To the Californian born, California is the only place to live. Why do
men so love their native soil? It is perhaps a phase of the human love
for the mother. For we are compact of the soil. Out of the crumbling
granite eroded from the ribs of California's Sierras by California's
mountain streams--out of the earth washed into California's great
valleys by her mighty rivers--out of this the sons of California are
made, brain, and muscle, and bone. Why then should they not love their
mother, even as the mountaineers of Montenegro, of Switzerland, of
Savoy, love their mountain birthplace? Why should not exiled
Californians yearn to return? And we sons of California always do
return; we are always brought back by the potent charm of our native
land--back to the soil which gave us birth--and at the last back to
Earth, the great mother, from whom we sprung, and on whose bosom we
repose our tired bodies when our work is done.

JEROME A. HART,
in _Argonaut Letters._



JANUARY 9.


GIVE ME CALIFORNY.

Blizzard back in York state
Sings its frosty tune,
Here the sun a-shinin',
Air as warm as June.