe of silver along the edges, and 
 the Mysterious Stranger laughed and called and 
 sang and hurrahed and cheered and sighed and 
 almost sobbed — and then was silent. 
 
^4 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 But never once could I catch the faintest 
 glimpse of him. 
 
 The other birds seemed to stop singing and 
 listen to him — I wonder if he was "Mysterious 
 Stranger" to them or some old friend or ancient 
 enemy paying them a flying visit for old times' 
 sake ? 
 
 Yesterday morning he was there again — high 
 and high in the eucalyptus, calling, calling before 
 the morning mist was fairly cleared away. 
 
 "Happy, happy days," he cried gayly, "happy 
 d-a-y-s!" 
 
 "Come," said I to the Brown Girl whose black 
 eyes, soft and brilliant and clear as a brown pool 
 in the deep forest, can see farther than any pair 
 of human eyes I ever knew. 
 
 Light-footed, swift and silent as was her 
 grandmother, the Cherokee — the Brown Girl 
 came and stood in the porch and watched and 
 watched. 
 
 But even she could not catch sight of him — 
 though he called louder than ever and again 
 appeared to be laughing at some huge joke all 
 his own. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN ^ 
 
 The Brown Girl leaned against the rail of the 
 porch and her many beads chimed together like 
 the voice of quick waters running over the stones. 
 
 "Passin' through/' said the Brown Girl, half 
 to herself and half to me. "J^st passin' through 
 —that's all." 
 
 And so we've named him now, the Mysterious 
 Stranger, Passin' Through — ^but we do not know 
 who he is or where he came from or whither he 
 is bound; we don't even know how he looks or 
 what his real name is in the bird book — all we 
 know is that from some aerial height he spied our 
 little garden and chose to rest here for a while — 
 on his way. 
 
 How does he know where he is going, anyway ; 
 who drew the map of his course for him, who 
 told him to turn here and vary there and rise at 
 such a time and descend at another ? 
 
 Does the whole country lie beneath him like a 
 map and does he spy out rivers and towns and 
 mountains — can he hear the calling of the wild 
 sea up there and steer his course by it ? 
 
 What a miracle it is, the migration of the birds 
 — and yet we are so used to it we never even 
 
£6 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 notice it to comment on its wonder and on its 
 mystery. 
 
 The other day out on the edge of the Httle 
 fountain there perched all at once a wee brown 
 bird — a cozy, comfortable, motherly, friendly, 
 soft creature — and when she began to sing we 
 knew her name, for she said it over and over as 
 if she were trying to introduce herself. 
 
 'Thoebe, Phoebe," said the little brown bird — 
 and the children next door laughed aloud and 
 called to each other "Phoebe's here for a day 
 or so." 
 
 And those same children and any one of the 
 rest of us would spend a precious hour almost 
 any time standing among the dupes to watch 
 ^ome trickster perform some "mystery," and 
 think ourselves wise and deep — to wonder and 
 speculate and try to guess how the magic was 
 wrought. 
 
 Yet all around us every day are the great mir- 
 acles of life, and of death, and of love, and of 
 faith, and of loyalty that no time and no space 
 and no absence can ever change. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN '^^ 
 
 Happy, Happy days — good luck to you 
 Passin' Through, whoever you are and wher- 
 ever you came from and wherever you are going. 
 
 Perhaps your brother or your cousin or even 
 the wife that is to be of your winged bosom, sings 
 your gay song of challenge and of cheer over 
 some low grave in Flanders this very day. 
 
 And maybe some American, homesick and 
 lonely for his native sights and sounds, will hear 
 the song from his hospital cot, or from his tent 
 in camp, and smile and think cheerfully of home 
 and those who love^him here. 
 
^8 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 OH! PROMISE ME. 
 
 I knew a little tree once, a cypress it was. 
 
 Slender and dark and straight, like an Indian 
 youth, and it grew in a little sunny garden here 
 in San Francisco. 
 
 He planted it, the little boy who was the beat 
 of our hearts. And because we got it down the 
 coast, in the place of the mysterious trees, he 
 called it "Monterey." 
 
 He planted it on his birthday, and every morn- 
 ing he watered it, and every Saturday he meas- 
 ured its growth with his hand and was a little 
 wistful when he found that the tree grew faster 
 than he. 
 
 But the house with the sunny garden was old 
 and a new one was built and those who moved 
 into the new house took "Monterey'' with them. 
 Something happened in the moving, and although 
 the tree was carefully replanted it did not thrive. 
 
 The dark foliage faded and the tree began to 
 droop. 
 
 The little boy could not bear to see this and 
 every night after he had watered the trees and 
 his bedtime came he slipped to his knees and 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 29 
 
 prayed for "Monterey" to live and keep on grow- 
 ing with him. For, after all, he was a very little 
 boy and he loved the tree very dearly. 
 
 But one day the gardener said : "Why not dig 
 up this old tree — it is dead?'' 
 
 And so it was. There was no longer any use 
 of denying it. But the little boy grieved and 
 begged them to give "Monterey" a chance. And 
 the wind blew chill out of the fog, and the little 
 boy drooped and smiled and said "Good-bye" and 
 when he was gone the new house was empty. 
 
 Strangers who came to live there dug up 
 "Monterey" and threw the dead trunk and life- 
 less branches on a bonfire. 
 
 But those whose hearts ached with loneliness 
 went down the coast to the country of mysterious 
 trees and found a brother to "Monterey" and 
 planted it at the head of a little grave. 
 
 This tree did not die — it grows and grows, tall 
 and slender, and dark, like an Indian youth. 
 
 The white rose that blossoms on the cross that 
 marks the resting place of the dear, dear little boy 
 is sweet and fair, and the violets which bloom 
 
30 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 there in the season are fragrant and lovely to see, 
 but the dark tree is the best beloved of all. 
 
 It grows and grows and seems, somehow, to 
 remember. 
 
 What tree do you remember, in all your life, 
 the best ? 
 
 There were two great maples in the yard when 
 I was a little girl. They were landmarks for all 
 the countryside, but to me they were just the 
 place where my brother hung my swing. 
 
 There are two great cottonwoods that whisper, 
 night and day, in a certain place I know, far from 
 here. And up in the high Sierras there is a tall 
 sugar pine. 
 
 Oh, I would know it in a grove of a thousand 
 brothers. I could find it, although I walked 
 blindfolded in the snow to do it. And in my land- 
 scape today there is old "King Lear," the euca- 
 lyptus, that has stormed it through the years, and 
 lives and triumphs still — what tree do you think 
 of when your heart is light or when your heart is 
 sad? 
 
 The heart of a man, the soul of a woman, the 
 love of a little child. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 31 
 
 The perfume of a dear and intimate garden, 
 rising in the moonlight. 
 
 The sound of clear water rushing over the 
 rocks. 
 
 The whispering of the wind in the leaves, and 
 the silent companionship of noble trees. 
 
 If you have known these things, you have 
 known the best of life. 
 
 What an inspiration it was — this idea of the 
 Heroes' Grove we put into living execution here 
 in San Francisco today. 
 
 Monuments — the world is full of them — the 
 Tag Mahal, the Tomb of Napoleon; and in an- 
 other sense, that strange and touching shaft 
 erected to the woman of genius whose stormy 
 heart knew deep sorrow — ^just a plain shaft with 
 a finger pointing upwards, and the inscription 
 "Thou Knowest.'' 
 
 The stone Will Davis set up to his wife, Jessie 
 Bartlett Davis, who sang in "Robin Hood." 
 Nothing inscribed there but the beginning of the 
 song she melted into our very hearts in her 
 day: 
 
 "Oh, promise me that some day you and V — 
 
33 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 A thousand ideas expressed in a thousand 
 ways, yearning, loving, remembering — ^but what 
 can tell it all, the pride, the grief, the memory — 
 like a noble tree ? 
 
 The Grove of the Hero — what a glorious privi- 
 lege to be one of those who sees the beginning of 
 it today, here in our beloved city of Smiles and 
 Tears — and Memories. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 33 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 "Oh, "said the little mermaid, and she rose out 
 of the deep, blue sea, and rocked in the cradle of 
 the waves, and sang for joy." 
 
 " Tieces of eight — pieces of eight !' screamed 
 the parrot." 
 
 "And there on the ground behind the rocks 
 they lay — Davy Balfour and Allen Breck, and 
 all the world was red with the scarlet coats of 
 British soldiers." 
 
 "Lorna Doone's eyes were like stars and her 
 hair was black satin, and great John Ridd's heart 
 turned to water when he looked at her." 
 
 Every week in the year is Children's Book 
 Week with me. 
 
 How do people live — who don't love to read? 
 I wonder, don't you? 
 
 What a little, narrow, hopeless kind of world 
 it must be when you have to live all the time with 
 just the everyday people you meet, going down 
 Market street or up Powell — or the same kind 
 you are yourself, with your same kind of preju- 
 dices and your same kind of limitations and your 
 
34 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 same kind of hopes and fears and funny little 
 ambitions. 
 
 Every once in a while, when I am so tired of 
 thinking just exactly what I ought to think that 
 I feel as if I were turning into a beet or a cabbage 
 or something, I step to the bookcase, take down 
 a book — and lo, the quiet room where I sit broad- 
 ens at once to a great, broad moor — and I hide 
 with Davy Balfour and run away with Allen 
 Breck, and catch the gleam of the sunlight upon 
 sharp swords — and for me, the wild sea breaks 
 on Scotland's bleak shores and in my ears rings 
 the old song of "Over the water to Charlie'' — 'tis 
 a brave song and one well worth singing, mark 
 me that. 
 
 Or if my fancy turns in another direction, I sit 
 with Lorna Doone on the edge of the falling 
 water and watch John Ridd come struggling up 
 the waterfall, with something for me in his great 
 brown hands. 
 
 Or perhaps, I take the road, the broad high- 
 way, and go swaggering down it with Dennis of 
 Burgundy, just to laugh aloud at his old battle 
 cry: "Courage, my comrade, the devil is dead." 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 35 
 
 Minnehaha is a fine companion of a fall evening 
 by the light of a leaping fire. She tells me all 
 about the painted children of the forest and how 
 they live and love and hope and pray. 
 
 How about Pip ? Last night I heard the guns 
 at the fort or over at Alcatraz — I could not tell 
 which — and we looked at each other and said: 
 "Is it a prisoner escaping from the island ?" And 
 then we took down "Great Expectations" from 
 the shelf and read how the little, frightened boy 
 met the convict stumbling up out of the mist on 
 the English marshes, and how he promised to 
 bring him by the first flash of dawn a file to loose 
 the tyranny of the iron on his limping leg, and a 
 pork pie to stay his stomach. 
 
 Oh, that pork pie and the things that went with 
 it — it made us so hungry to read of them that we 
 made a raid on the ice chest and sat around the 
 kitchen table and talked till midnight of our 
 friends between the covers — all the gay, humor- 
 ous, pathetic, human people that Dickens, the 
 great magician, called into being. 
 
 I wouldn't bring up a boy without introducing 
 him to Nicholas Nickleby and David Copperfield. 
 
36 ROSES AND RAIN __^ 
 
 That walk of David's up to London, don't your 
 feet ache at the very thought of it? Little Nell — 
 poor Joe — children's books — yes, and books for 
 grown people, too. What a sad old world it must 
 have been before Charles Dickens lived — and un- 
 derstood the human heart. 
 
 If I had a boy of ten or a girl of twelve, I'd 
 start them in with "Pip" — and I'd carry them 
 right through every syllable of Dickens, and I'd 
 do it to give them human sympathy and human 
 understanding and to make them get the zest of 
 life, and to teach them to listen to what it is the 
 waves say — and how the wind talks down the 
 chimney on a winter's night. 
 
 And after that, I'd take up Stevenson. A boy 
 isn't really a boy till he's read "Treasure Island" 
 — and then would come "Lorna Doone," and then 
 — but who could mention even a fifth of all the 
 wonderful books there are for children, these 
 days? 
 
 Fairy stories — why they're a part of the sun- 
 shine and the starlight — a part of the sighing of 
 the wind in the leaves, a part of the dew and the 
 freshness of the morning. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 37 
 
 What would you give to feel just once again 
 the thrill that shook you from head to foot when 
 you crept softly to the window of a moonlight 
 night and held your breath while you looked to 
 see if you couldn't catch the fairies dancing in 
 the little toadstool ring — you knew they danced 
 there for there were the toadstools, as plain as 
 plain, and everybody knows what toadstools mean 
 — oh, if you could only catch the little fiddler in 
 his green coat and snatch his scarlet cap from off 
 his head, and be invisible whenever you wanted 
 to be. 
 
 Those great stones in the garden — if you could 
 only lift one of them, you knew you'd find a broad 
 stair leading down and down. 
 
 Children's books — why they are the pass-word 
 into the world of imagination. What poor, little, 
 starved minds they have — the children who have 
 never learned the secret of the magic pass-word 
 into the world of books. 
 
38 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 MY NEIGHBOR HAS GONE AWAY. 
 
 There's a wreath of pink roses on my neigh- 
 bor's door today. 
 
 And in the light breeze that tops the hill there's 
 a flutter of rose colored tulle— and so I know that 
 my neighbor has gone away and that I shall never 
 see her again. 
 
 I did not know her at all — not to speak to her. 
 
 But I saw her going in and out of her pretty 
 home, and sometimes I heard her voice and her 
 laughter in her beautiful garden. 
 
 We both looked every morning out on the 
 splendor of the bay, now silver like a gleaming 
 shield and now as blue as a wreath of violets, and 
 again veiled in soft mist of hyacinth and pearl. 
 
 We both saw the tall ships sailing proudly out 
 to the Gate and from the windows of her house, 
 as well as from mine, we could watch the clouds 
 form on old Tamalpais and float down into the 
 valleys below like a calm and soothing message 
 from above. 
 
 Telegraph Hill was ours together — too — and 
 the gleaming, flashing light on Alcatraz — and in 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 39 
 
 the Spring when the white jasmine stars the old 
 wall of the Carmelite convent on the corner, the 
 perfume of it drifted first into her garden and 
 then down the hill to mine. 
 
 The new lights that shine from the top of the 
 island of Yerba Buena cast their reflection over 
 the hill alike for us both, and when the sun set in 
 the west from her garden she must have seen the 
 strange afterglow that bathed all the glory of the 
 city and that made the houses at the top of Rus- 
 sian Hill look like castles in some ancient fairy 
 tale. 
 
 The brown and yellow butterflies and the gay 
 little humming birds that were like living jewels 
 winged in gauze came from her garden into mine 
 and flew back again across the wall in friendly 
 fashion, and sometimes the birds drank from her 
 bird fountain, and sometimes they chose to slake 
 their thirst in the little drinking place weVe made 
 for them in our smaller and more unpretentious 
 little garden — and the winds sang in from the 
 sea, and from below the songs of the brown fish- 
 erman rose from the low wharf, and all of us in 
 
40 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 the favored neighborhood could listen and be 
 glad. 
 
 But my neighbor and I never leaned across the 
 garden wall and talked of these things together. 
 
 You see, we had never been introduced, and, 
 of course, it wouldn't have done — would it ? 
 
 And yet so often IVe wondered about her — 
 what sort of thoughts she had and whether she 
 loved the world and the beauty of it, or whether 
 she was sometimes like some of the rest of us, a 
 little tired, and would be glad, or at least not 
 sorry, when the message came for her to lay down 
 whatever work it was she chose to do, and go 
 away on a long, long journey — all alone. 
 
 And now she's gone, and I can never ask her, 
 can I? 
 
 And if she had any pain or suffering, as who 
 of us has not, in some fashion or other, I can not 
 do my humble best to help her a little. 
 
 I wonder if she knew she was going away, and 
 if she was afraid — just a little. 
 
 It is such a strange journey we must all take 
 into the dark, so mysterious, so unknown — does 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 41 
 
 any one of us face it with quite a courageous and 
 dauntless heart? 
 
 Once when I was very ill and they all thought 
 I was not going to get well, I heard, somehow, 
 something that was like the rushing of a great 
 river. 
 
 Wild and stormy, yet steady and resistless, it 
 rose and swept by close, ah, close at hand. 
 
 Sometimes it was nearer — and I could almost 
 feel the fleck of the foam of it upon my face. 
 
 Sometimes it was not so loud, and then the 
 nurse and the doctor smiled at each other, and 
 one morning I awoke and I had not heard the 
 river rushing by all night — and I knew I was not 
 going away — ^just yet. 
 
 And I didn't know just then whether I was 
 glad or sorry. 
 
 I wonder if my neighbor heard the river go 
 rushing by, and if she knew what it meant when 
 she heard it. 
 
 This morning there was a letter in the mail 
 from a prisoner who is locked up in a cell in a 
 great and frowning prison. 
 
42 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 He has done wrong and he deserves his prison 
 — but somehow I'm very sorry for him, and I 
 wish there was some way I could help to let him 
 out and make him once again — free. 
 
 How many of us are that, I wonder — really 
 free? 
 
 Are we not all prisoners of some sort — priso- 
 ners of prejudice, prisoners of habit, prisoners of 
 bitterness, prisoners of limitation — we live so 
 close together, we human beings, poor, foolish, 
 vain creatures that we are, and all the time we 
 are so far, so cruelly far apart. 
 
 Where is my beautiful neighbor today, I won- 
 der — the woman with the garden and the flowers 
 and the splendid view? 
 
 Do we look to her, all of us, like prisoners shut 
 up in the relentless confinement, not only of the 
 human body, but of the human mind, and does 
 she smile to feel herself at last — quite free ? 
 
 How strange it all is — this little, mixed, mud- 
 dled, confused life we lead here in this mixed, 
 muddled and confused world. Will there come a 
 day to each of us when it will all straighten out 
 and be clear and plain and easy to understand, 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 43 
 
 and will we be amazed when we remember how 
 blind and how dumb and how helpless we all al- 
 lowed ourselves to be? 
 
 My neighbor has gone away — on a long, long 
 journey. 
 
 I wish I had had a chance to say goodbye to 
 her across the garden wall — before she went. 
 
44 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 YOUR DAY AND HIS. 
 
 Poor Soul and Careless Love have gone to live 
 in a brand new house, built in the age-old fashion 
 for their kind. 
 
 It's little, with a pointed roof, the new house, 
 and it stands high on a tall pole in a quiet 
 nook in the garden, and it has doors and 
 windows just like a "sure-nuff" grown up house 
 for "sure-nuff" grown up people. And there's a 
 little balcony, if you please, and a tiny pergola, 
 and right above the little new house sways the 
 eucalyptus and below is a little garden of the old 
 fashioned verbenas and phlox and fragrant mig- 
 nonette — and altogether you'd think it was an 
 ideal home — ^but, dear me, they don't want an 
 ideal home at all — Poor Soul and Careless Love 
 — they're modern, hopelessly modern, if they are 
 just a pair of ring doves — "cushat dooes," they 
 call them in the land o' the leal, across the water. 
 
 There were four of then to begin with — So 
 Long and Oo Long were the other pair, but they 
 lived up to their name and flew away, and far 
 and far — but Poor Soul didn't fly away. She 
 and her little mate, Careless Love, were quite 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 45 
 
 contented in the garden and they crooned and 
 cooed and poor-oored and preened and strutted 
 in quite the ring-dove fashion. And so the new 
 house was made for them and painted and 
 trimmed and into it they moved — as pleased as 
 pigeons — and by and by, one morning, sure 
 enough there was an egg, and the next day or so, 
 another tgg. But Poor Soul didn't pay the faint- 
 est attention to them. She wouldn't even look at 
 the nest that Carless Love had worked so faith- 
 fully to help her to make. And there they sit on 
 their little balcony this very minute, poor-ooing 
 and cooing like a dozen Irving Berlins in a brand 
 new ragtime dove song. And the eggs are 
 broken and there isn't going to be any little fam- 
 ily in the dovecote — after all. 
 
 And that isn't the worst of it. They've set a 
 bad example, and what do you think? The 
 canaries have gone out on strike and won't look 
 at each other and I believe that Rin-tintin would 
 sue for divorce this minute if he knew just how 
 to go about it. And it's my private opinion that 
 his mate, Oh-By-Jingo, has ideas of her own 
 
46 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 about economic independence and alimony, and 
 all the rest of it. 
 
 Rin-tintin is a widower. His mate was called 
 Ninette, and what a gay little creature she was, 
 but very domestic, too. She brought up her chil- 
 dren in the finest canary bird fashion, but when 
 she died and Oh-By-Jingo came to take her place 
 all was not well in the canary cage. 
 
 Rin-tintin likes his bath and plenty of it in the 
 morning. 
 
 Oh-By-Jingo wants hers at night, and she 
 wouldn't mind in the least if she didn't have any 
 at all. Rin-tintin likes pears ; Oh-By-Jingo has a 
 fancy for apples and you can hear them arguing 
 about it the minute the sun begins to shine 
 through the weeping willow tree and tinges the 
 scented jasmine with scarlet and gold. 
 
 Whatever is the matter in the little garden? 
 Is there no place in the world quiet enough and 
 remote enough to keep out the modern spirit of 
 restless discontent? How foolish you are. Poor 
 Soul, to let those tggs get cold. Don't you know 
 that some day you'll wish there were some little 
 Poor Souls and Careless Loves in the dovecote? 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 47 
 
 Wouldn't you like to teach them to fly, high and 
 high, almost to the very clouds, and to come cir- 
 cling home again at nightfall? 
 
 Won't you ever get tired of just yourself and 
 the pretty colors on your breast, and the graceful 
 turn of your own head ? 
 
 Fy, fy, Oh-By-Jingo, why are you so difficult 
 and hard to please? Rin-tintin is a very good 
 looking fellow, well preserved, too, for his years. 
 Don't waste your time dreaming of impossible 
 Romeos in impossible feathers of gold. Make 
 up your mind to your lot. See how white the 
 bells are hanging from the datura tree. How 
 sweet the air is. Look, there's the blue bay be- 
 yond. There's a good deal to talk about besides 
 the proper time for a bath, and which is the best 
 for the voice — a bit of apple or a slice of pear. 
 
 One, two, three, four, five, six, seven — hark, 
 how the clock ticks in the house there. See how 
 the sun wheels down the sky. It will soon be 
 over, your little day, and his — ah, soon — why not 
 make the best of it while it lasts? 
 
 The best of it in the old simple fashion of love 
 and home and children — of memory and of kindly 
 friendship, too. 
 
48 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 THE MUSIC OF THE RAIN. 
 
 "Hear the music of the rain on the roof and 
 windowpane — falHng down, falling down!" 
 
 Wasn't it glorious again after the long, sweet 
 truce of sunshine and almost summer heat? 
 
 Don Caesar de Bazan thinks so, and so does 
 Lorna Doone. Who are they? Why, bless you, 
 the trees in the garden, who else ? 
 
 Don Caesar is the tall eucalyptus that stands 
 and flourishes his myriad swords and makes 
 them glitter in the light as if he defied all the 
 world of trees to match him and them. 
 
 Lorna Doone, who should she be but the wil- 
 low, pray, the weeping willow, all soft curls and 
 tender tendrils, and airs and graces, but some- 
 thing sweet and gentle about her, too. And, oh, 
 how the yellow acacia, the one we call Mistress 
 Peggy, plumed herself and shook out her gar- 
 ments, and promised a cloud of primrose per- 
 fume in a day or so if these showers kept up. A 
 fine rain, a glorious rain, and well apportioned, 
 not sogging along all through the day, but rush- 
 ing in at nightfall like a favorite guest sure of a 
 rousing welcome. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 49 
 
 Was it your good fortune to be abroad late on 
 Saturday afternoon homecoming from down the 
 peninsula? It was mine, and that home-coming 
 was worth a roll of bills or stack of silver a foot 
 high, as far as joy and the zest of living is con- 
 cerned. Up the street of the Ragged Kings — 
 that's what they'd call that eucalyptus highway 
 if they had it in Andalusia, where the names of 
 things spring from the heart of the people. They 
 say some there are who want to cut down that 
 splendid procession of ragged grandeur and 
 plant some neat, seemly tree to be more conven- 
 tional. Away with them to the deepest dungeon ! 
 
 Up and up, through the miles of violets, with 
 round-faced girls and chubby boys standing by 
 the highway vending sentiment and memory and 
 sweet breath of old mother earth at lo cents a 
 bunch. You pay $2 for that many violets in New 
 York now and don't get them half so sweet, or 
 anything like so fresh. Zim a zim, up past the 
 golf links, with the players coming reluctantly in 
 from the Lakeside course, the most beautiful 
 links in the world, they say, who should know, as 
 
50 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 if they hated to leave the breath and the open 
 and the broad green sweep of the fields and the 
 cuddling close of the hills and the vigor and the 
 beauty of it all, rain or no rain. 
 
 Hola here's the wind, sweeping in from the 
 sea. Tie your veil tight. No ordinary knot will 
 do in this breeze. 
 
 Hurrah, see the trees bend before it. 
 
 Zim, whiz, up like a homecoming eagle to the 
 town. 
 
 Hurrah, the sea ! How the white horses of the 
 surf trample and rear! Look, the gulls are fly- 
 ing over the city, a sure sign of a storm, they say. 
 There's the Cliff House, forlorn it is to see it 
 silent and dark after so many years of jovial life. 
 
 Hurrah, the great windmills along the beach, 
 a fine night for them. They know what they 
 were born for now, be sure of that. Turn sails 
 and creak, old sinews of the wooden frame, this is 
 your hour of use and homely faring. The park 
 green and fair! What a park it is, to be sure, 
 none like it on this earth, I do believe. Is it pos- 
 sible that it was once a wind-swept sand dune, 
 and that not so many years ago? The Panhan- 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 51 
 
 die — what glorious trees — the town alight and 
 agleam. Van Ness avenue — what a street of 
 dignity and perspective. 
 
 Some day when we plant some trees along it, 
 either side, we'll have such a boulevard as all the 
 world can never match. Not the Marina tonight. 
 The storm rides too fast in the wild sky and we 
 must make haste home. 
 
 Zim a zim, up the hill. 
 
 There's Alcatraz, ablaze with the welcoming 
 eye of a devoted friend. Hurrah, home, and the 
 first big drops splashing the pavement. 
 
 What a fire on the hearth, lamb chops for din- 
 ner, baked potatoes, too, and a crisp salad and a 
 bit of good cheese with a cup of real coffee for a 
 farewell kiss. What a dinner for a stormy night. 
 Clear the cloth, light the shaded lamp, gather 
 round the hearth. Now for an hour with Bold 
 Barnaby on the wild downs of England — in the 
 storm. 
 
 Sleep, sweet, dear heart, there in the folding 
 dark, where fresh wreaths lie in memory of the 
 Day of All Souls. Sleep, sweet. Our deepest 
 memories are with you in the storm. 
 
52 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 GONE— WHERE? 
 
 The cage is opened — and the bird is gone. 
 
 And we are all a little lonely at our house on 
 the side of the hill, with the red and yellow Milli- 
 ner's Flower trying to pretend that it is still sum- 
 mer all along the edge of the porch and the little 
 red and yellow button chrysanthemums making 
 a gay show of themselves along the garden wall. 
 
 I never cared much for birds in a cage, some- 
 how. 
 
 They always seemed to me such poor, arti- 
 ficial, lonely, wistful things — always fluttering 
 their poor useless wings and trying to act like 
 real birds when all the time they are just forlorn 
 prisoners, kept for the vagrant fancy and the 
 passing whim of the one who hangs up the cage 
 and expects the little feathered exile from sun- 
 light and freedom to say: "Tweet" — whenever 
 "tweet" is supposed to be the thing. 
 
 But, somehow, this little fellow was different. 
 
 I suppose they are all "different" to someone, 
 when you come down to that. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 53 
 
 Hal was a present ; he was given to us by some- 
 one who Hkes birds and loves dogs and is even 
 fond of sly, hypocritical, elegant and pharasaical 
 cats. 
 
 We named him after a soldier boy, who wrote 
 to us from a hospital in France — such a cheery 
 letter, so full of courage and hope and gay good 
 will to all the world. And little Hal proved 
 worthy of his namesake. 
 
 He was a canary, as yellow as a golden poppy, 
 A bright spot of light in the room, and, oh, how 
 he could sing, and how he did sing. 
 
 In the morning, when we took his gay little 
 red and white cage out and hung it in the sun Hal 
 fairly burst his throat telling all the neighbors 
 that he was out on the porch. 
 
 He swung back and forth on his perch, like a 
 regular acrobat. He laughed, oh, yes, he did, 
 and he said "Hurrah for me,'' too, — you could 
 hear him just as plain. That's when he first 
 came. 
 
 But after a while, when the birds in the garden 
 began to answer him, Hal didn't quite know what 
 to make of it. 
 
54 ROSES AND RAIN ^ 
 
 The robins, yes, there were a few of them once 
 in awhile, and the finch and the little twittering 
 sparrows — these he seemed to feel were his 
 friends and he answered them quite merrily, 
 after the fashion of the born good fellow the 
 world over. 
 
 But the little brown bird who came late in the 
 summer and called and called, all day long, high 
 and clear and sweet: "Here I be'' — that was 
 something that Hal didn't exactly know how to 
 understand. Every time little "Here I Be" spoke 
 up Hal put his head on one side and listened, and 
 sometimes we thought he tried to answer back 
 "Here I Be." 
 
 One morning he did not answer. And when 
 we went out to see what was the matter the door 
 of the cage was open and little Hal was gone. 
 
 We looked and looked and finally we found 
 him — high up in the weeping willow tree. How 
 did he ever learn to fly, I wonder ? And though 
 we coaxed and called and hung his cage close by 
 him on the tree, he would not listen and in the 
 morning he was quite gone. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 55 
 
 I hope he's happy somewhere, poor httle Hal. 
 I hope some of his bird friends will show him 
 where to go for water and how to find his food. 
 It's selfish to wish he was back in his little cage, 
 isn't it — with all the blue sky and the bright sun- 
 shine and the rustling leaves and the calling 
 winds and the sweet sound of the sea upon the 
 
 sand for his ? 
 
 ^ ^ ^ 
 
 The little boy who lived with us in our little 
 home is gone, too, and it is very lonely in our 
 hearts without him. 
 
 How selfish it is to wish to bring him back and 
 lock up the eager brightness of his joyous soul in 
 that restricted cage we call the human body. 
 
 Fly on, free spirit. Do not linger here to 
 share with us our sorrows and our grief, our lit- 
 tle earthly hopes and fears and anxieties and 
 disappointments. 
 
 The door of the cage was opened for you. And 
 we that love you would not for anything call 
 you back and lock you up in it — again. 
 
56 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 GOODBYE. SWEET DAY. 
 
 Grapes, pears, apples, prunes, red leaves and 
 yellow, vines scarlet and crimson — pink hills 
 crowned with purple eucalyptus, pine and cedar, 
 green and green — purple prunes drying by the 
 milHons in the orchard on the ground under the 
 rich trees! 
 
 White grapes, amber grapes, black grapes — 
 apples, red and yellow and green, huge ones that 
 are like the pictures you used to see in the seed 
 catalogues. 
 
 Tomatoes as red as the apple Paris gave to 
 Helen of Troy — millions of them, miles of them. 
 Corn yellowing in the tassel — the whole air frag- 
 rant with fruit and rich with the perfume of such 
 a marvelous plenty as has never been seen before, 
 even here in California — that's a Sunday in the 
 country almost anywhere right outside of San 
 Francisco today. 
 
 Nobody would believe it who hasn't seen it — 
 the richness, the variety, the gorgeous generosity 
 of it all. And the colors ; they are like something 
 a really poetic futurist might imagine and try to 
 put on canvas. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 57 
 
 If he did put them into a picture nobody would 
 believe him, not even those who have seen the 
 pink and purple hills and the yellow and scarlet 
 of the grape vines that make the fields and the 
 valleys and the hillsides look like gigantic pieces 
 of some strange and rich embroidery. 
 
 Even when you are looking at such a landscape 
 it's hard to believe it is true. 
 
 The full flavor, the careless plenty, the gor- 
 geous color laid shade upon shade — it's almost 
 past credence. Yet there it is, for us of blessed 
 inheritance to see and to smell and to taste and 
 to be grateful for — and at the end of the trip the 
 blue bay of San Francisco, flecked as with foam 
 with the white yachts and the funny little cozy 
 houseboats. 
 
 And then sunset — with all the windows of the 
 city aflame, and Alcatraz illuminated as if for the 
 feast of some mighty potentate, every window 
 ablaze. The sun crimson and glorious sinking 
 into a sea as blue as any sapphire ever set in dia- 
 monds for the delight of any queen. 
 
 What a season, what a country — no wonder 
 the boats are jammed with motor cars, no wonder 
 
58 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 that to come up the peninsula these days at the 
 week-end you must join a procession and be one 
 of a parade. 
 
 The Yerba Buena is drying in the autumn sun- 
 light. Was there ever anything so sweet on 
 earth as the perfume of it? Melt that with the 
 fragrance of a million acres of grapes and count- 
 less miles of apples and prunes and pears — and 
 you swing a censor of odorous delight such as 
 no high priest ever swung before any altar built 
 by man. 
 
 Sonoma, Napa, Marin — any one of these coun- 
 ties a paradise of autumnal harvest. 
 
 I saw some strawberries Saturday that came 
 from a little half-acre that has brought its owner 
 just exactly five hundred dollars in cool cash. 
 Not so bad for a half-acre, is it ? 
 
 And he didn't have to do the picking, either. 
 
 Napa is giving a fair this week. Sebastopol 
 will have a show of apples, such apples as Eve 
 never even dreamed of — raisins, figs, walnuts, 
 almonds, olives — though the olives didn't do very 
 well this year. 
 
 If you feel stingy and small and grudgy and 
 
ROSES AND RAIN _59 
 
 envious of any man that lives, get a day off and 
 run up or down or over into any of the great 
 fruit counties and you will feel as rich as Croe- 
 sus — for at least a week. 
 
 Up in Sonoma yesterday I saw a little blue- 
 eyed girl holding a cosset lamb in her arms and 
 by her side ran a little boy. He held in his two 
 chubby fists a great bunch of gorgeous flaming 
 Tokays, the prettiest things that were ever grown 
 on any bush, tree, shrub or vine on earth. He 
 held them to the light and watched the glowing 
 colors deepen and glow — then with a sudden little 
 cry of childish ecstasy he laid his sunburned 
 cheek to the grapes in an overwhelming impulse 
 of love and gratitude and appreciation. 
 
 I knew just how he felt. I would have liked to 
 gather the whole perfume and beauty and gene- 
 rosity of the California day into my arms as a 
 mother gathers her beloved child, and hold it for 
 my own forever. 
 
 Goodbye, sweet day, farewell, oh, hours of 
 golden fruitage and splendid harvest. Now that 
 I have felt the savor of even just a few such 
 hours I have not lived in vain. 
 
60 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 THE GREY VEIL 
 
 The other day it rained, and rained, and 
 rained some more. There was nothing to read, 
 and the dog wasn't well and kept shivering, and 
 the cat had a big tail and shut its eyes to slits, 
 and looked as if she'd love to turn into a tiger 
 and show us a few things. 
 
 The postman didn't bring a letter, and some- 
 thing happened to the cream, and the coffee 
 wasn't quite right. 
 
 "When would school ever open?" I asked the 
 Middling. 
 
 "Is the world really going to the dogs?" said 
 the Sweetest Aunt in the world." "Hats are too 
 dear for words, and as for winter coats!" — this 
 from the Pretty Maid. 
 
 It was a rather tiresome, wet, slushy world, all 
 round, and all at once there came to me, unex- 
 pectedly, a veil. 
 
 Just a soft, fine, altogether beautiful grey veil, 
 the very kind I'd been looking for and never 
 could find — a pearl grey, like the inside of a shell 
 before the pink begins, the mist grey of dawn, 
 with a hint of the sunrise behind it. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 61 
 
 Clouds, sweet fragrant mist, the spray of the 
 sea, yes, that's what that grey meant, and a 
 friend had seen it, and she thought of me, and 
 bought it, and sent it for an "unbirthday pres- 
 ent," and it illumined the day like a burst of sun- 
 shine streaming on a yellow acacia in full and 
 fragrant bloom. 
 
 How did she happen to do it, I wonder ? 
 
 Did she notice that I was a little depressed the 
 other day when I met her, and did she send the 
 veil to say "never mind, I like you anyhow, if 
 nobody else does ?" 
 
 Or was she just in one of her generous, expen- 
 sive moods when she had to give something nice 
 to somebody or die on the spot of a rush of kind- 
 ness to the heart ? 
 
 Fve seen her go into her kitchen and bake a 
 dozen pies in a mood like that, and run all over 
 the neighborhood giving them away. 
 
 IVe seen her call from her garden to a blind 
 man who passes sometimes, and ask him what he 
 thought of the peace terms, just to show him that 
 she knew him and wanted to talk to him. 
 
62 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 Dogs? Why, she can't let a dog go by with- 
 out a kind word, and as for children, every child 
 in the neighborhood knows just how her cookies 
 taste, and what she heard from Ambrose, the tall 
 boy who is up at Camp Lewis, as cross as two 
 sticks because he isn't going to France after all. 
 
 Yet he is almost tickled to death to think that 
 he's coming back to the hill soon. 
 
 And if there's any one ill, or in trouble, she al- 
 ways knows it, my neighbor of the grey veil, and 
 she's there with a kind word and at exactly the 
 right time, and a cup of cocoa or a bowl of soup. 
 
 When the three pretty girls and their mother 
 next door had the "flu" who nursed them but the 
 good lady of the grey veil? 
 
 And there they are, all together in their pretty 
 homes, cuddled close like a litter of kittens, all 
 friendly, all loving, all happy, my neighbor of the 
 veil and her sisters. I wonder if they have the 
 least idea what they, and such as they, mean to 
 this lonesome, preoccupied, busy old world of 
 ours? 
 
 Soldiers, why, the hill is brown with them, 
 coming and going to the house of my neighbor 
 
I 
 
 ROSES AND RAIN 63 
 
 of the grey veil. They all call her "Ma," and she 
 calls them "son/' and never a whimper about her 
 own boy, so far away, never a moan from her 
 own anxious heart. Instead: 
 
 "When did you hear from home? Won't 
 mother be proud when you get there?'' 
 
 All the wounded men know their way to the 
 doorstep, and are comforted and cossetted and 
 scolded and mothered. Oh, neighbor of the grey 
 veil, I wish the world was full of your kind ! 
 
 Maybe we'd all have gentle sisters-in-law, with 
 big blue eyes and kind hearts, and kindly cousins, 
 a house full of them, whenever we wanted them, 
 and plenty to eat for all the world, and no hungry 
 people anywhere, and no lonely little neglected 
 children. 
 
 But till that time comes I'm going to take a 
 lesson from you, neighbor of the grey veil. 
 
 I'm going to find my joy in the little, homely, 
 kindly, friendly things. The flowers that grow 
 by the wall, the trees that are so kindly with their 
 shade and their fluttering leaves, like hands of 
 friends waving to us. 
 
64 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 And the children, and the wind that blows, and 
 the rain that falls, and all that is good and natu- 
 ral and real, and forget all that is artificial and 
 coM and calculating. 
 
 Salute, neighbor of the grey veil, you're a real 
 missionary — did you know it ? 
 
 (1918) 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 65 
 
 THE LITTLE BOY IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 (1918) . 
 
 Such a dear little boy. 
 
 Such a chubby little roly-poly little, naughty 
 little, good little boy. 
 
 His face is as round as an apple and so are his 
 eyes — and sometimes the eyes are full of dreams, 
 and sometimes they dance with mischief. And 
 he has a "cowlick" that won't stay combed and a 
 mouthful of white teeth and red cheeks and 
 sturdy, broad shoulders and chubby hands. 
 
 And he hates to wash those hands and he can't 
 for the life of him see why people make such a 
 fuss about perfectly silly things like ears and the 
 back of your neck and just the tiniest hole in the 
 knee of your stocking — not a bit bigger than the 
 palm of your hand, or, well, maybe the palm of 
 both hands. But who's ever going to stop to no- • 
 tice that? 
 
 And he likes to play "One Old Cat," and 
 "Andy Andy Over," and he loves to shoot mar- 
 bles and he wouldn't carry those marbles in the 
 neat bag that his mother made for him for that 
 
66 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 purpose — oh, not for anything. Nobody but 
 "sissie" and "Mama's pets" carry marbles in a 
 bag. And some day, when he grows up, he's go- 
 ing to be an aviator and fly and fly — way over the 
 sea and across the world to Africa, where the 
 black people live and where the camels are just 
 swell — and to Asia to see the white peacocks and 
 hear them cry in the moonlight, and to South 
 America to find diamonds — and his mother's go- 
 ing with him. Of course, he isn't telling any of 
 the kids about that. 
 
 He didn't plan to take her at first, but there 
 was something in her eyes when he told her, and 
 he just threw his arms around her neck and whis- 
 pered in his ridiculous, husky whisper that's 
 louder than any speaking voice you ever heard, 
 and said: "You, too. You're coming, too, 
 mother." 
 
 And that's a secret between them, and some- 
 times when the aeroplanes fly very low over the 
 little house where the dear little boy lives with 
 his mother she looks up and watches them and 
 makes big eyes and looks frightened. And no 
 matter what the little boy is doing he runs to her 
 
ROSES AN D RAIN 67 
 
 side and manages to touch her as he passes and 
 his clear eyes are full of laughing mischief and 
 deep, deep love. 
 
 Sometimes, on cloudy days, the little boy plays 
 in the basement and makes little aeroplanes of his 
 own out of paper and wood — such neat, well 
 made little things they are — so ship-shape and 
 workmanlike — it looks almost as if they really 
 could fly. 
 
 On sunny days he plays in the garden a good 
 deal when he's not out with "the kids." 
 
 It is a large garden, full of old fashioned flow- 
 ers, roses and phlox and fuchsias and nasturtiums 
 and jasmine and in one corner there's a bed of 
 mignonette and pink and white and red verbenas. 
 And there's a little summer house in the corner 
 of the garden — a pergola, they call it these days. 
 But it is a summer house just the same, with a 
 rough floor and a lattice and vines and a view. 
 And sometimes the little boy plays there for 
 hours, climbing the lattice sturdily, leaning out 
 over the fence and watching oh, so intently, some 
 ship in the bay below. 
 
68 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 When he does that his mother knows that he 
 isn't a Httle boy at all. He's a sea captain in 
 charge of a great ship, plowing the mighty deep, 
 and there are pirates abroad and the captain is 
 up night and day watching for them with tire- 
 less vigilance. 
 
 The rough haired sheep dog is with him many 
 times. He never barks at the little boy as he does 
 at other people — the sheep dog. He just lies 
 down and looks at him affectionately and wags 
 his tail and lifts his ears as if he were listening 
 for some mysterious call from some mysterious 
 master far away. 
 
 And the strangest part of it all is that nobody 
 ever sees the little boy any more — nobody but his 
 mother, for he is gone on a long, long journey, 
 so people think. 
 
 But she knows better. Ah, how well she 
 knows, how much better. 
 
 And when people say to her, 'Tsn't it lonely 
 here in the garden without the little boy?" the lit- 
 tle boy's mother smiles and says very quietly: 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 6* 
 
 "No, not SO lonely as you would think." 
 And the rough English sheep dog comes and 
 lays his head upon her knees and from far down 
 in the garden the little boy's mother hears a 
 sweet, clear voice singing the gay little song the 
 little boy used to sing when other people could 
 see him. And then people wonder that she likes 
 to be alone in the garden sometimes and is never 
 lonely there. 
 
'^ ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 ITALY IN SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 Francesca, Beatrici, Giuseppe, Guido and 
 Garibaldi were all at the Fiesta in Washington 
 Park last night. 
 
 So was grandma — and grandpa and Uncle 
 Batiste and Great-Aunt Bianchi. 
 
 And the Bacigalupis and the Podestas and the 
 Onestis and all the rest of the Italians of San 
 Francisco, whether they are rich and have gone 
 down the peninsula and built themselves magnifi- 
 cent homes with terraces that make you think of 
 the Borghesi gardens in Rome, or whether they 
 are bankers who prefer to live in town in grand 
 houses as much like marble as possible, or 
 whether they are the plain, every-day Italians 
 who make North Beach the most interesting and 
 picturesque part of San Francisco. 
 
 If you have not been to the Fiesta in Washing- 
 ton Square yet, then you do not know what a 
 fiesta is and can be. 
 
 I used to think that the only difference between 
 a fiesta and a fete, and a fair was the way they 
 were spelled — spend five minutes at the Italian 
 
ROSES AND RAIN ^ 
 
 fiesta tonight and you'll never linger under that 
 delusion again as long as you live. 
 
 A fair comes from England and it is a decor- 
 ous, perfectly respectable and rather dull affair 
 by the time we Americans put the last touch of 
 Yankee expression into it. 
 
 The fiesta is as Latin as its name, and as full 
 of fiin as a healthy three-year-old boy with a 
 brand new pair of skates and a three-months-old 
 puppy for a birthday present. 
 
 People laugh at a fiesta — they only smile at 
 a fair. 
 
 They sing at a fiesta, too, and nobody has to 
 work like a slave trying to make them do it. 
 
 When you go to a fiesta you don't leave the 
 children at home with the maid — ^bless you, no, 
 you take the children along and the maid, too, 
 and the maid's cousin up from the ranch at 
 Fresno; and the Aunt Bianca down from the 
 ranch in Sonoma, and there's eating and drink- 
 ing and toasting and dancing, and always, and 
 always there is light-hearted calling from one 
 booth to another and racing from one place to 
 
J^ ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 another and pushing and shouting — never such 
 a good-natured crowd. 
 
 Fishermen from the wharf, workmen from the 
 shipyard, belles from lower Lombard street and 
 Green and Vallejo. Black-eyed beauties in pur- 
 ple and lavender after the immemorial fancy of 
 their race. White teeth, quick smiles, supple 
 wrists — ^how plain and stiff and stupid we Ameri- 
 cans do seem in contrast. 
 
 Even the old Satyr who sits contemplating 
 himself by sunny day and by starry night at the 
 round pool in the three-cornered park in Colum- 
 bus avenue was en fete — last night. Some one 
 had put a wreath of French marigold around 
 his head, and not one child went past him in all 
 that laughing throng who did not see and mark, 
 with a gay cry of salutation — the decoration. 
 
 Lights, music, laughter, friend calling to 
 friend, Napoli saluting Firenzi, and Milano wav- 
 ing a gay greeting to Roma, for was not this a 
 celebration in honor of the unification of Italy? 
 
 Italy the free, Italy the inspired, Italy the 
 beautiful, Italy the magnificent — Italy the cradle 
 of the culture of the world. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 73 
 
 THE BIRDS' SONG. 
 
 We sat in the curve of the porch, as a child 
 sits in the curve of a protecting arm — a Httle 
 group of us from San Francisco — the other day. 
 
 The eucalyptus on the ridge back of the house 
 made a screen of green lace between us and the 
 sky. 
 
 The hills glowed like copper in the flooding 
 sunshine. Old Tamalpais brooded in his purple 
 cloak, and down below, in the valley, the little vil- 
 lage lay like a pearl in the shell, lambent and full 
 of changing lights, in the soft radiance of the 
 setting sun. 
 
 Of many things we talked, as friends do when 
 -they gather for a little space, away from the 
 every-day concerns of life, of dreams, and how 
 they come true; of visions, and how they fade; 
 of fortunes — told, and in the telling — and the 
 strange freaks of Fate, the fortune teller; of old 
 friends and new ones ; of old poems ; of old songs ; 
 of haunting refrains ; and one told how her gar- 
 den grew, and one what she did in the East this 
 summer, now so lately passed, and how glad she 
 was to get home again to California. 
 
74 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 And one will soon adventure on strange seas. 
 I wonder when she will return, and how? 
 
 Old houses we talked of, and the people who 
 built them, and those who came and lived in them. 
 Brides we discussed, and their veils, and their 
 wedding wreaths. Mothers-in-law in general, 
 and in particular, — these, too, came in for their 
 share of attention. 
 
 And then a little woman, with a gay, laughing 
 face, and a pair of dreaming eyes that do not 
 laugh, not even through their tears (was it the 
 tears held back that made them shine so, those 
 soft, mysterious eyes?) — spoke. 
 
 "Birds are queer things," she said. "No, I 
 don't mean parrots and canaries, and things you 
 keep in a cage. I mean real birds, that live in 
 the real outdoors." 
 
 "Have you ever listened to them, early, early, 
 just in that still, silvery hush that comes before 
 the dawn ? I heard one the other morning, right 
 outside the window, and what do you think he 
 said, just as plain as plain could be ? 
 
 " 'Mary'— just like that. 
 
 " 'Mary,' as though he were calling someone. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN ^ 
 
 "It was startling. I sat up in bed and listened 
 to him. *Mary/ he said. *Mary/ so lonesome 
 and sort of wistful. 
 
 "My husband laughed, when I told him, but 
 afterward he heard it too. 
 
 "And in the evenirxg, just before sunset, when 
 the little wind begins to blow, he comes and sits 
 on the tree by the window and calls. 
 
 " 'Mary,' he says, 'Mary.' Sometimes it almost 
 makes me cry.'' 
 
 And we all looked at her, and at each other, 
 and laughed. 
 
 But, when we were leaving, each of us stopped 
 and said something very special to the woman 
 with the gay, little face, who heard the bird 
 call "Mary" in the silver dawn and in the rosy 
 hour of sunset. 
 
 For Mary is the name of her daughter, who 
 has only been married six months or so, and has 
 gone away to live. And Mary's mother is glad 
 she's married and glad she's happy. She 
 wouldn't have kept her at home for anything. 
 But, when it is very still in the world, the little 
 bird comes and calls: 
 
^6 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 "Mary" — over and over again, in a puzzled, 
 wistful sort of way. 
 
 Dear Mary, I wonder if that same bird will 
 ever perch in the tree outside the window of her 
 new home, where she is so happy with her de- 
 voted husband, and when it does, what will it 
 say? 
 
 Will it repeat over and over, wistfully, the 
 funny, little pet name Mary has always called her 
 mother, ever since she was old enough to talk, 
 and will Mary laugh to hear it — and when she 
 laughs, will her happy eyes be full of puzzling 
 tears ? 
 
 I wonder. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 77 
 
 THE MESSAGE BY AIR. 
 
 (1920) 
 
 "The rose is red, the violet^s blue, 
 
 Honey is sweet — and so are you." 
 
 Isn't it strange to think of them way up there 
 in the air, the CaHfornia posies. It's on the way 
 now, you know, in one of the airship mails — a 
 great box full of California flowers. Gone to 
 New York to astonish the neighbors. 
 
 I wonder what the Downtown Association 
 people who sent the box with their compliments 
 to New York put in it. 
 
 Dahlias, I hope. They don't know what 
 dahlias are, really, anywhere in the East — not 
 compared to the great big, gorgeous, raggedy, 
 gay colored rascals we raise here in the back 
 yards and think nothing of it. 
 
 You couldn't tell one of them from an imported 
 chrysanthemum to save your life, only some of 
 the dahlias are prettier. There's a striped thing 
 — red and white, as big as a dinner plate, that's 
 really too gay to be true. I always feel as if the 
 florist had sat up all night painting them by hand 
 when I see a bunch of them. And as for those 
 gardens down the highway — talk about color 
 
'^ ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 schemes — ^they're all color, gorgeous, rich, riot- 
 ing, flaunting, eye-filling, heart-delighting color, 
 without the hint of a ''scheme'' about them. 
 
 Sweet peas — I hope they slipped a few of them 
 in, just to make the New York florists open their 
 eyes. Why, our sweet peas are as big as any 
 two of such blossoms anywhere else on earth, and 
 they haven't lost a bit of their delicacy or per- 
 fume while they were growing, either. Roses — 
 all kinds. They tell me we have a hundred and 
 ten different varieties growing right here in the 
 gardens of California, outdoors, with the sky and 
 the wind and the fog for gardeners. I never 
 could take time to count them myself. Fm always 
 too busy being glad I'm alive when I get a 
 glimpse of a real garden rose. 
 
 They're twelve dollars a dozen in New York, 
 you know — the roses we clip with a pair of gar- 
 den scissors and hand over the fence to the new 
 neighbor, just for a pleasant "good morning." 
 
 Asters — I wonder if they didn't slip in a few 
 of the gay, hopeful, joyous things. I always feel 
 as if I heard someone singing — something with 
 a trill in it and a lot of runs — ^high in a silvery 
 soprano, whenever I see a big bunch of pink and 
 blue and white and lavendar asters. 
 
ROSES AND RAIN 79 
 
 I wish we could send some September weather 
 by aeroplane, too, just these golden days that are 
 ours, right now — every hour a blessing handed 
 straight to us like a gift from a loved and loving- 
 friend. Amber days, amber and sapphire — and, 
 oh, the starlit beauty of the blue and silver nights. 
 
 And just think — we'll have them now, right 
 along, fairly up to Christmas, if our good old 
 climate does the usual thing in the way of fall 
 weather. 
 
 When they're beginning to put in the winter 
 coal and stuff up the double windows and hunt 
 out the winter underwear we'll be filling up the 
 tank and starting out for a little run to the green 
 redwoods or through the tawny fields of October 
 California — tawny with sunshine and purple and 
 green and white with the ripe grapes and the 
 bursting figs and the drying plums in the 
 orchards. 
 
 Let's put in a little of our optimism, too, in the 
 next box of California flowers — some of our 
 hope, some of our belief in humanity, some of 
 our eager and earnest Americanism, some of the 
 spirit of the old pioneer mothers— that spirit that 
 
)/ 
 
 80 ROSES AND RAIN 
 
 faced danger unafraid and knew not what it 
 meant to cower before any living thing. 
 
 Let's tuck in a Httle neighborly kindness, too, 
 and some open-hearted charity and some friendly 
 understanding. Oh, of course, they have these 
 things in New York — that splendid city of pride- 
 ful beauty and imperial luxury. But somehow 
 they don't have the time or the room to cultivate 
 them as we do here. 
 
 The open hand, the generous heart, the loving 
 sympathy of a true Californian — that heritage 
 that is the very birthright, bred in the bone and 
 born in the flesh of every real California man and 
 woman. Let's send some of that, too, with our 
 love and good wishes and many happy returns 
 of the day to great, rich, powerful, magnificent, 
 careless, ambitious, cold-hearted New York. 
 
 And when the message and the gift has gone — 
 let us every one of us here in San Francisco, look 
 out upon the blue bay and mark again with new 
 and deep appreciation the purple splendor of our 
 guarding mountains, and lift up our hearts in a 
 prayer of thanksgiving that we, too, are citizens 
 of no mean city — and let's be thankful that we 
 are alive — in California today. 
 
 JSV. 
 
Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
 Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 
 
 PreservationTechnologies 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 
 
 1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
 Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
 (724)779-2111