Join a sunrise club? as is proposed in Birds and Nature for January. Of course I will. I have for years belonged to one of two members—my daughter and myself. Now we will transfer our membership to the new club that is to have members all over the country.
Some of our winter sunsets here in Nebraska are glorious. I am especially fond of looking at them through the thousand interlaced branches of the leafless trees. One can study tree forms and sunsets in the same picture. I wonder that every person is not a sunset observer. But some people are sunset blind, and some rarely ever look at the heavens on starry nights. I sometimes meet people who lament the fact that they cannot go to Colorado and see the mountains, of which they hear such glowing accounts. I tell them that I do not pity them at all so long as they do not care to gaze upon the most glorious sight which mortal man is permitted to see—the starry heavens. They who do not appreciate the stars and the sunsets would soon tire of the mountains.
Our summer sunsets are also glorious, but I miss some of them on account of the trees around my house. I sometimes get on my wheel and go out of town simply to see the sunset. Trees are nice, but they often hide from us something nicer. When the towns of Colorado were new, twenty-five years ago, we could see the mountains from all our west doors and windows. Now in those same towns the people must go out into the street, or even out of town, if they would see the mountains in summer.
But, say, let us have another club—a Sunrise Club. It may be asking too much to make it operative for the whole year, so we will call it a sunrise club for May and June. Those are the bird months of the year, the months when some of us are out before sunrise morning after morning, to watch the birds and to hear their wonderful concerts. Some of the pleasantest memories of my life are of early morning trips on my wheel to a certain grove in the edge of town. On those trips I have seen many a new bird—new to me—and many a glorious sunrise.
Somehow birds and the rising of the sun fit into each other beautifully.
There is something inspiring and exhilarating about sunrise that is not found in sunsets. The air is more free from dust; one’s body and mind, yes, and soul, too, are in better mood to enjoy the sight; one is more pleased to welcome the sun than to bid him good night; the birds seem to think so and they give joyous welcome to the orb of day; all nature is awakening; a great thing is happening; a new day, fresh from the hands of its Maker, is being born. All hail, thou new creation! Welcome, thou glorious orb of day! Let me join with the birds in singing thy praise. Thou dost flood my soul with joy even as thou dost flood the earth with light. Yes, let us have a sunrise club for May and June, except perhaps the cloudy and stormy mornings when even the birds seem to lie abed. Who will join?
Roselle Theodore Cross.
TOMATOES.
(Lycopersicum esculentum).