Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-05-02
pAKoTAss AWFuL clIisaTE.
There fa Notllns Like II Anywhere on ths
 Earth.

AsEEEAs
 The Indians, it was averred, went to Dakota because they thought that no white man would follow them to such place. The bitterness of the cold of the winters, the torrid heat of the sum- mers, the well-nigh ceaseless wind, the violent storms of thunder and lightning and rain, the long drouths, the dust storms, must be experienced to be ap- prcciated. Everything seems to be on the excessive scale in Dakota. The velocity of the wind, when the mercury is standing at forty degrees below zero, if one is out in it, will take the animal heat out of one in few minutes. No amount of clothing can prevent intense suffering. One feels as if one had for gotten to put on clothing and were en- countering that cruel wind naked. Perhaps the wind is the worst feature of of the climate. When it is blowing on a cold night, people who live on the prairies frequently do not go to bed. They sit all night as close as they can to a red-hot stove. Even then the side that is turned from the stove is cold.
 One day, when the mercury was 25 degrees below zero, and the wind was high, the thermometer where sat by the stove indicated 115 degrees above zero, and eight feet off the thermometer on the bureau stood at 20 degrees-a difference 95 degrees. Itwas necessary, on winter nights, to get up at least once to put wood in the stove; but in what was called bad weather this had to be done several times during the night. Of course everything freezes the eggs within a few feet of the stove, the keorosene oil in the corner, the cabbages and turnips and potatoes and meat in the hole in the ground under the house. Every night an iron bucket of live coals is put down into this ,six-foot hole, to save part of the winter stores from being destroyed by freezing. One hears that people take things into their beds with them, when they want to save them; for it will not do to let things run out in win ter. It would be impossible to trans port many of them across the prairies, as they would be frozen. All windows and all unnecessary doors are nailed up and chinked as closely as possible be- fore this weather sets in; an embank- ment of earth is thrown, up round the house to keep the wind from coming up under the floor; four or five furrows are run with blow round the house, at 8 sufficient distance to save it from prairie fires; and wood for a two weeks siege, when going out of doors will be well nigh uncomfortable, is piled high against the wall, and stored under the bed and wherever else space can be found. In this weather if one winks out of doors the eyelashes freeze to the cheek, and have to be thawed out before the eye can be opened.
 One hears that many women become insane in Dakota. Some say it is the lonely life; but lives as lonely are borne cheerfully elsewhere. My theory is that insanity is caused by the wind, which intensifies the loneliness. The moaning and wailing, the flashing and swishing, the rushing and roaring, the bowling and surging of the wind go on night and day for weeks at a time wi th- out a moments Hull. It becomes mad dening. One feels as if it were beating on the brain. One longs for even one moment of rest from that eternal sound that seems to fill the universe. It is in vain to put ones fingers in ones ears, for the timbers of the little house are creaking; the house itself is swaying on its foundations.
 It is not women alone who are de- pressed by some influence in Dakota. This influence, whatever it may be, seems to extend to the lower orders of creation also. We had heard that no hen cackled there. This was true of my sisters and mine, but I recall hear ing a little caclSling at the agency. There the force of the wind was broken by the stockade and the buildings. A friend at the agency made us present of handsome cock and we heard his cheerful announcement, on the morning after his arrival, that he was the cock of the roost. We enjoyed the crow from our point of vantage in bed; it was the pleasantest and most homelike sound that had greeted our ears for some time. But it did not last. That day he must have reconsidered things. At any rate, he did not crow the next morning, nor the next, nor ever again, except on one or two rare occasions, when for a brief moment he forgot that he had resolved | that there was nothing in this world worth his while to crow about. Grad ually he joined the army of the silent | ones; no shrill clarion was heard in that hen-house thenceforth. Our cocks utlAlCo 1C1b tLS AAC dDOuG lAACy ohI OOOfA it au grand serieux. What was there in laying an egg that was worth making | a fuss about? So, when they laid an egg, they walked silently from the nest not a cheery note was heard on that subject or any other from them, except very occasionally faint chirp, as they stepped about looking for food.
 There are many dogs in Dakota, but | bod 1x,fS heard one bark. feel sure that great numbers are born and live out theil lives and die without ever bark
 Horses and Indian ponies abound, but never heard sound from one of them except once, when pony gave little
 whinny to a large drove feeding on g
 hillside. They lifted up their heads for moment and looked in the direc l tion of the unwonted sound, but they
 made no response. think the whinny. | incp OOa could nOt hava haen h1.a6 iT