seasons begin about the time that all begin to lose hope.
November adds its full tribute to the stream of sunshine that
for months has poured along the land; and, perhaps, December
closes the long file of cloudless days with banners of blue and
gold. The plains and slopes lie bare and brown; the low hills
that break away from them are yellow with dead foxtail or wild
oats, gray with mustard-stalks, or ashy green with chemisal or
sage. Even the chaparral, that robes the higher hills in living
green, has a tired air, and the long timber-line that marks
the canon winding up the mountain-slopes is decidedly paler.
The sea-breeze has fallen off to a faint breath of air; the
land lies silent and dreamy with golden haze; the air grows
drier, the sun hotter, and the shade cooler; the smoke of
brush-fires hangs at times along the sky; the water has risen
in the springs and sloughs as if to meet the coming rain, but
it has never looked less like rain than it now does.

Suddenly a new wind arises from the vast watery plains upon the
south-west; long, fleecy streams of cloud reach out along the
sky; the distant mountain-tops seem swimming in a film of haze,
and the great California weather prophet--a creature upon whom
the storms of adverse experience have beaten for years without
making even a weather crack in the smooth cheek of his
conceit--lavishes his wisdom as confidently as if he had never
made a false prediction. After a large amount of fuss, and
enough preliminary skirmishing over the sky for a dozen storms
in any Eastern State, the clouds at last get ready, and a soft
pattering is heard upon the roof--the sweetest music that ever
cheers a Californian ear, and one which the author of "The Rain
upon the Roof" should have heard before writing his poem.

When the sun again appears it is with a softer, milder beam
than before. The land looks bright and refreshed, like a tired
and dirty boy who has had a good bath and a nap, and already
the lately bare plains and hill-sides show a greenish tinge.
Fine little leaves of various kinds are springing from the
ground, but nearly all are lost in a general profusion of dark
green ones, of such shape and delicacy of texture that a
careless eye might readily take them for ferns. This is the
alfileria, th