of many birds, especially in Montana, Idaho, Utah, and Nevada. But here the crops were so abundant that the little songsters “had first whack at the grain,” as my husband remarked. He was the bird-man of the party, and when he was driving at a top-notch speed or turning a hairpin curve he would calmly ask, “Did you girls see that blue heron?” Alexandria, and the hotel of the same name, were comfortable beyond our hopes. The next day we passed through Fergus Falls, where the cyclone of June 22d had demolished the better part of the town. It had been a thriving, attractive place in the heart of the grain-belt, with fine buildings and pretty homes. Now, less than two months later, the wreck and débris were appalling. The wind had wrought strange sights. We saw a sewing-machine in the top of a neighbor’s tree, festooned with bedding, petticoats, and a bird-cage. Houses were turned over as if they had been toys; others were crushed to kindling. Here a small tree or a chicken-coop would be intact, and a building five feet away would be demolished. We stopped off for lunch in a small café in the part of the town that had escaped the gale. The people were talking of nothing else. The whole countryside had driven in to see it, to take the sufferers home, or to render assistance. The waitress paid no attention to our order--just talked. “Why, lady, it was the awfullest thing you ever heard tell on! One moment we were all sitting at our work, and then we heard a roar like a mad bull, or thunder, and the sky got so black that you couldn’t see across that counter. Windows smashed in, and this house shook like jelly. Folks were blown down that street like old newspapers. Scared? My Gawd! we just crawled under the counter and prayed! The door was blown in and the front window smashed. A little kid was blown across that street and straight through that broken glass. My maw’s house was shook to pieces. Maw was cookin’, and she and the stove went off together. Paw was feedin’ the cattle; when we found him he was lyin’ in the next lot with a cow a-lyin’ on top of him and a milkpail a-coverin’ of his head. Most everyone got cut by the glass or broke an arm or leg, tryin’ to hold on to somethin’. The piany in the schoolhouse was took up and planted in a street two blocks away not hurt a bit. It sounds just beautiful now. Some folks I know had their two cats and three dogs killed, and the canary was a-singin’ like mad when they found the house in the end of the garden. The wire fences were the worst; they just wound themselves up like yarn.” Many others told us similar weird tales. We left that town, already being rebuilt, a sober party. “I wonder what would happen to us if we should meet such a cyclone,” said Toodles. “I think we would ‘blow in’ to lunch with our friends in Boston,” mused the bird-man.