St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1892-03-24
5liisrrllanu.
THE voICELEss DAKOTA HEN.

We call the attention of the enter
prising and irrepressible citizens OF
Dakota to the fact that another
enemy has taken the field. Arise, We
boomers of the bounding plain, and
defend your much maligned land
True, this new attack comes appar-
emily, from a women, but we doubt
if even her sex can save her from the
fury of the valiant landowners, town
lot agents, and editors of the sun
kissed, blizzard-rocked prairies of the
two Dakotas.
The lady in the case writes to the
Contributors Club of THE Atlantic
Monthly" She refers to the two
grand imperial states simply as Da-
kota, and says that she once lived
there for fourteen months. We will
pass over her ordinary, common
place charge that the winters were
too cold and the summers too hot;
that the winds swirl up the choking
dust to the heavens, and the binding
lightning flashes down upon the de-
fenceless earth that the rain falls in
torrents; that the hail beats out the
brains of men and cattle: that the
blizzard rushes down the chimney
and blows out the fire in the stove;
that prairie fires, started by the
fierce flashes of the demoniacal light
ming, sweep the parched plain till
they are Jared out by the earth-and
demonstrating thunder; that in
winter ones eyelids freeze together If
one winks while looking out the win
dow, and that, through it all, there
is the mighty, steady, wailing, roar
ing, surging, onward rush of the
deadly wind, cold as the boreal pole
in winter, hot as the breath of fur
mace seven times heated in summer,
which drives women insane and
causes men to pray for death and
to curse because it does not come to
their longing armS-We will, we say,
pass over these minor and common
place charges and come at once to
the worst Indictment ever framed
against a state of the American
Union. 1t is this, that no hen ever
cackles or cock ever crows in Dakota,
such is the depressing influence of the
wind. Warriors of the booming
prairies, arise and vindicate your
chickens
The lady treats the silence of the
hens at some length. The Dakota
hen instead of loudly heralding her
wonderful feat of laying an egg,
seems to seek rather not to have the
fact known at all. She will slip
away out of the back door of the
nest and come back to her scratch
ing place in the flower bed by a cir
cuitous route, as if she would convey
the impression that she had simply
been walking in the backyard in
search of a newly rumOred colony
of angle If caught coming
directly from the nest she puts on a
certain indifferent, it-wasn't-I air,
which says to the ''Atlantic" contrib
utor as plainly as words, True [
have been on the nest, but I went
there simply to rest" The ever
rushing wind has crushed out her
gallinaceous spark of vanity. No
rising morn in Dakota is greeted by
the clarion note of chanticleer. The
lady had one rooster when she went
there. He crowed the first morning
the rest was silence. The wind
blew the crow all out of him. Some
times it blew the crow all out of him
Sometimes it was pitiful to watch
him. He would get around behind a
cabbage-head, or tumble-weed, or
a spear of grass, or something OF
that kind, where he was somewhat
protected from the terrible wind,
and open his mouth to crow, but it
would only end in a little gasp, and
he would walk back and bear the re-
proachful looks of the hens, while his
tail feathers cracked and whipped in
the roaring wind, and his top-knOt
sailed away into the next county
along with the chimney from the "a t.
lantic" writer's house and an anvil
from neighboring blacksmith shop
Dakota appears to be no country fol
a self-respecting rooster to settle
down in and look upon as home.
Our only reason for referring tC
these serious charges of the Allan
tic" correspondent is to call the at
tention of the sons of Dakota to
them. We do not feel that we neec
to attempt to answer them-DakOts
IS too we'll able to take care Ofherself
we will only add that we have no
vet told the half. No dog ever bark
in Dakota. No horse ever winnie
there. Rats will not live there
Death rides on the awful aerial Mael
strom, and Desolation broods endles
DER the hideous scene n. Y. Tri
bune.
SALVATION ARMY CHARITY