The first saw was made from a strip trimmed off in making Big Joe's dinner horn and was long enough to reach across a quarter section, for Paul could never think in smaller units. This saw worked all right in a level country, in spite of the fact that all the trees fell back on the saw, but in rough country only the trees on the hill tops were cut. Trees in the valleys were cut off in the tops and in the pot holes the saw passed over the trees altogether.
It took a good man to pull this saw in heavy timber when Paul was working on the other end. Paul used to say to his fellow sawyer, "I don't care if you ride the saw, but please don't drag your feet." A couple of cousins of Big Ole's were given the job and did so well that ever afterward in the Lake States the saw crews have generally been Scandinavians.
It was after this that Paul had Big Ole make the "Down-Cutter." This was a rig like a mowing machine. They drove around eight townships and cut a swath 500 feet wide.
Paul Bunyan's Trained Ants are proving so successful that they may replace donkeys and tractors on the rugged slopes of the Sierras. Inspired by his success with Bees and Mosquitoes, Paul has developed a breed of Ants that stand six feet tall and weigh 200 pounds.
To overcome their habit of hibernating all Winter, Paul supplied the Ants with Mackinaws made with three pairs of sleeves or legs. They eat nothing but Copenhagen Snuff. The Ants (or Uncles as they prefer to be called) can run to the Westwood shops with a damaged locomotive quicker than the Wrecking Crew can come out. They do not patronize bootleggers or require time off to fix their automobiles.
Lucy, Paul Bunyan's cow was not, so far as we can learn, related to either Babe or Benny. Statements that she was in any way their mother are without basis in fact. The two oxen had been in Paul's possession for a long time before Lucy arrived on the scene.
No reliable data can be found as to the pedigree of this remarkable dairy animal. There are no official records of her butterfat fat production nor is it known where or how Paul got her.
Paul always said that Lucy was part Jersey and part wolf. Maybe so. Her actions and methods of living seemed to justify the allegation of wolf ancestry, for she had an insatiable appetite and a roving disposition. Lucy ate everything in sight and could never be fed at the same camp with Babe or Benny. In fact, they quit trying to feed her at all but let her forage her own living. The Winter of the Deep Snow, when even the tallest White Pines were buried, Brimstone Bill outfitted Lucy with a set of Babe's old snowshoes and a pair of green goggles and turned her out to graze on the snowdrifts. At first she had some trouble with the new foot gear but once she learned to run them and shift gears without wrecking herself, she answered the call of the limitless snow fields and ran away all over North America until Paul decorated her with a bell borrowed from a buried church.
In spite of short rations she gave enough milk to keep six men busy skimming the cream. If she had been kept in a barn and fed regularly she might have made a milking record. When she fed on the evergreen trees and her milk got so strong of White Pine and Balsam that the men used it for cough medicine and liniment, they quit serving the milk on the table and made butter out of it. By using this butter, to grease the logging roads when the snow and ice thawed off, Paul was able to run big logging sleds all summer.
The family life of Paul Bunyan, from all accounts, has been very happy. A charming glimpse of Mrs. Bunyan is given by Mr. E. S. Shepard of Rhinelander, Wis., who tells of working in Paul's camp on Round River in '62, the Winter of the Black Snow. Paul put him wheeling prune pits away from the cook camp. After he had worked at this job for three months Paul had him haul them back again as Mrs. Bunyan, who was cooking at the camp, wanted to use them to make the hot fires necessary to cook her famous soft nosed pancakes.