6/8/2008:
The news from Fort Buford on this date in 1877 described the woes of too much rain. The writer of the piece, signed only as Rex, began his report: “And what is so rare as a day in June.” Rex felt a clear day in June was becoming the rarity.
The previous June, Ft. Buford endured a snow storm. But the soldiers preferred snow to their many recent storms, during on of which Private Dennis Ring had been killed by lightning.
Rex finished his report with: “We close this as we commenced – with rainy thoughts, and if we only had the cottage, we’d lull ourselves to sleep with this old song:
When the lurid showers gather
Over all the starry spheres,
And the melancholy darkness
Greatly weeps in rainy tears –
‘Tis a joy to press the pillow
Of a cottage chamber bed
And listen to the patter
Of the soft rain overhead.”
By Merry Helm
Source: The Bismarck Tri-Weekly Tribune. 8 June 1877.