Few can realize the problem before those intrepid men, who, with little money and large hostility behind them, hauled their strenuously obtained subsistence and material over nearly a thousand miles of poorly equipped road.  They fought mountains of snow as they had never before been fought.  They forced their weak, wheezy little engines up tremendous grades with green wood that must sometimes be coaxed with sage-brush gathered by the firemen running alongside of their creeping or stalled iron horses.  There were no steel rails.  Engineers worked unhelped by the example of perfected railroad building of later times.  No tracks or charts of the man-killing desert!  No modern helps, no ready, over-eager capital seeking their enterprise!  Only skepticism, hatred from their enemies, and “You can’t do it!” flung at them from friend and foe.

SARAH PRATT CARR,
in The Iron Way.

MAY 12.

ANGLING THE SWORDFISH.

As he brought the great fish around again, a wonderful sight with its gaudy fins, enormous black eyes and menacing sword, the head boatman hurled the heavy spear into it.  The swordfish fairly doubled up under the shock, deluging with water the fishermen, its sword coming out and striking the boat.  A moment more and it might have escaped; but one of the men seized it by the sword, while another threw a rope around it, and the big game was theirs; in all probability the first large swordfish ever taken with a rod and reel.

CHARLES FREDERICK HOLDER,
in Big Game at Sea.

MAY 13.

The old Greeks taught their children how to sing, because it taught them how to be obedient.  This is a difficult universe to the man who drives dead against it, but to the man who has learned the secret of harmony through obedience it is a happy place.  Discord is sickness; harmony is health.  Discord is restlessness; harmony is peace.  Discord is sorrow; harmony is joy.  Discord is death; harmony is life.  Discord is hell; harmony is heaven.  He who is in love and peace with his neighbors, filling the sphere where God has placed him, hath heaven in his heart already.  Only through blue in the eye, the scientist tells us, can blue out of the eye be seen.  Only through C in the ear can C out of the ear be heard.  Only through Heaven down here can Heaven up there be interpreted.

MALCOLM McLEOD,
in Earthly Discords.

MAY 14.

As one approaches the mission from the road, it defines itself more and more as a distinct element in the view:  the hills ... seem to distribute themselves on either side, as though realizing that here, at least, they are subordinate and must not intrude.  This brings Santa Lucia into view, directly behind the mission, and thus the two most prominent, most interesting, most beautiful objects in the landscape are brought together in one perfect whole:  Mt.  Santa Lucia—­Nature’s grandest creation for miles around; Mission San Antonio—­man’s noblest, most artistic handiwork between Santa Barbara and Carrnelo.