Semi-weekly south Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1883-1889, 1886-11-05
WILD WESTERN WINDS.
Some Sample Stories Of Their Extremely
Eccentric Performances.


Eccentric Performance.
A gentleman from Nevada and an
other from Kansas were sitting with a
Coloradoan on the Walker House porch
Sunday evening during the lively little
dust-storm which drove everybody
else indoors and filed all eyes, ears and
pores exposed with Utah soil.
"I've been here quite awhile" said
the Nevada man, "but I've never seen
wind here yet that amounted to any
thing. l tell you that Nevada is the
place where they have winds. I've
seen the wind come up there all in a
minute and everything would fly. Cob
blestones and signs and tin cans and
barrels and dogs and goats would all
go down the street together. One day
| saw the tin from roof one hundred
feet long rolled up like the diploma of
young girl graduate and carried the
whole length of the town in Virginia
City and as soon as it got beyond the
city limits, where there was nothing to
break the force of the wind it Just
spread that roof out like n table-cloth,
and tore it into shrcds like it was tissue
paper"
That's nothing" sarcastically re-
marked the Kansas gentleman; "you
can talk rs much as yoa like about high
winds, but I'm telling you that Kansas
is the banner State for zephyrs. Why,
that's where we have cyclones and
corkscrew winds. You read good
deal about cyclones in the newspapers,
but you never see word about the
corkscrew gales; you bet you don't
Any man who dared to publish a word
about them would be lynched! If peo-
pie outside knew about them it would
stop immigration and spoil the pros
poets of the whole State
"Those corkscrew winds Just wind
around and twinc into all sorts of
places in tho most eccentric manner
possible. There have been several cases
of people having their necks wrung just
like you'd twist chickens head off.
People who undcrstanl the country all
build their fences in the tract of climate
where these winds prevail SOS to have
their post-holes dug for them. Two
seen pile of lumber stand near the
site of fence for three months waiting
for one of those braazes, Just because
tho owner was too slack and lazy to
dig the holes and so kept waiting from
day to day hoping for breeze. It's q
risk though. becalse there might
happen to come along an unusually
big blow and dig cellar, but in that
case the man would probably build a
house where he ha intended to put a
fence. I've seen one of them gales
enter q window what had been left
open and corkscrew baby out of its
crib and twist the hedclothei into coil
so hard that they could only be scpi-
rated with an axe. I've seen a cook.
stove waltled into the middle of the
room, AMI all sorts of things like that
occur during those kind of winds. You
don have much wind in Colorado, dc
youP"
"Well, no." said the Coloradan, "wt
don't have any winds to amount t.
any thing, hut it blows few minute
there now and then. The winds ar
peculiar rs the deuce, too; never saw
any thing like them anywhere else
They are what you might call discrim
mating breezes. They don't have Sc
much force rs some combined mir rv,
heard of. but what they do counts
They don't seem to penetrate like
New England northea'ter, but still thcl
do penctratea a little way, and they hav,
their effect, too. A northeaster, yol
know, will cut right into Il mans bone
and marrow and chill him to the quick
These sighs of Boreas do not go but
little way, and they blow funny, too
I've seen man go along a street, an
it would be blowinga a hurricane on on
side of him, and the other sido woul
be q dead calm, I've seen amule stan
braced against the wind blowing benin
her, with her tail blown right vi
straight and one ear put away ahea
of her nose, while the ear on the othe
side would be in natural, calm pos
ton, and that side of the beast woul
be sweating! 1t will take the skin o
one side of your face and not touch tn
other. saw a man with whiskers gs
one side of his face shaved by win
like that as clean as any barber coul
do it, A small boy and dog wer
walking with him at the time and the
each lost one ear. I've seen ma
lose one leg of his pants and a co;
tail and get his hat knocked all over o
one side. They don't do any particl
lar damage, those winds, but they al
as peculiar as they can be. "-SdH LaI
Tribune.