The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1888-01-05
Concerning Cyclones.
SYMPOSIUM BY TIE ABLE LIARS OF THE
WEST.

Concerning Cyclones.
SYMPOSIUM BY THE ABLE LIARS OF THE
WEST.
! Nv. o. Fuller. Jr., in the Courier Gazette.
| had been in the west only little while, as
| people who have notes in the bank reckon time
when the country closely adjacent to ME was
visited by two-year-old cyclone that had some
how got cut out from the herd and pranccd
across the country with a set purpose of getting
over the Missouri line where the prohibition
| law is out of action. Ii shook things up con.
| Si'ierahlv and cut 4 swath through the lowe.
quarter of the county that left no doubt of tn,
| sincerity Of its emotions. The next night there
We're number of gentlemen congrcgated about
| the hote! stove when | came in, and | sat down
to listen to their conversation, hoping to he
| improved thereby. Naturally enough they were
talking about the cyclone. There was one man
present who had a house and dbarn blown away
and he had been telling of hog he had seen
| wandering almeS>y about. the next morning
his sides Just bristiinr with pine >pinters that
| had been blown through his tough skin. The
+, man was innocent a,'' truthful in what he said
but noticed that the others sccme, to think
he was putting on airs because of his share in
! the late disaster. and they resented it.
| Then the conversation took Il reminiscent
| turn, and tall man with a mild blue eye from
| the Ciinmaron country q didn't learn where
his other eye was FROM said that in the early
| spring of 1876 he was sitting in his house.,
| box house with kitchen 12Nl4 alditlon-think-
| ING Wolli he put corn or flax into the north.
west forty. when he heard Il low moaning sound
| that seemed to come from an immense distance
| lie went out behind the house to find out what
| i meant. and saw on the horizon Il cloud no
| bigger than Il Nebraska mans hand. that mo-
mcutary grew larger. and assuming gyra-
| tory motion began to draw nearer with great
rapidity. He had just time to hustle his family
| into their storm cave when the whirlwind was
| upon them i'll all its fury. When it had passed
over he crawed out, TO find his house and
| buildings blown out OF mind. Now comes the
curious part of his narrative. He had been
| hoidiilg herd OF fourteen handsome steers on
| fu!! feed all winter. intending TO run them in
another! week. These cattle when the tornado
| swept down had ranged themselves in row by
the t"otl-lot fence. as if for mutual protection
and it seems that a gigantic telegraph pole,
more than sixty feet long and with a butt like
the crack OF doom. wrenchc1 from its fa>ten-
nS> Ill some distant country. had been driven
utt-cnd first through The entire herd, impaling
| thom like founders on spear and their grief
stricken owner could plainly discern them on
the horizon, sweeping the heavens in the track
/ w
fully on the pole and paving the air mad!y in
their impetunus career. At this point distinct
y heard two suspenler buttons fetch away
| from he t'll mans garments and drop to the
floor.
A little man who sat near the coal-boy said
that the most curious thing he ever noticed
about cyclone was one brother-in-law of his
IL Dakota was telling him about. His brother
in-law'S family were all sitting at the table eat
my their frugal noonti'le meal, which in Dakota
| is called dinner, when without warning of any
sort cyclone popped in at the front door,
which the youngest child had previously left
open. Before the paralyzcd family could rise
from tie table the cyclone spit on its hands,
| took the looking-glass out Of its frame. looked
III il. turned it round and put it back again
without hlirting, il in the least sprang into the
air and cracked its heels together twice. and
then with a blood curtiliny shrek vanished,
through the back door.
Here drummer for q st. Louis hardware
house col up and went to the WATERFALL for a
drink. When he came back he said:
Last spring | was drumming towns along
tie line of the Santa Fe. used to get off at
one place and drive with team twenty miles
across prairie to town called l}enzinc. Only
the day before this time | made the trip, a
cyclone had swept over the country and sad
der sight ! never saw. But aside from the
sadness that the scenes engendered was struck
~ Il most singular phenomenon, and never
have seen it spoken of in any of the accounts
of other cyclones that | have read. The coun-
try speak Of you all know is not very well
Watere' and everybody has from one to a dozen
wells on his farm. OF course YOU have heart,
how cyclones will suck the water out of a well
OF pond and leave it perfectly dry. hut in this
case it had not only sucked out the water from
the wells, but it had drawn up the wells them
selves, that is. the stones. and turned the whole
business wrong side out and left it standing
there. and may never take another order if
that country wasn't stuck 50 full of those stone
towers from thirty'to sixty feet high that folks
! had to travel about in the middle of tine day
with lanterns.
After this for right smart spell nobody
spoke. each being occupied with his own
thoughts, and then Il sOrrowfui looking man in
a large brown overcoat who all the evening had
been in mournful cadenceS splitting on the
stove, said that a neighbor of his named Rob-
inSor-George William Robinson-who lived
| III Poto>i township, had a singular experience
as singular an experience, on the whole, as
he, the sorrowful gentleman, had ever heard
of. it appears that only two days before the
occurrence of the tornado which was respoil-
Sibie for these "reminiscences, Il neighbor of
Mir. Robinson had placed mortgage of seven
hundred and fifty dollars on an eighty acres
that joined Mr.. Kobinson'> homestead on the
west. which homestead. MIR. Robinson con-
graduated himself, was free of every encunl-
brance whatsoever. Now then--and this is
what the sorrowful gentleman thought SO sin
SHia!-oH Tue morning aILeT TIE cyclone, Mr.
Robinson not only found himself minus a
house, together with the most reliable eight
day clock in that part of the township, one
that he had brought with him in 80 from In
diana, but to his ineXprcssible horror and
chasrin he discovered that the seven hundred
and fifty dollar mortgage running five years at
nine per cent, interest payable semi-annually,
had been lifted bodily from his neighbor's
eighty and planked down with crushing force
| upon his own home place, and not only that,
but his place being only forty. the mortgage
stuck out over the edges In every direction and
presented Il most unkempt and disreputable
appearance. Mr.. Robinson had been working
all day with Il double team of mules and a
patent stump extractor, trying to lift the mort
gage far enough to get prop under it. but he
| couldn't bulge it an inch. And what made it
the more eXasperating, the sad gentleman con-
| cluded, was that the party to whom the mort
gage originally belonged, who he greved to
| state was man of low instincts, not only re-
| fused to lend Mr.. Robinson any assistance i'm
| his efforts to rid himself of the unwelcome f.
nancial incubus, but stood with both elbows
| ncglsently rested on solitary length of wire
| fence that the cyclone somehow had omitted,
and watched Mr.. Robnson's abortive strug-
| giles, with every emotion Of pleasure and joy
| depicted on his sun-tanned countenance.
| Then the landlord told me my room was
| ready, and took the little kerosene lamp and
| went up stairs to bed. Long after could
| hear the mufl1ed sound of voices forcing their
way through the floor, and knew that not a
| liar of them all would 90 home until he had
| fully demonstrated what be was capable Of.