Cold Weather Indeed

"Mr. President and gentlemen," be}í;m Mr. Calkins, according to a story in the Washington Evening Star, "I am not an old man, and therefore the winter I speak of is familiar to all of you - that of 1873. Five of us, with our wives, had gone to Dakota in order to obtain homesteads, and settled twentyfive miles from the then small village of Fargo, near where the city of Castlston is dow situated, but then a wild, desolate prairie, with no neighbors nearer than Fargo, and bands of Indians or wolves placing us in constant danger. "The five families, although having sod houses of thelr own) all lived in one house for companionship and piotection. Well, at 10:30 o'clock Wednesday nlght, Oct. 2, it turned so cold that we could see the walls moving in and the house grow smaller from the natural contraction caused by the atmosphere. It grew cold constantly until morning, and then remained as it was. "What was the degree?" somo one asked. "To teil the truth, gentlemen, I do not know," was the response. "We had half-a-dozen thermometers, but they were of the mercury kind, and mercury froze so solid within an hour that Hu: children used the bulbs to play marbles with all that winter, and until they thawi.j .lüt the followingFourth of July. We b;n; plenty of iuel, and wore heavy winter uraps in the house, in this way keeping from freezing. After a few weeks we bccame used to it. One of the ladies discovered how beautiful the icyeles were that grew upon the wlndows. They then wore thom as Jewels, and diamonds never looked prëttler. There was no danger of their meltiiiK. even in the house, and it was actually a source of sorrow to the ladies when the weather grew warm ènough for us to go out doors and to melt the diamonds with which they had deoorated chemseives. That was the coldest winter I ever experienced, but I cannot teil i just how cold it was, owing to having i uo spirit thermometer."