The boss farmer leaped over Honey Creek and strode rapidly towards the farmhouse. Every hundred yards he would pause and chuckle convulsively. “Parsnips, hey? Ye dern’ tootin’ I’ll feet him parsnips! It’s Mr. Bunyan’s pers’nal orders, says I. Heh! heh! Dad burn’, ef that ain’t funny!”
While Paul Bunyan, Johnny Inkslinger and the Big Swede cruised the remaining timber in the Smiling River country, the loggers renewed their affections for the delights of the old home camp. In the mornings they roamed the cool slopes of old Rock Candy, they gorged themselves with ripe fruit from the raspberry trees and strawberry bushes, and, barefooted, they climbed the maple trees and gamboled over the clover fields. In the afternoons Smiling River was splashed with foam for miles as they swarmed into their old swimming holes. Swimming over, the loggers would line up on the banks and shake their right legs to get the water out of their left ears and their left legs to get the water out of their right ears. Then they would angle for the bright-hued butterfish that fluttered among the water flowers. And what exhilarating meals they enjoyed! Now they had all the fresh stuff that the farm could provide. Cream Puff Fatty, the baker, made them strawberry shortcake and raspberry pie twice a day, and he covered these juicy confections with snowy piles of vanilla-flavored whipped cream. The cobs from golden, fat-kerneled roasting ears were soon heaped mountain-high in the kitchen yard. The cream gravy for the rosy new potatoes and bouncing green peas was made from real cream, sweet and thick. The loggers became lighthearted boys again, and as they enjoyed themselves they were happily unconscious of the bitter enviousness of the scissor-bills, who were digging parsnips for twenty hours a day on the other side of Honey Creek.
Babe, the blue ox, too, was enjoying life as never before. The stream from the lemonade springs had been diverted to a trough that ran through his manger; and he was surrounded with fresh, green clover, for John Shears, with sinister purpose, had mown all the clover fields on the day after Paul Bunyan’s arrival and had stacked it in and around Babe’s stable. He had hoped that the blue ox would bloat on the green feed, and perish before his master could return from his cruising expedition. But the early harvest had only served to throw the two bees into a rebellious rage; they had been imprisoned in their hive, and there, night and day, they had buzzed wrathfully over their half-filled honey barrels. Babe digested the green clover easily, and ate it with delight, his great blue eyes shining with affection and gratitude for the boss farmer.
“Pity ’tain’t alfalfy, ye blame’ hog,” snarled John Shears in disgust.
But it wasn’t, so John Shears made the scissor-bills work twenty hours a day in the parsnip patch, and he aided them with his own efforts, for he realized that once Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger had returned a fatal poisoning of the blue ox would be difficult to accomplish. He would not have the courage to attempt it then. Now was the time to strike. Heaven helping him, he should not fail!
During this week Little Meery had been kept within the bounds of the farmyard by the strict orders of John Shears. His heart was heavy indeed as he toiled away in the kitchen. Never had the scouring of pots and pans seemed to be such wretched labor; never had the odors and steam of dishwater seemed so detestable. When he went out to slop the pigs at eventide he heard the jaybirds’ songs no more; he had ears only for the shouts, laughter and harmonies that sounded in the old home camp. Next week the grand life of logging would begin; all summer he, poor unfortunate, would suffer the misery of vain longings. Poor Little Meery; he looked in vain for a silver lining to his cloud.
Saturday came, and only one more holiday remained for the loggers to enjoy. As Little Meery listened to their exuberant noise, he was unable to drive away his despondency with songs or cheerful thoughts. Hour by hour his spirits got lower; his optimism left him, and his mind was dark with dismal shades. When he went to bed under the kitchen sink he did not fall into a sound sleep at once, as he usually did; his misery and dejection kept him awake. For two hours he lay there, soaking his pillow with tears, then the droning murmurs from the settin’-room were hushed, and, after a pause, John Shears began a speech. He fully revealed his frightful scheme to the scissor-bills, and he exhorted them to be true to his cause, which was their cause also. When Little Meery understood that the boss farmer intended to poison the blue ox and thus do away with the logging industry forever, he gave such a start of horror that his head banged against the bottom of the sink. The speech was halted at the sound.
“It’s only Little Meery,” said a scissor-bill contemptuously.
Little Meery did not venture to stir again as John Shears went on speaking.
“So it’s all fixed to pizen the ox critter to-night,” said John Shears in conclusion. “Then they’ll be no more wicked loggin’. Loggin’ must be wicked because it makes wicked men. Farmin’ must be good because it makes good men. When ol’ Paul Bunyan an’ his loggers has to go farmin’ they’ll nacherlly turn into good men. Then they’ll have to foller us, hi grabby, because we was farmers an’ good men before they was. I hate to pizen a pore dumb critter, but this here’s by way of makin’ him a sackerfice—a sackerfice for the glory of life eternal! Glory! glory! glory!”