August in the Sierras [pp. 170-173]

August in the Sierra.
AUGUST IN THE SIERRA.
THE clear sunlight fills this glorious mountain land. I write from beneath the shelter
of a sugar pine growing on the hillside, near
a ruined saw-mill, and close by the flash and
sparkle of water flowing from a broken flume.
A mile below, far down the ridge, are the
clustered houses of a mining village, once,
in the days before the decision against hydraulic mining, a thrifty mountain town, but
now fast tumbling into decay. Ten years
ago there were fifty children in the public
school; now only fifteen. Ten years ago
the town had three hotels and half a dozen
stores; now the single hotel-keeper runs the
store and keeps the post-office and the livery stable, and peddles vegetables, and mines
a little during the intervals of his other occupations.
Far up the ridge, beyond the sharp knobs
of quartz and masses of lava, beyond the
dark cedar forest, are peaks on whose precipitous sides a few patches of snow yet linger in the hot August sun. Deep down sheer
descents, twinkling along the bottom of the
gulch, is a winding river, flowing through
wastes of gravel and past trunks of blasted
trees. At my feet are flowers in earliest bud
-flowers that long ago passed out of bloom
in the valley; and beside them are shyer
flowers, which only the wilder heights nourish. Here is that rare luxuriance of intermingling trees, vines, shrubs, trailers, and
lesser plants, which only the mountain can
display.
It is the earliest summer here; the grasses are yet green; the flush of spring has not
quite faded. Climb a mile furtheir up the
steep trail, and you will find wild roses in
first bloom, and imagine yourself back in
April. Down in the far-away valley gardens
of Sacramento and San Jose, there are dahlias and hollyhocks, gladiolas, oleanders,
crape myrtles, and magnolias; here, larkspurs
and dicentras. If one should climb to the
edges of yon snow-drift, the green grass, a
finger's width in tallness, would be found
lying about it, and blue nemophilas of March
would be seen there.
As one sits in peace beneath his chosen
pine tree, the beauty of this broad plateau,
so cleft by rivers like the Yuba and Feather,
so uplifted into crags and snow peaks, takes
possession of his thoughts. He remembers
the slow ascent, the pictures of the past, the
foothill homes, the winding roads, the busy
and prosperous men he met in the way hither. How long ago it seems since he was in
the midst of the broad barley fields of Solano, Yolo, and Sacramento, white to the harvest, already falling before the gleaming
reaper blade.
The Sierra foothills extend so far down
into the valley that it is hard to say at any
point, "here the lowland ceases, the upland
begins." The low hills that one finds after
leaving the valley, have little to commend
them to the eye. They are dull in appearance, and seemingly unfertile, given over to
stunted fields of grain, and small chicken
ranches, with an occasional effort at orcharding and vegetable gardening. Approach the
Sierras from whichever way you choose, the
entrance must be through this region of few
attractions, this narrow belt of land that does
not as yet attract the horticulturist. The
true orchard land is farther up the heights.
But the judicious use of water from the old
mining ditches extended to the outermost
verge of these hills will work a surprising
change in their appearance.
Just below me, within fifty yards in fact,
is a cabin sinking slowly into decay. "Old
Cap" lives there, a miner, who goes dQwn
into the gulch each morning to his toil, and
returns each night with a little gold-dust,
enough to supply his wants. He owns a little claim down there, and he takes water
from the mining ditch that courses its way on
the hillside above us. The little work he
does hardly roils the stream for a mile, and
170
[Aug.