Paul Bunyan

by James Stevens

Paul Bunyan did not reprove them for their doubts and impertinent remarks. With a shrewd show of patience and forbearance, he made them a speech in which he cunningly portrayed their unreasoning enthusiasm for Johnny Inkslinger’s new cures. Had it not been for their applause, the timekeeper would have quickly abandoned his unscientific notions, Paul Bunyan said, and the recent troubles would have been avoided. He hoped they had learned a lesson, the leader continued, that they would never again look for hurtful ideas in speeches, but for excitement, jollity and contentment only, as that was the best that oratory could give them. Their business was not to think, but to fell trees. They were, beyond a doubt, the greatest tribe of loggers that would ever march through the woods, he said in conclusion, and as Paul Bunyan’s men they would have glory in history. But as thinkers they were no better than prattling children.

“Back to your bunks!” ordered the leader-hero. “And I want no more nonsense from you about ideas.”

The loggers, blushing with shame and contrition, were quick to obey; and they all crawled under their blankets and hid their red faces. The Big Swede had the buildings wired together by this time; the blue ox was hitched to the cookhouse; Paul Bunyan, the foreman, and the timekeeper took hold of the traces to help pull the long load, and the start for New Iowa was made.

Babe had a hard pull over the mountains, and, with all the help that was given him, he labored slowly up the slopes. He was wearied out when the Tall Timber country was reached at dawn. Paul Bunyan stopped for a rest, and the loggers came out to gaze upon the trees whose tops were as lofty as the clouds. The great logger himself was delighted to find trees that towered far above his head, and he got an overpowering desire to try an ax and a saw on them. Here were trees that were too tall and large for his loggers to work on; this timber was made for him and it offered him the chance for the historical individual logging accomplishment that he had always dreamed about. Paul Bunyan swore loudly that, redeemed loggers or no redeemed loggers, cured ox or uncured ox, he would send the camp on in charge of the Big Swede and the timekeeper and enjoy a holiday of powerful, pleasant labor. So he set up his workshop and built himself a crosscut saw that would span even the largest trunks, he made a regulation felling ax of a size to fit his hands, and he devised some wedges from Babe’s old ox shoes.

The next morning the camp was started on its way again; and as it left the Tall Timber country the loggers looked back on the vanishing figure of their hero-leader, and their eyes got dim, and a doleful loneliness whispered in all their hearts.

“Paul Bunyan’s a good and mighty man,” they said sincerely.

Happily, New Iowa was a country of such enchanting colorful aspect that the loggers were consoled when the camping place on Lavender River was reached. There had lately been considerable argument in the bunkhouses as to whether Kansas before the turnover of sinfulness was not a more ideal country than that around the old home camp. But here was a land which seemed to surpass both regions. The blue of the sky looked as though it had been painted there, and the hills, too, huge heaps of daisies, bluebells, poppies and buttercups, were out of a picture-book. The river got its name from its lavender color, and its unblemished stream curved delicately through the forests of orange palm, and the meadows of pink clover, which were like vast but dainty rugs on the valley floor. Pale green moss hung over the river banks to hide any ugliness of soil, and mauve and lemon blooms of water lilies made a lovely variance of color in the lavender water. The orange palms were as tall as coconut palms, and they resembled them in shape also. The foliage, blossoms and fruit were all in the thick crests of the tree tops; the leaves and blooms were like those of the common orange trees of to-day; the bark of some of the trees was purple, on others it was gold, and a few had bark which was wine-red. All were now in heavy bloom, and the forests were roofed with solid masses of white blossoms, for the orange palms stood so close together that a logger could hardly squeeze between their trunks.

All that day Paul Bunyan’s loggers wandered about, savoring the deliciousness of the scene; at suppertime they could not eat, for the odors of beans and stewed onions were repugnant, after breathing the heavy-sweet fragrances of the drowsy New Iowa air. Nor could they enjoy songs and stories that evening, for they still heard the canaries singing among the orange blossoms. Neither could they sleep, for their honest blankets seemed tough and unclean after their rollings of the day on the pink clover and the daisies and buttercups.

But there was no poetry in the Big Swede’s soul, and he called them out at sunup with a vulgar “Roll out or roll up, by yeeminy!” He only thought of the job before him, and he was out to show Paul Bunyan that the camp had been left in capable hands.

The loggers, beguiled by the charms of their new delicacies, all shaved and donned clean underclothes before they came out to work, and the Big Swede growled at them for being late.