The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-03-27
THE HOME OF THE BLIZZARD.
What Burdette has to Say About the
Antics OF the Zephyrs.

Dearly beloved, if you want to have
fun, get up lecture and bring it out
West when the billiards are ripe. Last
Saturday l drove from HilIsdale, Iowa,
to Tabor. 1t was only eight miles, and
it wasn't so awfully cold. Somewhere
between an inch and an inch and three
quarters down below the dot; but as I
had breathed the balmy air of Wiscon-
sin only week before at 80 degrees be-
low the belt didn't mind little thing
like that. But Monday morning made
drive of twelve miles across the coun-
try from Tabor to Malvern. A Young
student of Tabor college, Gilbert Brooks,
took me down, because he knew the
roads OF the country and the WAYS of
the blizzard. Now, when it blows out
IN this land it blows. 1t doesn't stop
for the cold and it doesn't stop to in
qulre the way. 1t blows a thousand
miles minute, and if it finds a snow
drift located not to suit it, it just moves
the drift into new place and sweeps
the old ground perfectly bare of snow.
And cold? The hot bricks froze to our
feet, less or more. We ratified over the
rough, frozen roads where the ground was
bare, then we would plunge into snow
drifts up to the horses corsets. and all
the time the pitiless wind, sweeping all
the way down from Alaska, whirled the
light snow into our faces and searched
out every crevice and wrinkle in blanket
and ulster. Shade of the great white
bear, but it was cold And as far as the
the eye could reach across the great
white drfted prairies the snow went
sweeping, whirllng into fantastic circles,
rising In great gyrating columns comb
ing over like ocean breakers; mile after
wintry mile the Arctic dance went on,
and the ghostly squadrons of the frozen
north went charging over these mea-
sureless plains, and ever the fierce sweep
OF the sibilant, kissing winds, for there
is no forest here for them to sing and
roar through. Time and again the hor-
ses turned their heads away from the
fierce onset of the snow and the blast,
and only the skillful driving of my COM
rade kept them in the road and Laid in
the leads" The only living souls we
saw in those twelve miles of storm and
cold were three little coutry children
going to school 1.-TWO boys and a
little girl. That's Western stock for
you. As we passed them the boys
hailed us cheerily; Mister, gimme a
ride!" That's boys all over.
Then getting from Malvern to Council
Bluffs, stayed in the Wabash Railway
station all day, fraternizing joyously
with the tramps in the common comfort
of a red hot stove and waiting for a
train. There were good hotels only a
square away, but bless you, you couldn t
have pulled me away from that stove
with stump machine. All trains late.
Nothing in the 60" the cannon BALI
stuck in the snow down at Humestn.
The belated breakman, on stray freight
waiting for orders and thaw, said he
/ thought l might go down on %, if she
went on ISIS time, get off at the "Y'
and catch the four sixteen passenger
down the branch and meet 81 at the
siding when she came upon construction
as far as bridge "a, and then jump the
gravel for the junction and make second
Is or 10, he couldn't say which, as far
as the slow board at the 20" crossing
and then l could run wild and get to The
Bluffs on 2. 1.-Two what?" says I. 1.-TWO
| legs says he, and honestly think thai
is the way would have gone if Wabash
mail hadn't thawed out in time to land
me in Council Bluffs, just in time to freez
my ear, which | did, walking from tn,
opera house to the U. p. dummy TO
! Omaha. Come out and freeze up Will
! the country.
The blast that blows from the upland plail
Will make me wild!'