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“THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS AWAY."
Art thou in misery, brother? This I say,
Be comforted! Thy grief shall pass away*
Art thou elated? Ah! be not too gay,
Temper thy joy! this, too, shall pass away.
Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway.
And cling to hope! This, too, shall pass away!
Tempted art thou? In all thine anguish lay
One truth to heart—this, too, shall pass away.
Do rays of laureled glory round thee play?
King-like art thou? This, too, shall pass away.
Whate’r thou art, where’er thy footstep)
stray,
Heed Wisdom’s voice! all things must pass
away! Hayne.
—Paul Hamilton
CAUGHT IN A TORNADO.
We had been nearly two months at
the ranch, and the weeks had been an
almost unvarying round of delight for
us both. Nearly all the daylight hours
we were out of doors, watching the
phases of a life so new to us. Often at
night we went out to a little eminence
where we could see the sheep come home
to their corral. What a solid phalanx of
wqoI they looked, and what twinkling
little sticks their leg3 were. Poncho
had recovered, and was gravely at w r ork
every day. I used to think the dog’s
face wore an air of tenderness as well as
anxiety when he was conducting a de¬
tachment of sheep with lambs. Of
course, that w*as a mere fancy, but Val¬
verde bore me out in the notion. To
his mind Poncho was capable surprised of any¬
thing. He would not be if
someday the dog had suddenly addressed
him in the Engl’sh of the plains. mild,
It was a quarter to 3 o'clock of a
cloudless afternoon when my sister, Nan,
and myself started to return from aranch
six miles away. We had ridden over
there to dinner, and came gaylv canter¬
ing homeward, the sun bright, and for
once very little wind blowing. Accord¬
ing to my experience, the West, with its
great plains, is the place to become ac¬
quainted with wind. Hardly a day passes
but the air sweeps over the vast stretches
in a way that is annoying until one
gets accustomed to it. It roars through
the canons, sucking hoarsely along the
gorges. It is one of the mighty aspects
of the country, and to me the least pleas¬
ant of anything I had known thus far.
But this day, as I have said, it was calm.
The sage only moved gently as we rode
toward it, and we seemed to hear the
notes of birds borne to us from an im¬
mense distance. A great many curlews
were circling about, and the prairie dogs
sat up in front of their houses, looking
at us with pert and inquiring gaze.
< 4 There's something in the cry of the
birds that I do not like,” said Nan.
it “There’s a tone of foreboding in it, and
nificent is not an appropriate tone for so mag¬
a day.” But she laughed at her
own words as she spoke them. A gray
wolf leaped across our path at some dis¬
tance, stopped an instant and eyed us,
then fled away rapidly. Again Nan
turned uneasily in her saddle and looked
about her. As she shook the lines on
her pony’s neck she exclaimed, “I am
ceriainly under a spell. Do you know,
girls, had that I actually thought that gray
wolf something to tell us, if we could
only understand?”
After these remarks, Nan seemed to
cheerful, forget her fears, and we all became
as was fitting for horsewomen
in Colorado. As I look back upon that
afternoon, the ride, the bright sunlight,
and the experience which followed, all
seem, although painfully vivid, as if
they had happened in a life of mine in
some other world; I can never associate
them w r ith myself in this existence.
We w ? ere riding toward the northeast,
having Vega been to a ranch lying toward the
Pass, though a uumber of miles
this side of it. That feeling which the
birds had aw*akened had proved very
transient. My sister suddenly asked in
a tone of interest, untinged by fear, if
we had noticed the cloud in the south
west, and was it customary for Colorado
skies to exhibit such freaks! Upon that
we all turned us about, and as Nan,
with a quick cry, pulled up her horse,
we also stooped our ponies and gazed,
Speaking for myself, I on'y felt then a
keen interest, without a’arm at the
sight before me. Until I looked at my
co sin's face I did not think of fear. A
great wav off. it appeared to me, I was
toid afterward it must have been about
ten miles distant when we first saw it,
was a cloud absolutely black. For the
first time I knew what the phrase “inky
blackness'’ meant. Neither before nor
since have I eyer geea a cloud of that
color. It was roughly cone-shaped, the
point toward the earth, But even
its shape and color were not the most
terrible things No about it. words The applies mass was
k 4 boiling.” other to
the incessant rapid changes in its tex¬
ture, which all the time preserved there the
blackness; and through it were
constant Sashes of lightning, But we
heard no thunder then, I shall never
forget the whiteness that came to Nan’s
face. Without knowing that I saw them.
I yet remembered afterward that her fin¬
gers were clutched painfully about the
bridle, and that she reeled slightly in
her saddle.
“Let me think,” she said, in a low
voice. I did not speak, but my sister,
who did not see Nan's face, said in a
commonplace voice:
“Is not that rather a belligerent speci¬
men of a cloud ?”
Nan did not apparently hear her; she
sat silent for perhaps half a minute, then
she turned to us and said quickly:
4 4 I hope you can ride fast, We can’t
get home; what good if we could ? There
is a narrow gulch about a mile and a
half from here. It's the only place I
know.”
She turned her horse sharply to the
right, and told h m fiercely to go. We
followed, riding as I had never ridden
before. The horses caught fire from us,
and raced on in that wild way they have,
which is not like the manner of the
horses in the east. In spite of the fear
which now possessed us all, there was a
certain glorious feeling in that ride.
After we had turned we could look off
at our right at the cloud, which was
rush ng on with terrible quickness, and
which I now fancied was pursuing us,
and us alone.
Suddenly there was a thunderous
sound toward the w*est, and looking that
way I saw a vast herd of cattle sweeping
on, a dark, surging mass, with tossing
horns glancing white in the sunshine, for
the sun was shining brilliantly at this
time. It was a stampede. I never
knew whether they wertj frighten¬
ed by the cloud or had been
urged on by the unexplained impulse
that sometimes comes to them to flee mad¬
ly over the plains. At another time this
sight would have been of stirring inter¬
est; now I did not care to watch the
flight of the cattle. I was too intent on
our ow n race against the cloud. The
lightning was playing through the black
vapor incessantly. More clouds, having
the appearance of common “thunder
heads,” rose and dispersed themselves
over the sky, and at last obscured the
sunlight. It was a relief to me when the
sun ceased to shine, for the scene seemed
less abnormally terrific.
Within a few rods of the opening
gulch I heard a roar as of oncoming
wind. Nan cried out again to her horse,
the animals lurched forward yet faster,
and in a moment we were all entering
the ravine. It was extremely uneven
ground, and covered by broken, sharp
stones. My sister and I were watching
Nan; she slipped off the saddle and hur¬
riedly motioned us to do the same. The
instant we were dismounted the horses
scrambled rapidly forward farther into
the gulch, and we did the same, Nan
now in the rear, and driving us along
That night I found my shoes cut, and a
gash in my foot, but I did not feel the
wound when I received it. While we
were thus hurrying to get to the deepest
shelter of the gully, the roar above us
w*as awful, and was increasing every mo
ment. It reverberated strangely through
the ravine. We could not have heard
a word had w*e spoken. We all stopped
simultaneously and looked at each other,
They were tw*o very white faces that I
saw, with strained, frightened her eyes, head
Nan made a movement with
that we were not to go on; and we
crouched down against the rocky sides
of the earth. The next instant Emma
leaned heavily upon me and silently
pointed upward tow’ard the chasm’s
opening, where we had entered. The
black cloud was just going past our
point of vision; it had diiated to twice
its former size, but still retained its
cylinder shape. If it could be possible, boiling
it was more dense than ever, and
in its blackness. Balls of fire sped bac.c
and forth in the air; or my sight was
under an hallucination to that effect.
All the phenomena seemed to have their
centre in that cone of black cloud. The
strangest, the most awful thing of that
fearful experience was what I saw* now*,
Behind that black cloud, whether fol
lowring or driving it I know* not, came a
tall cloud of intensest, most dazzling
white—a pillar of glory, growing every
instant more like a pillar of fire, and
soon appearing to control the inky shape,
The raving noise wa3 now at its height.
In a moment the two mysterious shapes of
had passed from our contracted line
vision; they " marched on, destroying as
they went. The ciash of timber along a
stream not far off, the cannonading of
the thunder, which had now opened its
forces, and above all the overwhelming
roar of the wind, made us shrink and
cower closer together. A fiercer blast
caused us to throw ourselves flat on the
stony ground, grasping at each
other's hinds. So ignorant was
I that I believed at the time
that we were in the full power of the
tornado, instead of being comparatively gulch.
sheltered by the walls of the
Afterward I knew that we could hardly
have saved our lives had we not been
able to leach this ravine.
Once I felt a touch on my head, from
which my hat had long since gone. I
found that it was one of the horses.
They had all come back from their first
run up the gulch to be near us; the three
stood huddled close by, when we had a
chance to look. As I recall things in a
dream, so I* recall the incidents of the
time while we remained in that refuge.
Once, in a glare of the lightning, and
while my eyes were open and my head
raised, I saw several objects flying over
the top of the gulch. They were sheep,
and their dead, bruised bodies were
found, as if they had been flung hard
against the ground, after the storm.
Once something came down close by me,
hitting my hand where I had dug the my
fingers unconsciously Jdown dog, into and
earth. It was a small prairie Many
it lay still in death, near me. found
prairie hens, the next day, were
dead, with almost all their feathers
stripped off by the wind. While the
terror lasted, there was hardly a lull in
the ferocity of it. I thought we had
been hours hiding there, when at last the
rain began to come down heavily, and a
moment after the wind sensibly dimin¬
ished to a hard gale. We were directly
soaked thoroughly, but I think none of
us cared for that. The hurling noise of the
storm was still deafening, but we felt taht
the worst was over, for us at least. That
demon cone of cloud was flying further
on its road of destruction, but it had
left us.
We immediately got upon our feet,our
horses keeping their heads close to our
shoulders as we did so. By the time we
had groped and stumbled our way to the
entrance of the gulch there was blue sky
in the north, and the rain had dwindled
to a few heavy drops. breathless, look¬
We stood a moment
ing about us with scared eyes. It was a
wide plain where we were, a»d all the
devastation we saw at first w r as that the
row of cottonwoods was lying, torn up.
some of them half way across the stream
they had bordered.
“I am afraid of what I shall find at
home,” said Nan.
As she spoke, she turned to her horse
and swung herself up into the soaked
saddle. These ponies are not tall, and it
is possible for a woman to mount without
help. We both followed her example,
and the horses gladly turned homeward.
Our soggy, dripping clothes clun" napped clam¬
mily to us, and the heavy skirts
dull against the horses’ wet sides.
While were within a mile of the house
we saw a man riding down rods at ahead a furious
gait dog. toward us, knew and a few horseman could ran
a We the
not be Colonel Stewart, for be had gone
away in the morning and was not to re¬
turn until the following day. As we
looked, the sun burst out splendidly.
The man took off his hat, and waved it
with unmistakable ioyousness. A few
yards more, and we saw that this was
Valverde. lie rode up and turned his
horse to go with us, exclaiming: much
“I don’t think I was ever
gladder in all my days than I be to see
you. Folks to the house are ’bout crazy
’bout ye. That was as sizable a tornado
as we seldom if ever git in these dig
gin’s.” »< Are they safe?” asked Nan. “Was
the house in the path of it?”
“It warn t,” he replied, “but it was
full nigh enough. The big new barn
was in the way, and it spread all over
the plains. I.shouldn't wonder if some
of it was a good deal beyond Pueblo—
cowrs and calves killed, corrals complete¬
ly busted, trees turned over, and that
greaser’s son,” he added, in a more sol¬
emn tone, “killed dead by a timber. I
only hope there ain’t no more deaths to
hear of.”
Then Valverde asked about what 1 ad
happened to us, and when he had heard
it, he said, with sombre emphasis, saved that if it
all creation “couldn’t have us
hadn’t been for that gulch.'’’ in it
When the reports came was
found that the track of the tornado had
been in some places nearly three-quarters
of a mile wide, and its length about
eighteen miles. We heard that the ‘‘Old
Woman Ranch,” as the place where wo
had held our picnic was popularly called,
had suffered worst of all. The dwed
ing had been utterly demolished, the in¬
habitants saving themselves by running
in time into a sort of cave near by.
It was only because the country was so
sparsely populated that more damage
was not done; for everything, whether
trees, animals, or buildings, in the un¬
protected path of the cyclone were de¬
stroyed or badly injured. For a long
time after we heard almost daily of the
bitter fate of some unfortunate, It was
death itself, or a limb broken, or a home
lost.
Colonel Stewart and a few other met
of means bestirred themselves iunnedi
ately and effectually to collect aid for
the poorer sufferers by the tornado.
For a few days we talked constantly
of our adventures in the storm, and
compared observations, But in a mar
velously short time we had ceased to
think of that day, save occasionally, and
I had thought my mind would always
be shadowed by the memory of that ride
for the gulch and the hour we could spent
there. Was it an hour? I never
tell.
In conversing on the matter, we
owned to our cousin that Colorado had
a few drawbacks.
“It is only Paradise that has not its
dark side,” said Uncle Stewart, who
had overheard our words. “If you girls
will now stay through a plague of grass¬
hoppers, you will have country.”—W some right to
pass judgment on this eio
York Evening Post.
Tlie Vitality of Frogs.
How long it is possible for frogs to live
without air and food has been a matte;
of experiment many times; but in the
face of well-established instances like
those quoted it is difficult to conduct
experiments that will be considered as
being of a conclusive character. That
these creatures should be able to live not
for centuries only, but for ages, appears
contradictory to all reason and common
sense. In some cases frogs have been
found in cretaceous rocks. The oldest
fossil toads and frog3 occur in tertiary
rocks. If, therefore, (hose found in cre¬
taceous rocks had been there from their
formation, it would be equivalent to
saying that the live frog could be ages
and ages older than its fossil relatives.
To most people such a declaration would
be the height of absurdity. it would
If thoroughly inquired into each
probably be discovered that in case
there was a fissure in the rocks or trees
in which frogs have been found large abet
enough the for the admission which of water developed
embryo frog has
there. Certain it is that frogs, when ar¬
tificially secured in air-tight ana water¬
tight vessels, speedily made die. members of the
Experiments by
French academy a century ago proved
this. Milne Edwards, early in the
present century, inclosed frogs in vessels
impervious to air, and the creatures
speedily perished. Three frogs were
once inclosed in a close box for eighteen
months, at the end of which time one
was dead and the remainder in a dying
condition. Dr. Macart nty buried a toad
in a vessel covered with a slate about a
foot deep in the ground. At the end of
a fortnight it seemed well and as plump
as before. When, however, he inclosed
the same toad in an air-tight vessel and
buried it it soon died, and at the end of
a week was much decayed. Dr. Buck
land made some experiments which are
claimed as conclusive. He placed twelve
toads separately in twelve holes, cut in
blocks of hard, flinty sandstone. They
were firmly sealed in.
The imprisoned animals were buried
three feet deep on November 2*1, 182;).
At the same holes time four toads were depos¬
ited in cut in the heart of an apple
tree and the opening securely plugged.
Four others were also placed in plaster
of Paris, covered with luting. On De¬
cember 10, 1826, all the buried toads
were examined. All in the hard stone
and in the tree anrl two in the plaster of
Paris were dead. The remainder were
dying, but some placed iu a softer stone
were in tolerably good health, and placed some in
were actually fatter than when
the holes. From this it would appear
that in positions where water can pene¬
trate frogs may live and even thrive, al¬
though buried at a considerable depth,
entirely away from the light and any
visible means of subsistence.— Chambers'
Journal.
Rather set in their ways—Compositors,
—Life.