48 THE DESERT AND THE ROSE 



rotted fruit from California or elsewhere. If it be 

 true that our city is undergoing a slight change of 

 heart, it is full time that she did. 



To go backward once more : c driving one after- 

 noon across a strip of unreclaimed land I came un- 

 expectedly upon a wheat field. There had been 

 phenomenally early thunder showers, for it was yet 

 June, and the air held a dewy softness character- 

 istic only of the rainy season with us. Clouds were 

 trailing giant shadows over the bright rainwashed 

 face of the mountains, and the varying greens from 

 emerald to bronze, the play of light and shade which 

 renders the Arid Belt so enchanting yet so exas- 

 perating to the brush artist, made a picture unsur- 

 passed in rural loveliness. The eastern mesa wore its 

 gentlest, most emotional aspect. I use the word emo- 

 tional for the reason that nearer the Coast moun- 

 tain and valley, especially in summer time, strike the 

 artist eye as stupidly unemotional in their dull, un- 

 varyingly olive green habiliments, in comparison 

 with the astonishing effects produced here by roll- 

 ing summer clouds, or bv the wind clouds 

 of spring. This afternoon the red domes of 

 the Catholic church shone richlv through the 

 bower of greenery in which the town nestles, 

 and the foreground was consummately effected 

 by the ruddy patch of wheat and stubble, 

 stooping figures of Mexicans, a man in blue over- 

 alls and jumper erect against a harmonious sky. 

 Some of the belated harvest had been reaped, but 

 there were no shocks. Instead the crop was being 

 gathered in handsfull and armsfull from the 



