MEDICINE HAT
THE tempests that rattle and kill off the cattle and freeze up the combs of the roosters and hens, that worry the granger, whose stock is in danger—the mules in their stables, the pigs in their pens—the loud winds that frolic like sprites with the colic and carry despair to the workingman’s flat, the wild raging blizzard that chills a man’s gizzard, they all come a-whooping from Medicine Hat. When men get together and note that the weather is fixing for ructions, preparing a storm, they cry: “Julius Caesar! The square-headed geezer who’s running the climate should try to reform! The winter’s extensive and coal’s so expensive that none can keep warm but the blamed plutocrat! It’s time that the public should some weather dub lick! It’s time for a lynching at Medicine Hat!” And when the sun’s shining we still are repining. “This weather,” we murmur, “is too good to last; just when we’re haw-hawing because we are thawing there’ll come from the Arctic a stemwinding blast; just when we are dancing and singing and prancing, there’ll come down a wind that would freeze a stone cat; just when we are hoping that winter’s eloping, they’ll send us a package from Medicine Hat!”
