The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1893-11-04
A 6 TORNADO.
The Playful Georgia Twaster Cut . Series
or Lively Capers.

h Playful Georgia TWssoer Gus . Serioi
OF Lively Capers.
Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnston, tn,
writer of southern plantation sketches, tell,
some wonderful stories about Georges
{ weather. He sdmits that he would not be
lieve Thorn himself were 1t not for his I'm
bounded faith In everything Georgian IL
i general and his personal knowledge and
unlimited confidence in the veracity Of tn.
men win told him thes stories In particular
II heard ttem." he said, while on a visit
10 my old home in Hancock county, Ca,
some yeaxs ago, and I know that they arr
true. We had . big storm down there
about 10 years agn Tho folks called it q
hurricane; the weaAher mea said 1t was a
tornado. But, hurricane or tornado, 1t cut
some queer old capers. Colonel Humber
over In Putnam county saw the storm COM
ing up and knew It WAS going to be a big
one. There were a number of ladies at his
house, and of course his first thought was
for them, SO he got them all safely in their
rooms and went down into the large hall
which ran through his house and shut the
door.
Now, Colonel Humber is a big man
weighs about 200 pounds. When he got
down stairs, he found the storm was blow
ing through his hallway, and before he
knew what had happened it had picked
him up, carried him out on his lawn and
laid him down-not roughly, but gently.
At the same time it took a heavy stone and
brick chimney off the house and laid it on
top Of him to keep him In place. It didn't
throw the chimney on him, but laid it
down with so little force that only his leg
was broken. In a moment or two another
gust came along, picked up the chimney
,.,I r-~,o IL ~ - Tylz.l Y,l>~
crawled back into the house.
THAT same storm e a little farther
on till it came to a barn in which were two
horses, two mules and two cows. These
were in separate compartments. With a
whirl the roof of the barn was taken off as
clean as q whistle and carried away, and
while the stock was wondering what had
happened a section of the storm went in
the top of that barn, lifted those horses and
mules and cows high up in the air and set
them down again without hurting one of
them. But the queer part of the proceed
ing was that when it had those animals in
the air the tornado changed their position
80 that when it set them on their feet the
mules were where the cows had been, the
cows were in the horses apartments. and
the horses were occupying the mules stalls.
"But that storm hadn't finished cutting
up its capers. 1t struck a house in the same
county and made its way into a lady's
chamber. A bureau was standing against
the wall, having on it a lot Of such traps
and trinkets as ladies usually have-cos-
bottles, and so on. A handbook with
few laces inside was standing by it's side.
The wind took that bureau, moved it to
another part Of the room, but didn't disturb
the bandbox. 1t went into another lady's
room, picked up o trunk filled with cloth
Ing, carried 1t out of window and waited
it over into Hancock county-my own
county-and deposited it in a field 40 miles
from the house from which it had
been taken. It was found there unbroken
the next day nj returned to the owner,
whose initials were stenciled on it's end. I
glad, however" remarked the genial
colonel as he wiped his forehead, that the
storm didn't carry that trunk more than
40 miles. l couldn't have believed another
mile.
Georgia is a great state" he continued,
but even such storms as that do not occur
often. To prove that such queer things do
happen, there is a section of a telegraph
pole in the museum Of the state university.
This pole has a light cypress shingle stick
ing through it, about half of it projecting
from each side. That shingle was picked
up in a storm and blown clear through the
telegraph pole and left sticking there
Baltimore Sun.