Paul Bunyan could not understand this woman person. She could not be explained by any of his ideas. She looked even less like a logger, now that he saw her closely. Her feet, for one thing, were ridiculously small, and the thin-soled slippers on them would not last a day at work in the woods. Her socks were of transparent, shimmering stuff, and they were pink, like the New Iowa clover. He had never seen anything except a cook’s apron which was like the garment she wore, and he had never seen anything at all compared with the curving soft shapes revealed in this garment. Her face was something like a boy logger’s face, but her eyes were not boy’s eyes; for some different spirit shone in their brown lights. Her strangely cut hair was combed straight down over her forehead and its clipped ends made an even line above eyebrows which were no greater than threads. Her arms were round and white and firmly fleshed, but they seemed to have little muscle. Her small hands surely could not reach around an ax handle; nevertheless she was proud of them, for she now polished her fingernails on her pink socks and then admired the new glitter of them.
“I still do not understand this woman person,” whispered Paul Bunyan to himself. “I have observed her closely, but the secret of her power is not yet known to me. Surely my bully loggers will yet prefer my oratory to these weak women folk. I must try again.”
The woman person looked up at the gusty murmur; and on her small red mouth, and in her sunny brown eyes, was a smile. And Paul Bunyan saw also the tiniest of cups in each of her powdered cheeks. These, too, were marvelous and new to him.
“I have had an adventure which I can talk about for a long time,” said the woman person. “Now put me down.”
Paul Bunyan marveled still more at the imperiousness of this voice, which was yet so soft, so gentle and low. He had seen one logger chew off another’s ear for less arrogant words. And now that he looked for them he did not discover ears on this woman person. But she had certainly not profited by the lesson.
“You have not yet learned bunkhouse courtesy?” asked Paul Bunyan conversationally.
The woman person shrugged her shoulders and wrinkled her nose. She seemed to consider this a good enough answer, for she did not speak. Paul Bunyan wanted to chide her, and he was surprised that he found no words for it. He felt embarrassment.
“Tell me, please,” he said bashfully, “how you women folk won my loggers.”
“Oh!” she replied, blushing a little, “we wanted husbands and babies.”
More mysteries! More words without meaning to him! This was an explanation perhaps, but it explained nothing.