THE GREAT MIDDLEVILLE CYCLONE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2250, 15 April 1897, Page 52

THE GREAT MIDDLEVILLE CYCLONE.

I " Yes, sir," remarked the landlord, as he sat j fanning himself on the verandah o? the Middle- [ ville Hotel, " as you say, this town has sp-ung up lika a musk rat in the night. Why ouly five J years ago there were bub two houses here, and 1 now we have the biggest population of any town iin Northern KLiuresota. Tne two houses wore I pretty small ones too. Mine stood juat where this hotel is standing, and ib was nothing more I than a one-srorey, two-roomed shanty. Captain j Martin's house, which geuerally stood on a kuoll about a quarter of a mile from here, wasn't much bigger." " You see," coutiaued the landlord, "I was the first settler here. I took up .n quarter section ot land, and with tho help of t .vo mules and a Norwegian I put up my housa and went to farming. About six months later, along comes Captain Martin, and allows that he will farm the quarter section next to me. Well, he built hi 6 house with the help of a conple of men from Lucullus, which at that time was tho nsaresS settlement to us, and was considered to be seven miles from hers, though now that Middlcville has grown clear up to the southern boundary of Lucullus, it doesn't seem lo be so far away. I told you that Martin's house was pat tog cither with rope lashings. The captain said that no land carpenter knew how to build a house, and that he wantod a house that would ride out a first-class cyclone, and that he hadn't any cdv- ' fldence in nails, and didn't consider them shipshape. His house was much the same thing as mine, except tbab it had a verandah on one side, vrhpre the captain used to walk up and down and look at things through, a telescope. " One of the last things thab I said to the captain before he and me had a coolness was that he had better dig a cyclone pit. You know what that 'is, I suppose. No ? Well, then, I'll tell you. It's just a hole in the ground, about 6t*t deep, covered with a trapdoor. When you ses a cyclone coming you get into your cyclone pit and chub the door till tha trouble is over. It's the ouly safe way, for if you stay in your house ' you're liable to bs crushed to death, and if you ' stay outdoors the cyclone will pick you up and carry you to kingdom come. But old Martin wouldn't hear of digging a pit. " The captain hndn't bsen living in his new house above six months when the great cyclone of 1887 came along, and I don't doubt that you have heard of it. It was about 10 o'clock in the morning, and ib was at least 20deg hotter than it is to-day, though it was only the middle of June instead of the middle of August. In a few minutes pretty near one-half the sky was covered with a cloud that was as black as Pittsburg coal smoke. The way it spread reminded me of a parcel of men laying a carpet on the stage of a theatre. You could see the upper edge of the cloud rolling over and over in great thick masses. All of a sudden a light breez9 sprang up that blew directly towards the quarter where the cloud came from, and 1 knew then that we were goicg to have a big storm, and that the wind was drawing towards it. Tne next thing I saw was a sort of funnel that seemed to drop from the middle of the cloud. Tha lower end kept twisting and squirming like the tail of a snake when you've got your boot heel on its head. I didn't wait any longer, but just dropped my hoe, and made a bolt for my cyclone pit. There* no mistaking what that funnel meant. There was the biggest kind of a cyclone on its way, and ib wa? coxing straight for me. I wasn't on speaking terms with the Captain then, but as I came near his house, aud saw him standing on his verandah, and lashing himself to one of the posts with a ropo, I sang out to him to corns with me if he valued his life. He only said in a mighty cool and condescending way, 'I don't remember asking you for auy advice, my man.' That made me so mad that I didn't waste any more ' time or breath on him, but lifted the cover off my pit, jumped down into it without stopping to , use the ladder, and pulled the cover oa again. I

"By this time the cyclone wa3 making itself heard. First there was a low, rumbling sort of found, like whit a railroad train unices whenib ia a good way off. It giew louder and louder, till it got to be a kind of shtieking roar, like » hundred big church organs mixed up with a dozen or two steam whistles. It was as black as night in that pit, except when the lightning flashed, for there is always moro or lew lightning paying arouud the funnel of a cyclone. Ib seemed as if no expense was spared in making acyclona as varied aud entertaining as mstuble. Just when the roaring was at its loudest there came an awful crash that made the earth shake, and then the souud began to weaken, and in a few minutes it had died away, and the place was as atill a3 a man's housa whea he comes back to ifc from his wife's funeral. •"So far, so good ! ' say* Ito myself. « Now I'll clamber out and see if there is anything left of my house, and the mules, &nd the Norwegian. Sub whoa I tried to lift up the cover of the pit I could »bir it only a few inches, and that didn'fcletin any light. I couldn't understand what this meant ; but, being a smoker, of cjurse I had my mafcch«H with me, so I struck a lights and investigated. I found that there was a sorb of board flooring above the cover of the pit which prevented me from lifting it, and consequently I know that tho cyclone had dropped something just over my head. Luckily, there was a crowbar among the tools stmding in the corner of the pit, and I hun l ed it up and got to work as well as I could in the dark. It didn't tika me very long to burst a hole in the flooring that 1 spoke of ; and after I had made an opeuing and let in the light I saw that tbere was a house on the top of me. I set to work again with the crowbar, and presently I was ablo to climb ont, and found myself in a email bedroom. I didn't stop to examine ib, but opened the first dcor I came to, and there I was in Ciptain Martin's sitting room, faca to face with the old man. The furniture was all upset, and the sides of tho housa wore slanting one way and another ; but there was no mistaking th&t it was a" hou«e and that Capfaiu Martin wag there, looking none tb.9 worse for having been through a cyclone."— Condensed f:otn Mr W L AldiJn's sketch in the Pall Mall Magazine.