Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1897-09-03
QUITE A ClIATTY LETTER
lsv Miss .Jul 1. Bierbower to Her Home
Paper-An Interesting Descrip-
tiOn.

faper-.An interesting DeSCrtlS-
tiOn.
AS few of our Evansville citizens
have ever journeyed to the Black Hills
IL letter from this place may not be I'M
interesting.
Our Evansville party were consider
ably shaken up in the transfer from
the @. ~ L. l. depot to the Northwest
ern. Evansville brick streets are far
ahead of cobble stones.
We reached the Northwestern sta
tion ahead of time and were received
by young red-capped attendants max
ing themselves politely useful to trav-
elers, carrying our small baggage to
the sleeper Next morning we awoke
to find ourselves skimming over a
beautiful prairie country. rich in grain
and corn. All the stations we're neat
and ornamented by pretty grass plots.
Confused old ladies cannot forget they
are travelling on the Northwestern for
| these words are been almost every
where enameled in the grass with
pebbles and foliage plants.
We left the Elkhorn line at Buffalo
Gap, the southern gateway of the Hot
Springs valley, and saw in imagina-
tion, as we listened to the story, the
herds of buffalo driven by the Indians
into this natural corral.
The uninviting exterior of the little
unpainted restaurant did not prepare
us for the good things with which the
table was loaded.
Leaving the main line of the Elk
horn at this place the run into the Hot
Springs valley is sho rt one, bringing
us to the hotel before o'clock. While
standing on the platform we could see
less than mile in any direction, eN-
cept of course above us. The width of
the valley does not exceed two of our
Evansville blocks A later drive showed
us winding valley, much like an old
river bed, through which still flows
small, rapid stream, now confined to
narrower limits.
All the hotels and business houses
are in the valley near the streams and
springs. while the more pretentious
dwellings are on the surrounding hills
and plateaus. The valley buildings are
made of red sandstone. quarried a few
miles down the valley. while the hill
houses are mostly of wood.
The Evans, our present home, backs
up against asteep, painless hillside.
whose top we some day expect to eX-
plore. The principal street follows the
stream, which is spanned by wagon,
railroad and foot bridges. A railroad
track runs parallel with the street and
stream, but is lower than the former
and is not unsightly. The hotel lawn
is fenced in on the north and west by
"a running stream, shallow and narrow,
but with sufficient inclination to lull
us to sleep when the band ceases to
play at night. The lawn is covered
with blue grass and white clover, grow
ing in foreign soil, imported from Ne
braska
The native soil produces buffalo
grass, pine trees and flowers in many
varieties and great abundance. Here
the morning glory grows on a bush in
stead of Il vine, having lanceolate
leaves and so beautiful we wonder the
citizens do not use it to ornament their
lawns.
When the sun is not too hot the
morning glory goes to sleep in the af-
ternoon, jnst as the night blooming
cerus begins to awaken, slowly at first.
but rapidly later, when its hillside COM
panion, the primrose, burst quickly
from bud to blossom. There are two
species of the night blooming cerus,
both filling the atmosphere with the
sweet. sickly odor like tube roses at a
funeral. One kind resembles the
spider lily and children in their play
throw them at each other. where they
remain as though pinned to their
clothes.
The houses here are screened, not
against flies and mosquitoes, the latter
of which we never see, but against the
June hail storms, which are destruc-
tive to window panes. One of these
belated hailstorms came on last week;
giving visitors an exhibition of what it
could do. When the lower strata of
the ;threatening cloud is tinged with
red and yellow, even the children know
that II hail storm is coming. With the
first hail that fell every team on the
street disappeared as though by magic.
While the fusilade only lasted five
minutes, each stone measured one and
one-half inches in diameter. They
were circular in shape and looked like
candy wagon wheels, many of them
breaking into halves and quarters.
We guests enjoyed the entertain
| ment.
Tyhn nov,,o,kSo-.N