Wet as a drownded rat,
And watch the grain a-growin',
And the cattle gettin' fat.

Sorry for them Easterners,
Kickin' like Sam Hill,
But the sun-kissed land is thirsty
And wants to drink its fill.
Oh, hear the poppies laughin',
And the happy mockers sing,
When it rains in Californy,
Through the glory of the spring.

JOHN S. McGROARTY,
in _Just California._



NOVEMBER 6.


The broad valley had darkened. The mountains opposite had lost their
sharp details and dulled to an opaque silver blue in the mists of
twilight. They had become great shadow mountains, broad spirit masses,
and seemed to melt imperceptibly from form to form toward the
horizon....

There had come a harmony more perfect than life could ever give. It
included all their love that had gone before and something greater,
vaster--all life, all nature, and all God.