THE ALUMlNl JOURNAL 1'9 



Sam Seiler, one of our citizens" (he looked it). "Glad to see you, 

 Johnson, where you from? I been here this thirty year, come from 

 Missouri in '70, full moon, damp fog hanging over yonder hill when 

 I settled. 



Johnson replied by saying that his home was m New Jersey, i 

 reckon I know where dat is for I hear enough of those Jersey 

 skeeters of, botherashum that fly with the new mown hay, back 



dar 



"My new clerk is a dandy, Sam. he is full of energy, a graduate 

 of pharmacy and a few States." Some days later the followmg 

 article appeared in the Dixon Herald, the only paper of the village : 

 "Mr Harold Johnson, of Jersey City, New Jersey, has entered 

 the employ of Dr. S. Ambrose; Mr. Johnson, a practical pharmacist 

 and prescription clerk, is a graduate of the New York College of 

 Pharmacy. He is registered in five States and comes to Dixon wih 

 eio-ht years' experience and carries credentials which speak highly 

 of" his qualifications and the excellence of his character. Such 

 daring flattery in the face of all the confusion of high-class duties 

 to perform, including window washing, general scrub and cleaning 

 up in the shop and "^breaking up fire wood, would make_ a camels 

 hair bristle hard and stiff. One day Sam Seiler was praising Cali- 

 fornia, that they had no snow and no cyclones and glad he didn t 

 have to live in the East. AVe had been having a heavy fog for a 

 month, and the weather pretty sultry with not a drop of ram, the 

 humidity almost unbearable, with not a glimpse of the sun; sud- 

 denly a breeze started up, dark clouds began to appear, dust raised 

 in clouds, inky darkness, and with a hum of gale started up, soon 

 developing into a hurricane, the wind blowing eighty to one hun- 

 dred miles an hour, after which the rain fell in torrents. Johnson 

 smiled and quietly watched the storm, and Sam Seller, who looked 

 out anxiously and much disturbed, for Johnson well knew that a 

 cyclone of genuine eastern kind had struck in the near vicinity. 

 A few hours later Seiler all excitement, came telling us that two 

 barns on one of his ranches had been laid flat to the ground, and 

 that Martin, Peters, and several others suffered also. Do you 

 have cyclones in California, Seiler, he asked, closing one eye ? He 

 never answered, but was more conservative m the future _ _ 



Johnson had conceit enough to feel that he was the admiration 

 of the town for the next three months. Attended every social and 

 reception held in the town, and took a leading part m all oj tne^^- 

 On a bright moonlight night in November, 1900, nearing Thanks- 

 givino- he made his entrance into society of Dixon at a public 

 social given by young people. ^Tiss Effie Cross approached him 

 with a hearty good-evening as he entered "Vendome Ha 1 Now, 



I do hope, Mr. Johnson, you don't object, but we would like you 

 to act as head-waiter, superintending the rest." This was the first 



