TO enjoy and appreciate to its fullest possibilities a Californian spring, let me choose, for one, to live first through a Californian summer. Then I can see the great miracle with my own eyes, watch it in its tiniest and swiftest workings, and follow it with loving wonder.
Now those plains and slopes yonder lay bare and brown for many months: everything on them was scorched up and covered with thickening dust. The sumac, to be sure, kept its greenness, and even sent out tender shoots, just to remind us perhaps that Nature was not really dead, but slumbering beneath her ugly garment of dust and withered growth, even as elsewhere she takes her time of rest beneath a lovelier covering of purest white. The foothills were barren of any kind of beauty: the very stones and rocks wore an uncompromising air of ugliness, and the whole country seemed to be without a single charm until the hour of sunset, and then the mountains were tinged with purple light, and the great boulders themselves appeared to have donned for the moment a suit of purple heather.
Ah, for the green pastures in other countries then, for the deep lanes, and forests of trees, for the brooks and rivers, for the grass and ferns and mosses, and for everything in Nature soothing to the eye and comforting to the spirit!
But as time went on, my friends, regret and longing crept stealthily away, and curiosity and wonder took their place, for some change was coming over the country, almost imperceptible and most mysterious. There was no rain, but the night-fogs cast their moisture on the dried-up bush and starved-looking chaparral. Tiny leaves broke forth and gave the first sure sign that the long summer sleep was over. And surely those hills had lost their former crude brown colouring, and had mellowed into tenderer tints. There was a softening spell over everything, and a strange sense of unrest. The heavens looked troubled, and threatened rain at last. But still no rain came, and yet one might see how the fresh growth was struggling to assert itself unaided. Then, after many days of waiting, the rains fell.
And Nature began to work her beautiful miracle. She had delayed so long that she had to work quickly; but those who cared enough, could follow her in every detail.
A few faint signs of grass on the roadside, the palest shimmer of green on the slopes, fine little leaves springing from the ground, a tiny flower here and there, and in the cañons frail ferns.
Then a luxuriance of green: vast expanses of young fresh grain on the foothills and in the great plain yonder: stretches of emerald grass almost dazzling in its intensity, with a dash of even brighter colour, matched only by the sea-moss on the rocks: green fields of pasture in the valley, and on the heights green brushwood spread like a soft velvet mantle over the distant ridges.
And then the flowers springing up in places where neither growth nor life seems possible.
Carpets of the little pink blossom of the alfilaria, the first spring flower: carpets of the golden violets charged with delicious fragrance, and of the shooting-stars, so dainty with petals of white and delicate purple, and so generous of sweetest perfume.
Colours of every hue: masses of wild hyacinths, pale lavender in shade, thousands of yellow flowers varying from a faint tint to a deep orange: blue, pink, red, purple flowers, any you will, and amongst them delicate white ones of many lovely designs.
And the splendid poppy flaming and flashing in the sunlight, and the rich indigo larkspur, and the vetches and lupins and the lilies—how can one tell of them all, and how can one describe the gladness and gratitude and wonder which their presence calls forth?
And then in cañons and timbered hiding-places, known only to those who pry and probe, many a curious and lovely flower. And as the weeks go on, fresh treasures, revealing themselves in place of those which have passed out of sight: glorious monster poppies of crinkled white satin, and yellow hairy mariposa lilies, just like luscious yellow butterflies. Vines and creepers trailing on the ground, and festooning shrubs and rocks; sweet scents wafted now from here and now from there, and now mingling together in fragrant accord.
And all these wonders tenfold more wonderful because of that burnt and dried-up soil from which nothing beautiful seemed possible.
But stay! The summer is here once more. The foothills are brown again: the slopes and plains where the grain has been grown and cut, have chosen for themselves the colour of old gold plush. Brown and old gold: surely a charming combination.
Is it that familiar scenes take on an ever-increasing beauty? Is it that the more intently we look, all the more surely do we see fresh loveliness; just as when gazing into the heavens at eventide, first one star reveals itself to us, and then another? Or is it that we know spring will come indeed, bringing those treasures which enchanted us?