The eggs of that sweet bird change their hue,
And burn with red, and gold, and blue ;
Reminding mankind, in their simple way,
Of the holy marvel of Easter-day."
I know that in a little time the march of reason will sweep this old tradition, as it has already swept away others which were once regarded as essentials of the Christian faith ; nevertheless I envied the simple, uneducated bird-catcher his childlike, unquestioning belief, and the song of the sweet night-singer of California will ever henceforth fall upon my ear more gratefully for its pleasant association with that story of holy marvel, which, although some of us may doubt, we must surely all alike admire.
The sun was high in the heavens, next day, when I said good-by to Albert at Crystal Springs, and rode away into the Sierra Morena Mountains. It was a California autumn morning,—and, in saying that, I have left nothing unsaid in the way of description. Turning southwestward, the road, one of the finest I have ever ridden over, winds round and round, in and out, along the steep sides of a deep, rocky cafion, for miles, ascending by regular and easy grades the dividing ridge between the Bay of San Francisco and the Pacific Ocean. When nearly at the summit I paused to rest my panting horse and look back upon the scene below. And such a scene! It was a variation of that described in the story of my paseár, but, if possible, even more entrancingly beautiful. Eastward, the Bay of San Francisco, cairn, unruffled, and blue, glittered in the
