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A Trip to Manitoba by Mary FitzGibbon
page 26 of 160 (16%)
now that I am away from it; perhaps for ever. Towards night, black clouds
gathered in the sky, and distant thunder heralded the coming of one of
those great storms for which the prairie is so famous. The air was so
charged with electricity that the train had to be stopped several times,
and the wheels of the cars drenched with water to prevent their taking
fire. As night closed in, incessant flashes of white sheet lightning
almost blinded us. Each white flash was riven by red forks of flame,
until, with the horizon one constant blaze, the plain seemed a vast sea
of fire. Over our heads, in great zigzag lines, shot the fire fluid, as
the thunder rattled, roared, crashed, and broke around us; then, in a
momentary lull, came torrents of rain, rushing madly across the sward,
and drowning the noise of the fast-flying train, as if some fiend upon a
diabolical errand were borne through the warring elements. It seemed as
though two or three storms had met, to contend for mastery; flashes of
white, yellow, and red lightning outdid each other in brilliancy, and
peals of thunder, near and distant, reverberated in quick succession. No
one who has not encountered a rain-storm on the prairie can form an idea
of its grandeur and force.

During a short lull in the storm, we stopped at a place called Crookstown
for tea, following a touter for the "_Ho_-tel" there--or rather a
railway lantern, as the darkness completely hid the man--through mud and
water up to our ankles; over stumps and sticks; through a dilapidated
gateway, stoup, and wash-house, to a long, low room, where the table was
laid for tea. Seated round it on benches, chairs, three-legged stools--in
fact, on anything they could get hold of--were the engine-driver,
conductor, express-man, and other officials. The meal consisted of bread
and butter, potatoes boiled in their jackets, fried bacon swimming in
fat, and scalding tea in handleless cups. Asking for eggs, we were told
there was not one to be had in the "town." Query, what is a town?
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