The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1885-08-21
TIE WEATHER OUT WEST.
HOW 1T AFFECTS rIT TRUTHFUL
People OF DAKOTA.
Thu Home of the blizzard -SOnic EN-
traOTdinnrY ia. cS Og tEso l-ffccts

Thu Home of ,hr blizzard Some EN-
traOTdinnrY 'Fn.cg Of tEao l.ffects
OF Cyclon -.
A Dakota letter in the indianapolis
J0uJWdL contains the following: We
reached Pierre, the terminus of the Chi
cage and Northwestern railway, on
Wednesday evening at 6 o'clock. The
day had been excessively warm, and the
night closed in sultry and threatening.
Within two hours of our arrival we
were greeted with the fringes of the cy-
clone that Frustrated IIighmore, IIola-
bird aud one or two other towns through
which we had recently passed, and at
which the citizens had earnestly pleaded
for the commission to stop over. The
next morning a gentle Dakota zephyr
prevailed. Dust was in the air as
thick as a sand cloud, and the wind
rushed along at the rate of forty or fifty
miles an hour. | tried walking, not in
the teeth of the wind, but with it. 1t
carried Inc off my feet and landed me at
my destination with a suddenness and
force that bred a deep respect for the
wind that bloweth where it listeth in
this beloved country.
The next morning it was cold enou Oh
to wear o%vercoats the next the therm om-
eter marked anywhere from 1865 to
110o in the shade, and that night a
NEST furious storm broke at midnight,
in which the hotel rocked ana swayed as
a reed, while the sky was one glare of
binding lightning. Within four Gays
Dakota had treated its more or less dis
tinguished visitors to a cyclone, to a
siege of temperature between 105 . and
and 80 to q elbow" that would strip
the feathers from bclatcd chickens and
to an electrical storm not to be beaten
outside the tropics. The Coolest inhabi-
%tants,' those who have been here any
where from eighteen months to four
years, declared they never knew any
thing like it before in their lives, and
seemed somewhat chagrined at the I'M
usual atmospheric phenomena. However,
Just after the most solemn declaration
that no such wind had even been known
in Dakota, a sturdy ''settler" took the
stand and swore that in a storm his
cooking stove had been blown out Of his
''shuck," but not another of his effects
had been touched.
This naturally leads to n word upon
a pronounced popularity of the Dakota
lIOOlFCs L II al . oO lhlO hINl ldOlLS
that men seem to lose all sense of prop
or relation to things. There is no such
thing as an accurate knowledge of dis.
tances in this country. No two men
will agree as to the number of miles be-
tween to given points. Even the hon
ored bishop of Dakota, whom he meets
at service in this mission, has fallen into
the prevalent habit, and cannot tell for
his life within five or ten miles the dis.
lance to be travelled between any two
points in his expanded and expansive do
cese. And then the truth, 1t stretches
even more marvelously than distances.
For instances: While eXpatiating upon
transcendcnt glories of the climate, an
old m highly esteemed citizen told of
an experience of his where the table had
been spread for a family feast, possibly
a Thanksgiving dinner. Suddenly a
zephyr came up and the company re-
treated to the cyclone hole. After the
storm had passed, and the family had
emerged, they found that every one OF
the chairs about the table had been blown
through the only window there was in
the room, and not a trace of them could
! be founl, while not another thing had
been touched, nor the table with its vi
ands disturbed! You are expected to
believe this sort of thing; your hosts
lcel injured at any expression of doubt.
1t is readily seen what a simple, con
fiding, child like and bland people such
habits of life will produce. Another
story was told US, and this by a Metho-
dist minister, regularly in orders. He is
a devoted sportsman. lie has a very fine
gun and an unusually wcll-bred pointer
dog. He said it was nothing unusual
when he was out in the field for the dog
to ''point'.a bird in the evening after it
was too dark for him to shoot; he would
&c home, take a good nights rest, and
return in the early morning to find the
faithful dog still on the point, when he
would shoot and bag the bird, thus be-
/ ginning another days sport. As a guar
antcc of good faith, but not necessarily
for publication, | have the name of this
humble and devoted herald of the cross
and he brought the gun to the hotel as
conclusive evidence of the truth of his
story. For myself, / have no doubt of
it, nor have | any doubt of anything else
| am likely to hear. The ordinary rules
that govern human conduct cannot be
expected to apply to a people who live
in Il land where no pent-up Utica con-
tracts their powers, but who spread over
a whole boundless continent.