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Stormy Petrel and the Blizzard of 1871: part 2

© Mary Trotter Kion

A STORMY ATTEMPT AT HOMESTEADING In the meantime, as Stormy made brave attempts at Kansas frontier housekeeping, her brothers scratched the prairie ground and planted their seeds. Having accomplished this chore they took positions upon the porch with their pipes to watch their crops sprout, grow and mature. They also waited for rain, a necessary element for crop growing, one fact they were aware of.

As the brothers waited, and smoked, the warm Kansas wind rolled across the prairie, the hot Kansas sun beamed down upon the somewhat tilled earth, but that was all. There was no rain-not one single drop of heavenly moisture fell from above.

Evidently someone back in good old England was doing a clipping business of extolling the virtues of Kansas to the British because one day, on the Kansas plains, came riding along another young Englishman. He, too, had heard of Kansas' fame. Of course Stormy and her brothers gave the fellow a hardy down-home welcome. What a welcome respite from watching the Kansas soil dry and crack under a relentless sun. Now they could enjoy the pleasures of reminiscing about the cool shady lanes of England with someone who had more recently been there.

Not too much time evolved before it became rather obvious that another visitor, though unobserved, had been in their midst. The unnoticed fellow went by the universal name of 'Cupid.'

By autumn, as the brothers' hopes for a bountiful harvest fell as flat as the prairie upon which they stood, Stormy became a bride, the wife of the recently arrived Englishman.

As blissfully wed as Stormy and her fellow was it was more than obvious to the newlywed couple and the two brothers that they were in a dire situation, what with a prairie winter quickly approaching. Something had to be done at once to correct this situation.

In the year of 1871, a mass slaughter of the buffalo was in full swing across the plains. This was being done for both pleasure and profit, as well as to prevent the Native Americans from utilizing these huge beasts that were a virtual storehouse for the Indians. With the buffalo gone it would force the roaming Indians to locate on reservations or starve.

At that particular time the royalty of Russia, in the grand form of Duke Alexis, was wintering on the plains and passing his time in the sport of buffalo killing. The presence of such a notable noble in the neighborhood was grand news and there were few that were not aware of his presence.

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