Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1883-03-01
Wonderful Weather,

w CutAC1s
From the Cape Girardeau News.l
"This weather reminds mAof q WIN
ter we had away back there in the for
ties" said one of trio of old resident
ers who stood in front of the Post Office
discussing the possibilities and the
probabilities of barge line being es-
tablished between this city and Delta,
"when we boys used to go bare-footed
about half the time. 1 recollect one
day, though, a regular norther struck
us, and two inches of ice froze between
nine and ten O'Clock in the forenoon.
By twelve the weather had moderated
and before shutdown the ice had melted
and the boys were in swimming"
Father used to tell of q spell of
weather he once had experience with"
spoke up the second residenter, "that
beats anything 1 ever heard tell of. 1t
was about 1920 or Whereabouts that we
lived in New York State, and the near
est Post Office was about ten miles
away. Every Saturday morning he
used to go to the office for his mail. One
Saturday he started out afoot, and before
he had gone half mile a snow storm
struck him, and he retraced his steps.
By noon there were three feet of snow
on the ground. At two O'Clock the sun
was shining, and at five o'clock there
wasn'ta speck of snow anywhere. The
weather continued warm for four days,
and during that time the grass actual
ly grew five and quarter inches. Then
it rained and turned cold again and all
the streams in the neighborhood were
frozen so solid that it took three years
for them to thaw out"
THAT, said the third and most truth
fu! of the trio, twas pretty remarka-
BILE winter, but my grandfather used to
tell of terrible winter they once had
in Canada. The old gentleman had
just finished building an ice-house,
when storm arose, and the roof was
blown off, and, before it could be re-
placed, the rain began falling, and it |
never stopped until that house was
pAdiho kuii Va "olCt, GilCd COlu "tdlfleT
set in, and the water in the ice-house |
frOze into one sold mass of ice. Ofceurse,
the frame of the building gave way,
and the ice was left to the mercy of the |
elements. The next spring the old |
gentleman heard what he supposed |
was rat gnawing on the ice. and on |
going to the opposite side of the mass,
and looking toward the sun, he saw,
pecking away on the ice with a pocket
knife; the ice was remarkably clear, or
it would not have been so easy to see
through. Well, the old gentleman /
piled straw and wood around the mass
and set fire to it, and melted it away;
after which tramp came out, looking
pale and thin. He said he had crawled
into the ice-house for nap, and had
been frozen up for several months. He
footed it to the next house after a warm
dinner. Anybody but tramp would
have died.
"But that isn't a circumstance to
what happened at other places" con-
tinued the most truthful of the trio.
'An old lady had kettle of boiling
water on the stove, and in going out of
the house for some wood she left the
iOor open for q few minutes. When
she returned, the water had frozen solid
while sitting on the red-hot stove.
Another woman threw a kettle of boil
ng water out of the second story win
low on two wolves, and the minute it
struck them they were frozen together
'ide by side; two months later they
we're seen still held together by the
CO. In another place erybody froze
% death, and the next spring an enter
'rising Yankee shipped lot of the
bodies to New York, and sold them for {
marble statuary; and the purchasers I
never discovered the fraud until the s
'orpses thawed out late in the sum-
ner. Oh, that was a terrible Win t
er!"
And the three looked sorrowful at /
ach other and walked off. q
We Are Not Missed. Il
If you orI T