Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1898-03-18
WAKE UP, JONAH"
by Joaquin Miller.

land WDar1S, an OLD Yankee sailor
TALL lean, lank, once as full of old sea
stories as an old pincushion is full of
old needles. Nearly all of these stories
are made up of dreadful shipwreoks, in
every one of which he bore a conspicu-
Gus part and was each time the worst
shipwrecked sailor Of the whole crew,
and | think this is why the Califor
mans, long, long ago, when it was the
habit to call men by queer names, called
this man Jonah. Anyhow the name
was firmly fastened on him when a few
years ago he was set to watch certain
place by the shore and give alarm in
case of fire.
Well, in few days the place took
fire, and everything, including old Jo-
NAH as it was thought, was burned to
ashes. But as these Californians always
rebuild very quickly the workmen,
while clearing away for new founda-
tion, heard voice away down below,
and, opening the mouth of the well
that had been covered by falling tim
bers, there they found poor old Jonah,
up to his neck in the water, where he
had fallen while running in great haste
to give the alarm of fire.
This and other less important Incl
dents in the same line gave the honest
old sailor such a reputation for bad
luck that few fishermen or pleasure par
ties were willing to embark with Jonah
il other boats were to be had at hand.
But ON the 2Sth of November, 1856,
the day OH which the California Arbor
day was established, the old man had
his big boat filled with as bright and
lovely little crowd of country boys
and girls as could have been found for
miles around, and this was because ev-
cry other boat had been engaged to go
to Yuba Buena island, in the middle of
the great and most glorious bay of San
Francisco, where the ceremonies were
to take place.
This great, big and ugly island in
this broad and most beautiful bay on
the globe, if we except the bay of Ma
pies perhaps, is barren and rocky
place. 1t belongs to the government and
has pretty lighthouse Gu it. There are
four other islands in this great bay of
San Francisco, but they are not so bar
rem and ugly. One of them is a huge
fort, with more than 500 cannon and
many soldiers ON it. Another one is q
great place for building ships.
And so, as this barren island lies al
most in the middle Of this magnificent
bay and is nearly between Oakland and
San Francisco, where boats pass by con-
tinuously, it was agreed that it would
be a good thing to begin our California
Arbor day by planting this ugly and
barren island with forest trees.
General Howard, the one armed old
hero of Gettysburg and many another
bloody field of battle, was in command
of our armies and armament ON this
coast at the time, and he headed the
work by giving all the ships and all the
sailors and all the soldiers to carry the
people to the island and help plant
trees, and so on.
Mr.. Sutro, the great engineer who
made the Sutro tunnel into the silver
mountains of Nevada, gave us 80, 600
trees to plant ON the island, and as he
was to plant the first tree, and as Gen
eral Howard was also TO plant tree,
and as the governors and senators of
California and Nevada were also to
plant trees, and as the famous orator,
John j. Irish, was to make a speech,
why, you see, nearly everybody wanted
to be there. Besides that, the 46, 900
school children of San Francisco all
wanted to plant trees on that particular
island ON that particular day. So you
see clearly that every boat in and about
the bay Of San Francisco was crowded
into the service and loaded to the
guards.
But poor old Jonah and his big old
whaleboat were left to the very last. He
had painted her up-painted her red
and white and blue. He had set a row
Of little cent flags along either gun
vale and big flag at bow and stern to
give a gay appearance to his boat and
attract attention, but for all that people
would pass by when they saw that it
was Jonah's boat.
The sun was high and hot, and you
could see thousands and thousands OF
children in red and white and blue
clambering up the stony steep of the
island away out in the middle of the
bay before the old man Jonah could find
acustomer.
And then suddenly there came a
crowd-a crowd. that had missed the
last boat by the least part of minute
"a crowd of strangers-strangers to
one another mostly. They had come
down from the country on the cars by
twos and threes and tours, and when
the plank of the last boat was pulled
IN this little band of young folks from
the country melted in together and
wandered along the shore till they
found Jonah.
They tumbled into his boat with a
shout. They were SO glad. Nearly every
one had a brother, sister. cousin or
something Of that sort along. True
there were two or three young mel
VINO did not have their own sisters
uut they had some other young men''
sisters and so did not complain. There
was one pale and plain little girl who
seemed quite alone. She was very plain
clad too Her dress was black. Ano
mere was blond young man, who wal
all alone. The pale little girl looked NJ
MN and seemed to like him. But h'
was clearly in love with himself, anC
uu not very graciously accept the seal
which Jonah assigned him by the side