A Napa Christchild; and Benicia's Letters

by Charles A. Gunnison

Crescimir's visits to Tulucay were frequent now and the little Christchild always went with him, his greatest delight seeming to be to see Crescimir and Jovita together.

The day for the wedding was set to be the day before Christmas, for it seemed well that as that season had first made them known to each other, it should see them made man and wife.

The rainless summer and autumn passed and winter came with its green grass and new flowers.

Never had there been such a prosperous year for the Napa Valley, and the fields were fast blossoming with little white cottages, while golden vineyards were growing higher up the hillsides driving the chaparral back from its old inheritance as the Gringos did the natives. The town had increased to nearly twice its former size, so Crescimir's gardens were much sought, and he no longer was compelled to labour from sunrise till sunset to keep the weeds away, for now he was able to hire the hardest work done and enjoy the fruits of his first years' toil.

The month of December came and the leaves on the poplar trees in the village were turning golden, just lingering long enough to mingle lovingly for a while with the new-born green of winter, and then be hidden by the growth of broad leaved plants as soon as they had fallen brown upon the earth, producing that endless harmony of Californian nature, a life everlasting.

There were a few orange coloured poppies nodding in the mesas but violet star-flowers scattered over the lower meadows were powerful enough, by reason of their numbers, to conquer the colour of the grass, while the fields near the river were yellow with juicy cowslips.

Now the blue dome of St. Helena was not so often visible, for the clouds hovered about it filled with wealth giving rain.

Ploughing and planting had begun and in some places the grain had already started; blackbirds in hosts were perched on all the fences, watching the sowers and chattering saucily to each other as they snapped their bead-like eyes in anticipation of the feast so profusely spreading for them.

Over the low lands where the bay stretched its many arms in and out, offering to the ranchos its assistance to carry their abundant produce to a market, the marshes were red with short-growing sorrel, and the dark green of the tules along the edges fringed the silver indentations of the water in harmonious contrast.

All this did Jovita and Crescimir see from the veranda of Tulucay as with the Christchild by them they talked of the strange discovery and first sudden birth of their love, of how Jovita had first left the flowers at his door and how he had longed so much to know the one, the only one who had cheered his loneliness, and how he had loved the donor even before he had known that it was she.