Gardens of Christmastide [pp. 561-569]

T H E
Overland
Monthly
Vol. XXII. (Second Series). December, I893.-No. I32
GARDENS OF CHRISTMASTIDE.
RO)UND San
Francisco Bay
i;,i $'" -~ —people may "ex pect much rain
about this time,"
- We i.' A d.- as the almanacs
t~l lwould say, but
4 they do not near tagf;!ly always get it.
X [;i- The holidays
may come in
with a regular
~-'~ r,}-' ~southeaster, that
;,- ll~! beats the linger ing flowers,
,-Em drenched and
wxincl-blown, into the sodden ground;
or it may be with lowering and drizzly
daa-s, in whose warm moisture the
tender green that the first rains have
brought out over the landscape deepens fast or it may be with the infrequent "cold spell," where a little back
from the Bay thin films of ice gather
over the wayside puddles, and white
frost lingers all day in shaded nooks.
But what the people in the Bay
counties look for as real Christmas
weather is sunshine after showers.
Then the rainclouds go flying to north
and east, lingering in great snowy piles
on the horizon, while the sky overhead
has the tender blue of the turquoise.
Floods of brilliant sunshine soon dry
VOL. XXII.-46. (Copyright, 1893, by OVERLAND MONTHLY
Bacon & Company, Printers
the sidewalks, and well-dressed women
appear again; while the umbrella man
regretfully gathers up his stock, his occupation gone with the southerly wind
that brought the rain.
Halcyon days are those that follow
the heavy rains. The earth basks in
the soft, warm fire of a sun low in the
south, yet strong enough sometimes to
call out the first willow tassels of the
new year before the old year is past,
and to keep the last eschscholtzias lingering, the rearguard of summer's army.
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