282 Recreations of a Sportsman 



vintage, and a good many before it? The guitar 

 notes rise on the air, shrill voices sing " La 

 Paloma." There is an odor of grape of Tokay, 

 of tobacco from Juarez, of crushed pepper and 

 eucalyptus leaves and of dust in yellow clouds; 

 the stars shine dazzlingly bright, and the moon 

 comes up behind San Antonio, and so the 

 pickers return home by moonlight. 



October finds them at work. It is cooler; an 

 early rain has come, the dust is laid, and the 

 vast vineyard reaches away, a green blanket, to 

 the mountains as far as the eye can see. The 

 mustard has faded and died, and along each 

 road delicate lines of green are creeping. It has 

 come like magic. Alfilaria, wild oat, clover, and 

 a host of others are rising upward, and in a 

 short time carpet the earth, and that miracle 

 of miracles happens. A single heavy rain has, 

 with a few warm days, converted the grays of 

 a long summer into the green of a California 

 winter. It has come early, and is by no means 

 desired, and Seiior Gonzales and his friends are 

 quietly murmuring among themselves, not that 

 they lose, as they are only pickers, but rain- 

 washed grapes somehow do not make quite as 

 good wine, they think, as those unwashed. By 

 all the signs it is to be a wet winter, and the 

 pickers redouble their energies. 



A picturesque sight it is as they file out 

 into the vineyard, each with his knife; men, 



