Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1883-08-29
MONTPELIER, vi
The Airy West.

great when one gets rlSht down 10 rocl
bottom facts. 1t grows and deserves t.
grow, and its growth is good for all tn
rest of the country. But it does not pa,
to believe everything that every man VIII
is blooming" that wide expanse sees fl
10 say.
There Is sort of freedom about tn,
forces of nature that gets into the Language
of the western enthusiast. He has indeed
wonderful things to tell of, but he some
times fails to fence in his facts and somt
of them get lost and some of them arr
replaced by something that isn't fact.
1t is true about the big crops but there
are billiards and the remembrance of Il
blizzard soon fades from the mind of the
lover of the west. Nevertheless the biz
zird has being, and some who know O
it talk of it.
Perhaps the fact that man can fight q
blizzard and come out pretty healthy is
why this furious wind is easier located by
the testimony of western men than the
local habitation of the "cyclone." When
cyclone strikes a western town it is true
the fact is admitted for time. but up to
the moment of the advent of one you can
never find place that is liable to such a
visitation. Like the fever and ague in
old times, they "don't have it in thi.
neighborhood" but few miles further on
But when such a terrible affair as lasi
weeks cyclone at Rochester, Minnesota
comes destroying couple dozen lives
wounding forty or fifty people and making
way with property worth half million
the good big hearted people of neighoring
cities and counties admit that that cyclone
did strike and put their hands in their
pockets and help their afflicted fellows,
Without doubt the people of the Mis-
sissippi valley and the plains to the west
of it dread these fearful visitors from the
sky and it is just as well that among
themselves they should keep their courage
up by saying that the wind will not come
where they live, But when they talk to
eastern folks TO get them to "go west" it
would be just us we'll to admit that the
cyclone is a drawback to the west and fall
back on the general statement that the
west is so much more of II place than the
east anyway that the old saying "bettel
fifty years of Europe than Il cycle OF
Cathay' applies.
While the Rochester folks are rebuilding
and they and the others along the eighteen
miles line that the storm followed are
with western energy at work repairing
their shattered homes President Arthur
and his company are yet further west
among the wonders of Yellowstone Park
They are fishing and make nature do their
cooking, can throw trout from his cool
retreat in one stream into water that will
boil him. The geysers spout for the
president as readily as for Poor Lo" bu,
no more so.
Not so the border editor. The coming
of the presidential party gives his imagi
nation a new field to play in and the spout
of the geyser is outdone. The editor OF
the Wood Riuer Times at or near Ogden,
Utah, is the latest specimen of an untameo
western writer. He has heard of IL party
of sixty-five Texas cowboys or men 'ah
as Texas cowboys, with proper
admxture of regulators" and five "Shos-
hone and Bannock Indians who are on
their way to kidnap the president and
keep himafor big ransom. An added
terror is that the aforesaid five Indians are
alleged by the Times editor to be wild
Furthermore on Thursday night, this
beautiful band held meeting which he
of the Wood RiUer Times thus describes:
"a grand council was held the night
before last on the prairie, when every man
swore by his dagger in the freight to do
his duty" There is sample of the airy
wcst-not only free and easy in descrip
tion but dramatic; the swearing, and the
dagger and the freight combination
unsurpassed, but not complete and full to
the Times man till "duy" is added. And
wIen that Times man comes 10 "boom"
the next place in his vicinity one may be
reason ably sure he will do his duty" by
it.