Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1878-01-30
Evening in the California Mountains.

Evening in the California Mountains.
Mrs. Mary Hallock Foote, the artist,
writes as follows in Scribncr for Febru-
airy: @vA ~ a @
Toward the close of the dry season,
when brown and dusty August turns into
browner, dustier September, keen
remembrance of all cool, watery joys
takes possession Of ones thoughts. The
tapping OF ripples in pebbly coves, the
steady thump of oars in row-locks. the
smell of appleblossoms on damp spring
evenings, old mill-races messy and drip
ping, the bleating of frightened lambs
at sheep-washlng and the hoarsc, sti-
fled complaints of their mothers min
gled with the rushing Of the stream,-
all these once common sounds and
sights haunt the memory. Every day
the dust cloud grows thicker in the val
ley, the mountains fade almost out of
sight against sky which is all glare
without color; a dry wind searches over
the bare, brown hills for any lingering
drop Of moisture the sun may have left
there; but morning and evening still
keep spell which makes one forget the
burden of the day AT sunset the dust
cloud in the valley becomes a bar Of
color stretching across the base of the
mountains, deep rose and orange, shad-
ing by softest gradations into cool blue.
I remember one sunset especially. The
clouds of dust rolling up from the val
ley below were transformed by the
light into level bars of color like hori-
zantal rainbow sweeping across the en-
tire valley; above it the mountains
rose; n wonderful variety Of constantly
changing hues made them look like
something unreal Then there came
sudden darkening of the lower part Of
the mountains so that the sun-lit peaks
seemed to float in the air above the
bars of sun colored dust, with strip of
cool shadow between. All is quiet; as
in the morning, no birds chirp and twit-
ter themselves to sleep: the stiffness is
only broken 10y the dull throbbing of the
engine like stiflcd breath in the dis
tant shaft-house.
Every evening repeats this silent SYM
phony Of color, and every day it seems
like something one has dreamed of.
The rose and orange and blue have
faded into the same dull, gray pail,
which, to the valley stretched beneath,
is never anything more; only those who
see it from the hills know that some
times this pail is robe Of glory.
We rode home one evening across
the low, bare hills beyond the Mexican
camp. 1t was during the " earth-shock
weather" las the miners call those last,
dry, lurid weeks before the early rain
fal), and one ot the dull, red sunsets,
peculiar to that season, had been fam
ing on the sky and mountains; It's lin
gcring glow colored the edge of the ear
ly moonlight. The soil here has YER
million tinge, which is stronger after sun
down; it was intensified that evening by
the flush in the sky. There was no pos
tive light or shadow, only II pink glow
spreading over all the wide landscape,
except where the canon held its glooms,
frightened in sky of twilight blue. Ii
was in sentiment like William Morris's
poetry, | always think of it rs the
land east of the sun, and west of the
moon" While the moon is young and |
her light faint and pale, one can scarce
ly mark the time when the lingering |
twilight passes into the soft, dim radi- |
ance that spreads like a spell over the
valley, across part Of which lies the
shadow Of II mountain. We cannot see |
the moon itself, only its light The
mountains opposite remain always
shrouded in silence and mystery But
when nights come for the full moon the
place is u paradise in the foreground
the winding trolls with black masses of
shadow from the clumps Of liye-oak
crossing them, the dark mountain lines
rising grandly on every side, the mys-
FERROUS depths of the canons, the lights
of the Mexican camp scattered over the
hills, the closer clustered lights of the
Cornish camp on the lower range, the
wide, dim valley below, and the far-ofi
barrier of mountains.