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My Personal Experience with a

Texas Twister

BY LAURA KIRKWOOD PLUMB

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N the days of old the Wizard of Oz made the Kansas cyclone famous. I lived in Kansas then and thought our twisters were somewhat maligned, but I did not realize to what extent until a Texas cyclone recently blew me from there to Seattle, Washington. So many people have asked me about the storm country, and how it feels to be in a cyclone, that I thought others would be interested, too.

I lived on a ranch which comprises forty thousand acres and is ninety miles northeast of Amarillo, in that desolate region of sage-brush and sand called the Texas Panhandle. Several towns are nearer than Amarillo, though the nearest one, Pampa, which means the plain, is still thirty miles away. However, these towns are merely wide places in the road; about the size of the pin-point which dots them on the map. Fortunately for the Panhandle, Amarillo has opened up a large gas-field which has given her a place in the sun. It has also given that part of the world a location point for other than local use.

The Canadian River twists, turns, and worms its weary way through this windswept, sun-scorched region. Its bed is a half-mile wide and dry as a bone, except in the centre, where a dwindling thread of moisture has resisted the choking sands. However, in flood times the river is bank full. The ranch borders the Canadian and extends a little over the flats beyond.

The country around the river is different from the plains. It is rough and is called the brakes. Nay, not fern-brakes, with their green restfulness and shadowy shade, but sage-brush and sand-hill brakes surmounted by bleak cap rocks, gaunt sentinels in a land of dreary desolation.

Tawny hills here, white ones there, like mounds of bleaching bones with scant clumps of gray sage to hide their nakedness, stretch as far as the eye can reach. And where these hills give way to the plains the same deadly monotony of sagebrush and sand continues. Realism predominates in our literature; but the Western story is still in the hands of the romanticists. The writers still sing of the great open spaces where a man's a man without mentioning the unutterable lonesomeness of these places and the crudeness of the men therein! Realists, awake! There never will be any better places to kick in the seat of the pants the great god, Romance, than these same open spaces.

My husband, who is a Methodist in good standing, has a poker disposition notwithstanding. The only vocation which contains enough of the element of chance for him is the cattle business. For years his winnings exceeded his losses. However, during the war, when the agriculturist was urged to produce, he sold an excellent Kansas ranch, invested the proceeds in a big string of cattle, which encountered a hard winter, later a drouth, and lastly a market in chaos; and produced as per order; but produced, like the rest of the cattlemen, a terrible failure. Curtailing a long and painful tale, we ended up on this Texas ranch, farming a part of the flats on shares with the owner, whom we had known in the days of our prosperity. I cultivated or tutored the owner's children during the school months, while my husband hauled cottonseed-cake, fed cattle, and later started his crop.

During the school term we lived a community life in the main ranch-house. This is situated in a valley formed by lofty ranges of sand-hills running north and south. A little stream, which originates in springs and is bordered by giant

cottonwood-trees, flows through the valley down to the river. These trees, with the sand-hills surrounding, shelter the house from the winds-even the terrible Texas northers which vent their rage in sand-storms wherein one can scarcely see across the road.

Later, so that my husband could be nearer his work, we moved to a tenanthouse at the crest of the hills to the west. All the necessities of life were here on the flats with the exception of a storm-cave, which proved the most necessary of all. The native Texan is born with the gopherlike habit of keeping one eye on the horizon and the other on the storm-cave for six months out of the year. If no other refuge is available when a cyclone strikes, he lies down flat on the ground and lets the world whiz by!

A rude corral, a small granary, a windmill with a cement tank, and the house formed a feeble attempt at civilization in the wilderness. My nearest neighbor was the owner's wife at the main ranch-house a mile and a half to the east, the next in proximity was four miles south. Neither house was visible !

Lonesome? Yes. But wait until the evening shadows begin to fall, then the deadly silence is deeper still. There are no friendly lights from near-by houses to cheer one. No sounds of human life to greet the ears. Nothing! After the day's toil is over, one does not go out for a change of scene and rest, and no one drops in for an evening's call with the new interests attendant thereon. In the evening the mournful cries of the turtle-doves in the heavens above seem but the complaint of the human soul against life's unutterable dreariness! Books are wonderful companions, that's true. But even they pall upon a normal human being unless he can make a happy mixture of them with the society of his fellows.

Our first night had two touches that might have proved human enough to salve the lonesomeness a bit, but they came to naught. We heard the cry of a cat just at dusk. Out of the house we rushed, for we needed a family feline for an animated mouse-trap. But Tabby saw us first. As she had not seen the genus homo for many moons, she paused not for a second glance. We put out meat and

milk. But this is one cat that never came back.

About midnight I heard the sharp bark of what was apparently a dog at our doorstep. I turned to my husband, who had just awakened, and whispered: "Listen, there's the family pup!"

Then the barks gave way to the wailing hysterical yelps of the coyote, that howl which is the quintessence of lonesome desolation. I pulled the covers over my head and shuddered.

"You will never get used to the wild!" my husband chuckled.

"No, I won't.

Right now the flat wheel on a street-car would sound to me like Caruso," I retorted. And it would have! The great open spaces when the lone coyote begins to howl, oh, my!

The sound died away as the coyote trailed denward. Our dog never was seen again, but he was sometimes heard.

The house faced south. It had three rooms with a south door leading into each, with north windows opposite the doors for ventilation. There were no east and west windows, no halls, no cupboards! Nothing but four cheerless walls. This is the popular style of architecture in the rural districts of the South. I furnished the west room for a bedroom, the middle for a dining-room, living-room, reception hall, kitchen, and what not, while I left the east one for a storeroom.

The structure had a peaked roof. This with a foundation of concrete above the ground made it a story and a half high. The house rocked in the northers, and when they whipped around to the south it rocked and rocked again. However, the building had withstood the storms for seven years, so why not another? Fatal logic!

I have spoken at length of the frightfully lonely conditions under which we lived because they forced me to turn to the only thing left for companionshipthe sky. I became a connoisseur of sunsets. Evening after evening I watched the master painter depict the dying sun in the glorious tints that are heaven's alone. Through this sun-worship, I first noticed lowering clouds on the southwest horizon about eight-thirty of that memorable Friday evening.

At the sight of the angry clouds I

turned to the house with a shudder. The storm looked like an electrical one. And the house had an old-fashioned lightningrod system on it which was partially wrecked. Two steel points reached up for the flash of death, and perhaps would have grounded it; but a third bent over the roof menacingly. These relics of the dark ages still exist in out-of-the-way places.

The sun had fallen behind the western sand-hills by now. The clouds were mounting the sky rapidly. The centre was as black as pitch, the fringes were yellow. "Wind!" I cried out to my son, who was standing beside me playing in the windmill tank. "What terrible clouds! Why doesn't your father come? What shall we do? Let's run to the field and lie down between the furrows! It's the only thing we can do!"

"Yes, and have a centipede or a rattlesnake crawl on us!" the boy answered.

We had killed two centipedes, frightful creatures, about six inches long in the yard the day before. And at noon my husband had come in with a rattler's scalp consisting of seven rattles and a button. So the incidents were very fresh in the boy's mind. I looked up at the clouds and then down to the ground. "The centipedes and the snakes get us,' I retorted, as we started toward the field with our eyes on the storm, waiting to flatten ourselves upon the ground at a moment's notice.

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By this time the lightning had become terrible. It was flashing from three directions. Great vertical streams cleaved the west, alternating with rivers of fire to the south and north. I turned away from a particularly vicious flash and, facing the east, espied my husband urging his fourmule team, hampered by a saddle-horse, which was a poor trailer, over the rim of the sand-hills. He was bringing a load of milo-maize seed from the ranch-house, which must not get damp. He had not seen the clouds from the valley; the storm had come up too quickly.

I opened the corral gate, a barbed-wire one, with the lightning popping at my heels, while he drove around to the east room of the house. He unhitched the mules hurriedly from the wagon and started to the corral with them. I led the saddle-horse.

"It is a cyclone," I shouted.
"Nerves!"

my husband replied.

"There is no funnel. Besides, the storm is too high in the heavens. It's nearly to the zenith!"

"But look at the color of the clouds!" "The reflection of the sun on them," he retorted.

"I'm not going into the house, anyhow," I answered.

"Want a shower-bath?" he jeered.

Now I know that my husband's motto has always been safety last. But he is so convincing when he is taking a chance, and his optimism is so contagious, that even my Scotch carefulness cannot withstand him. Then, too, at this psychological moment a terrific flash of lightning tore through the air. It must have struck something in the field near us, for the crack of the thunder was like the detonation of an immense gun. It stunned my ears momentarily! I grabbed my boy's hand and ran, ran for the only place to get into, the house!

I entered the general utility room, where I paused. Death grinned at me! I turned toward the oil-stove, in the oven of which I had placed my husband's supper. "Sit down a minute, son," I said, "while I heat this food!" I reached for a match. My good angel must have whispered to me, for I reflected: "Nerves or no nerves, this is a frightful storm. The supper can wait!" I led my boy into the bedroom. Death stalked at our heels.

Here the boy started to undress, saying: "Mother, it is getting so dark. I want to go to sleep in my own little bed!"

"Don't, son; come lie on the foot of my bed with me; I am so frightened!" I replied, as I turned to light a lamp which stood on a table near me.

As we flung ourselves on the bed I realized that there was not a sound anywhere. A horrible vacuum of quiet! I sat upright in terror. Then I heard a roar. But my husband's attitude had been so sure that I cried out in relief: "Oh, the blessed, blessed rain has come! The worst is over!"

But the roar was not rain. It was wind. The house gave a frightful lurch. Then I heard a terrible crunching sound like giant footsteps. The house was bumping over the ground. I realized now that my

husband, son, and I were at the mercy of a Texas cyclone! Next the house turned over!

The sounds from the general utility room, whence my son and I had just come, were like a mountain avalanche. A heavy chiffonier, a big box of books, and a refrigerator placed against the south wall took a sixteen-foot drop through a safe and an iron heating stove, and their remains ploughed through an oil-stove and the dining-table, all stopping short in a twisted heap as the house came to rest on its north side. In this upheaval the north wall became the floor, the south wall became the roof, and the real floor took the place so recently vacated by the south wall. As the floor space was sixteen feet, everything in the house, including the boy and me, took a drop ranging from one to sixteen feet-and we took it in a hurry.

Fortunately for us the bedroom was scantily furnished. The bed, which was just a pallet, was placed on some low furniture crates. As I felt it moving under me, I grabbed my son in my arms and closed my eyes. My last thought was: "And this is the end of it all!"

Then darkness came over me! I think my mind went blank from terror. My next conscious act was gasping for breath. My mouth and nose were full of dust from the walls and ceiling. Soon I realized that I was still on the mattress, which was now on the floor, with my boy standing at my side. I could hear my husband's agonized voice calling from out-of-doors: "Answer me! Answer me!"

"We're safe!" I shouted. "But it is as dark as pitch in here."

The doors were sixteen feet in the air and the windows faced the ground. I turned around like a trapped animal. Then I espied a streak of light. I shoved my son toward it and we scurried out through a hole between the floor and the west wall; out from the Stygian darkness of death into the light of life. No rain was falling! The stars were shining overhead! The storm had gone now to the east and north of us; but the cyclone part had blown itself out. The twister wrecked the house, the windmill, and my husband's truck. Its path was about fifty feet wide and extended less than a mile. This was strewn with wreckage.

My favorite story of the freakish action. of cyclones is that of the Nebraska twister which blew a dozen little chickens into a teakettle. From this the farmer's wife served chicken soup-merely straining out the feathers-to her homeless and foodless neighbors until the relief train arrived from Lincoln. But this Texas twister flipped up the platform of a wheatbinder which stood north of the house, and the peaked roof came down upon the platform as it came up. This alone held the north wall a little off the ground; otherwise the house, which so miraculously escaped demolishment in the twist of the wind, would have collapsed upon us from the impact. As it was, the force of the fall knocked out the entire east end, and separated the floor from the west wall, through which aperture my son and I crawled from the bedroom. When one considers the frailty of the platform of a wheat-binder, the chicken soup takes its place among the verities.

Song-writers, columnists, jokers, and all that frothy fringe of the litterateurs tell us things are not the same from the outside looking in as they are from the inside looking out. This holds true in cyclones! My husband, after he had finished with the mules, ran to unload the wagon. He heard the roar of the wind, but believed it the approaching rain. He grabbed a sack of seed from the wagon and hurried with it to the east room. As he placed the sack on the door-sill to open the door, the house walked away from him. He said had he seen Harold Lloyd chasing a house in the movies, he would have known the scene was faked. In a second the house turned over and the entire east end fell at his feet with a crash. Then he began his agonized cries, which finally reached us.

We were afraid that the house might collapse on us, so we left the salvaging of the furniture and our clothes until the next day, taking a chance on rain which would have ruined them. We were really too badly shaken to do anything. Property seemed of very little value to us then, for we had just faced death! We did pull out some wraps and a quilt which were near the aperture in the bedroom.

While my husband was hitching up a team to take us to the main ranch-house, my boy and I stood huddled by the wagon

waiting. Through my mind flashed a thought, the terrible price that is paid for pioneering. It may be all right when things go well, but in an emergency one is helpless. Had we been pinioned under the furniture in that overturned house, or otherwise injured, a week's time or maybe more would have intervened before help would have reached us. In the meantime we would have died from starvation, horror, and our wounds. Or had we been killed we would have lain there unattended in death, as the wild animals do in the fields. It seems impossible that such a thing could happen in the midst of this twentieth-century civilization, but it can and does. The house had no telephone and no one ever passed that way, for it was off the main road and hidden by a slight roll of the prairie. The only one who ever came near was the owner, who occasionally brought the mail and our supplies. But even he had just left for an indefinite length of time on a big cattle-drive to the north. These thoughts were in keeping with the weirdness around. We were in semidarkness

with not a sign of life anywhere, while the storm was dying away on the horizon with great flashes of lightning to the east and north.

As I tried to climb into the wagon, I realized that I had been hurt. I stopped a wash-stand with my back. We found it with the remains of the lamp, whose flame the concussion had fortunately extinguished, piled up on the mattress where I had been. Wash-stands are all right in their place, but this one took a backhanded thrust at me. Base ingratitude! I had just rescued the old-fashioned thing from the junk pile and reinstated it in the family circle.

As a result of this cyclone, I blew out to the Puget Sound country for a summer's rest. For here a storm is so unusual that it is termed something out of the ordinary. Nerves! Well, I'll say so. But then I don't believe that Barney Oldfield would trade his racer for a Texas cyclone; or Lieutenants Macready and Kelly would go in for a non-stop flight between time and eternity, such as I did. Do you?

The Mocking-Birds

VOL. LXXVII.—47

BY PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE

OH! all day long, they flood with song
The forest shades, the fields of light;
Heaven's heart is stilled, and strangely thrilled
By ecstasies of lyric might;

From flower-crowned nooks of splendid dyes,
Lone dells a shadowy quiet girds,

Far echoes wakening, gently rise,

And o'er the woodland track send back

Soft answers to the mocking-birds!

The winds in awe, no gusty flaw

Dare breathe in rhythmic Beauty's face;
Nearer the pale-gold cloudlets draw
Above a charmed, melodious place;
Entrancéd nature listening knows

No music set to mortal words,

Nor nightingales that woo the rose,
Can vie with these deep harmonies

Poured from the minstrel mocking-birds!

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