Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1881-07-23

I their stock loose. The horses and COWS
strayed of to the hills to Craze on the
nutritious buffalo, grass. The brood
sows wandered up the creek, intent on
building warm nests for their expected
| young. By evening the black cloud that
had slowly mounted half way up to the
zenith was lurid with the reflected light
| of great prairie fire. The horses and
cattle came home They were slightly
excited. and frequently shifted of the
| smoke-charged air. The hogs, engaged
in house building, failed to come home,
and as it was dark, it was useless to
search for them. The Tallants were a
little anxious, but utterly failed to un-
derstand the danger that threatened
their neighborhood. Their buildings
were protected by plowed fields, and
they thought the fire could not damage
them, and they naturally wished to see
great prairie fire. Sweeping out of
the north, and distinct from the shrill
sound of the wind, they heard a dull
roar, as if many muflled drums were
beating, lowly but steadily. Also faint
cracking sound, as if lightly charged
rifles were being brisklv handled on a
distant skirmish line. Above the crest
of the distant divide tongue of flame
shot up, fared for an instant through
the dense clouds of smoke, then disap-
peared. In another place a flame, n
lurid exclamation point, was blazoned
against the dark sky. Suddenly the
depressions of the outline of the crest of
the distant hills, distinctly visible
against the lurid sky, were a tossing
mass of dull, red flames; then the higher
crests were one by one bathed in fire,
and the northern horizon for miles
glowed brightly. Denser grew the air
smoke-laden, dust-thickened,
The fire RAPIDLY advanced. It de.
scended into the hi gh grass in the val.
ley. me wind with q gust increased in
, violence. The black clouds that had
hung wall-like against the northern sky,
suddenly released from their bonds,
pushed southwark with great velocity.
Particles of fine, tiny crystals of snow
shot through the air in almost horizon
tai lines. The temperature of the air
fell instantly, and it was bitter cold.
An arctic blizzard drove n great prairie
fire to the south. Masses of flame as
large as a hogshead bounded high into
the air. Caught by the fierce wind,
they would be torn into fragments and
dashed into the unburnt grass far be-
yond the line of fire. No longer was
the head fire marked by a simple line;
1t was a sea of red-capped pillows,
breaking into fiery spray, that the wind
ever whisked far beyond. The fire
struck the broken prairie on which the
corn shocks were standing. Again and
again balls Of fire shot forth from rhe
tossing sea of flame, but failed to strike.
A long flexible arm of fire, beaten to
the ground by the wind, reached far
out over the barren land, and with
swinging, life-like motion struck one of
the corn shocks with its extremity. In
stantly the shock blazed brightly. OF
dozens OF these fiery arms that reached
out and sought with ife-like inteli-
gence to destroy, only three struck corn
shocks. The burning stalks and husks
were whisked through the air and lodg-
ing on shocks in the line of the wind set
fire to them. Three rows across the
eighty-acre field were consumed. The
fire swept to the south, and the Tai
lants went to bed knowing that they
had lost large portion of their corn,
and fearing that their swine had been
burned to death. Morning came, and
with it a revelation of the ferceness of
the winter storms on the Western plains.
Three days passed before John Tallant
dared to venture in search of his miss
ing swine. He found their charred re-
mains by the cre1k, where the grass
had stood the highest. The hard-work-
10
the losses experienced by the fire, and
the responsiveness of blackened, barren
prairie did not in the least oppress
them.
The next spring John Tallant sowed
the land he had plowed the previous fall
with wheat, aud that summer he broke
the remainder of his farm. This freshly
broken sod Mrs. Tallant planted with
corn. The season was n wet one, such
as occurs at intervals west of the Tooth
meridian, and the fertile soil yielded
bountiful returns. The wheat threshed
out seventeen bushels per acre. The
corn averaged twenty-five bushels. The
price of wheat was low, and there were
but $239 remaining in their hands after
paying for reaping machine and the
of the harvest. Corn also was
very low. John Tallant received twelve
and half cents per bushel of seventy
five pounds. During the summer they
bought five brood sows, and by fall they
had twenty-five little pigs. After many
consultations they decided to keep the
female increase and engage in hog rais-
ing, SO as to be able to feed their corn
instead of selling it for less than the
cost of production.
The third spring of their residence in
the Arid Belt they sowed eighty acres of
wheat and planted thirty. five acres of
corn. Thirty-five acres of their farm
was low land, along the creek, generally
dry enough to Craze on, but unsafe to
cultivate, as the sluggish waters rose
rapidly when heavy rains fell. Fencing
five acres of this land, including knoll
and living water for hog pasture, they
turned their swine loose. After this i'm
provement they counted their money
and found they had S73 remaining. The
wheat promised to yield bountifully.
The corn, though little backward, was
of excellent color, and the stand was
good. The hogs increased rapidly.
Fortune seemed to smile on this hard
working couple. Throughout the neigh
borhood, peopled by poor, industrious
farmers, the Tallants were spoken of as
being forehanded. Lank men and toll
ing women came to see them on Sunday
afternoons, and the former, while whit
ling sticks in the shade of the dug out,