Part 1
PAUL BUNYAN
JAMES STEVENS
PAUL BUNYAN
WOODCUTS BY ALLAN LEWIS
NEW YORK GARDEN CITY PUBLISHING CO., INC.
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
NOTE: _Four of Mr. Lewis’ woodcuts were originally made for, and are used by courtesy of The Century Magazine._
CL MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO OTHEMAN STEVENS
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
THE WINTER OF THE BLUE SNOW 11
THE BULL OF THE WOODS 31
A MATTER OF HISTORY 51
THE SOURDOUGH DRIVE 70
THE BLACK DUCK DINNER 90
THE OLD HOME CAMP 114
SHANTY BOY 132
THE KINGDOM OF KANSAS 149
ORATORICAL MEDICINE 169
NEW IOWA 188
THE HE MAN COUNTRY 207
EVIL INVENTIONS 225
INTRODUCTION
The Paul Bunyan legend had its origin in the Papineau Rebellion of 1837. This was a revolt of the French-Canadians against their young English queen. In the Two Mountains country, at St. Eustache, many loggers armed with mattocks, axes, and wooden forks which had been steamed and warped into hooks, stormed into battle. Among them was a mighty-muscled, bellicose, bearded giant named Paul Bunyon. This forest warrior, with a mattock in one hand, and a great fork in the other, powerful as Hercules, indomitable as Spartacus, bellowing like a furious Titan, raged among the Queen’s troops like Samson among the Philistines. He came out of the rebellion with great fame among his own kind. His slaughters got the grandeur of legend.
Later this Paul Bunyon operated a logging camp. In that day logging was heroic labor. In the autumn the loggers went to the woods, forcing their way in batteaux up swift rivers. On every trip there were many wearisome portages around rapids. Snow and ice then locked them in their camps for five or six months. The workday was from dawn to dusk. The loggers lived on beans, salt pork and sourdough bread. At night there were songs and tales around the shanty stove. Of course these were mainly about their own life, their own heroes. The camp boss was like the chief of a tribe; his will had to be the law, and he had to have exceptional physical power and courage to enforce it. After his part in the rebellion there was no more famous camp chief in Canada than Paul Bunyon.
Sure that the Paul Bunyan stories which have been told for generations in the American timberlands were of Canadian origin, I questioned many old time French-Canadian loggers before I found genuine proofs. At last I met Louis Letourneau in the Big Berry country, Puyallup, Washington. And Louis’ father-in-law, Z. Berneche, a snowy-maned, shining-eyed, keen-minded veteran logger of ninety years, told me about the original hero. His uncle, Collet Bellaine, fought by the side of Paul Bunyon, and later worked two seasons for him. Now, the French-Canadians have no genius for the humor of purposeful exaggeration such as the Americans have; the _habitans_ exaggerate honestly and enthusiastically and with an illusion of truth, like Tartarin of Tarascon.
“My uncle, Collet Bellaine,” said Mr. Berneche earnestly, “know that Paul Bunyon carry five hundred pounds on portage. That is truth. He was very big, strong man, you understand; he fight like hell, he work like hell, and he pack like hell. Never was another man like Paul Bunyon. That’s right.”
It is not difficult to imagine the _habitans_ honestly exaggerating the logging feats of the war hero as they talked about him in the New Brunswick camps, and in Maine, and in the Great Lakes pineries. And it is simple for one who has seen the two races together to imagine the Americans “improving” on the first stories about Paul Bunyon, only to ridicule his extravagant admirers; and then developing their own Paul Bunyan legend to ease their weariness when their twelve-hour day was done.
Other evidence supports this view of the origin of the stories. There are stories told about an Irish-French-Canadian logger, Joe Mufraw (Murphy was his ancestral name); and the name of Joe Mufraw is famous in the woods, sometimes being linked with Paul Bunyan’s. He appears in the Red River Lumber Company’s collection of Paul Bunyan stories. Now, Joe Mufraw logged in the Misstassinny River country in Quebec less than fifty years ago. I have seen pictures of this huge frowning man and his oxen. Many old French-Canadians have sworn to me that he put the calks in his boots in the shape of his initials, and that after the thirteenth drink he would kick his initials in a ceiling eight feet high. His feats in camp and on the log drives were as magnificent.
It was the American loggers below the Border who made of Paul Bunyon a true hero of camp nights’ entertainment. They gave him Babe, the blue ox, who measured forty-two ax handles and a plug of chewing tobacco between the horns. They created the marvelous mythical logging camp, with its cookhouse of mountainous size and history of Olympian feats; and they peopled this camp with astounding minor heroes. They made their Paul Bunyan an inventor and orator, and an industrialist whose labors surpassed those of Hercules. They devised a chronology for him; he ruled American life in the period between the Winter of the Blue Snow and the Spring That the Rain Came Up From China. By 1860 Paul Bunyan had become a genuine American legendary hero.
Perhaps the Paul Bunyan narrator who won most lasting fame was Len Day, whose firm of Len Day & Son was one of the largest lumber concerns of Minneapolis in the sixties. I had often heard of him; and lately Mr. Michael Christopher Quinn, yard superintendent for the Northwestern Lumber Company, of Hoquiam, Washington, for twenty-two years, gave me a first-hand account of him. In 1873 Quinn was working in a great log drive down the Mississippi; his camp was at Haney Landing, Minnesota. Len Day was then eighty-five, a prosperous and influential lumberman. But the lure of the drive and of camp life still stirred the true logger’s soul of him, and he came to the camp each spring. Every night the gang gathered in the cookhouse to hear the old camp bard declaim a canto of the Paul Bunyan epic.
“Len Day told the stories in sections,” said Mr. Quinn.
A section, or a canto, or a chapter, or whatever one may call it, was delivered each night by the old lumberman, who could see toiling demi-gods and sweating heroes in his dark woods, and imagined narratives about them, to which he gave the substance and characters of the traditional Paul Bunyan stories. Len Day had lived in New Brunswick in the forties and had thus heard the stories in their beginnings. The Paul Bunyan stories which form the body of the legend have not had many changes or surviving additions in fifty years. They themselves are not a narrative; they exist, rather, as a group of anecdotes which are told among a group of camp men until the story-teller of the gang is started on a narrative which he makes up as he yarns along, and which may take him an hour, or three evenings, to relate. A Paul Bunyan bunkhouse service is a glory to hear, when it is spontaneous and in a proper setting; preferably around a big heater in the winter, when the wind is howling through crackling boughs outside, and the pungent smell of steaming wool drifts down from the drying lines above the stove. When the vasty spirit of the woods really moves the meeting a noble and expansive ecstasy of the soul is exhibited. Remarks are passed about a similar night in Paul Bunyan’s camp, when the wind blew so hard that Big Ole, the blacksmith, had to bolt iron straps over the logs to keep them from being sucked up the chimneys. The theme grows and bears strange fruits; and finally the camp bard harvests them all in a story based on such a venerable anecdote as that one about Big Ole toting one of Babe’s ox shoes for half a mile and sinking knee-deep into the solid rock at every step.
This anecdote is what might be called a “key story,” for it is one of the very old ones. There are at least a hundred of these, all familiar to every man who has worked long in the woods. They all deal with some of the characters whom tradition has placed about Paul Bunyan, with the mighty logger himself as the main hero; their settings are in such regions as the Onion River country, the Bullfrog Lake country, or the Leaning Pine country; and each one is a theme for gorgeous yarns, when a knowing and gifted camp bard is inspired to use it.
Nowadays, with a shed garage in every logging camp, a radio in the camp office, graphophones in the bunkhouses, and a jazz shack in the village just “over the hump,” the camp bard has a scant audience. But in happier times each camp enjoyed its chief story-teller; and such a bard could take one of the key stories and elaborate on it for hours, building a complete narrative, picturing awe-inspiring characters, inventing dialogue of astonishing eloquence. (And what stupendous curses, terrifying threats and verbose orations such bards as Happy Olsen and Old Time Sandy could invent!) It is the method of the old bards that I have attempted to follow in writing this book.
The art of the plain American, which in the last century brought forth tales and songs as native to the soil as the grass of the prairies, is at last perishing under the feet of the herd arts of a perfected democratic culture. The legends about Buffalo Bill and Brigham Young have passed; these heroes are now plain figures in book history. Jim Bridger, the heroic “old man of the mountains,” is obscenely and falsely portrayed in a movie to draw snickers from the chiropractors, pants salesmen and tin-roofers who are the passionate devotees of this carnal herd art. Kentucky and Tennessee mountain folk still tell their tales about “ol’ Dan’l,” tales in which the listener will discover a Boone a thousand times more picturesque and grand than the hero of written history. Crockett, Carson, old Andy Jackson, Sam Houston--but I could name a score whom the plain man’s untutored art ennobled and glorified in a manner that put the erudite narrators to shame. This art is perishing simply because Universal Education, and other blights, curses and evil inventions of democracy are destroying all the old simplicity, imaginativeness and self-amusement of plain American life.
Only in a few regions, and among the elders, do the creations of this art, this folk lore, or whatever one wills to call it, survive as shining memorials to sturdier and nobler days. And the legend of Paul Bunyan is certainly the greatest of these creations; for it embodies the souls of the millions of American camp men who have always done the hard and perilous pioneer labor of this country. It is true American legend now, for Paul Bunyan, as he stands to-day, is absolutely American from head to foot. He visualizes perfectly the American love of tall talk and tall doings, the true American exuberance and extravagance. Beginning in Paul Bunyon, soldier with Papineau, he has become the creation of whole generations of men. Thousands of narrators by far-flung campfires have contributed their mites to the classical picture of him. And he, at least, will live as long as there is a forest for his refuge, as long as there are shadows and whispers of trees.
I want to thank the old camp comrades who have sent me so many versions of all the known key stories, and who have given me accounts of new ideas. They, and several lumbermen also, have been very kind to me. And I owe gratitude particularly to Mr. H. L. Mencken, of the _American Mercury_. Without his help and encouragement the stories would not have been written.
PAUL BUNYAN
THE WINTER OF THE BLUE SNOW
Paul Bunyan was the one historian of the useful and the beautiful; other writers of history tell only of terrible and dramatic events. Therefore the chronicles of Paul Bunyan, the mighty logger, the inventor of the lumber industry, the leader-hero of the best band of bullies, the finest bunch of savages, that ever tramped the continent, the master orator of a land that has since grown forests of orators--his chronicles alone tell of the Winter of the Blue Snow.
The blue snow fell first in the North. It fell scantily in its earlier hours, its sapphire flakes floating down on the waves of a mild winter wind, and glittering in an ashen gold light, a sober pale radiance which shimmered through silver mists. There was poetry in the spectacle of these hours. And then the hard gray ground of a peopleless land was hidden under a blanket of dark blue. And the nameless frozen lakes and rivers, the silent valleys and the windy hills of the country were all spread over with a sky-dyed snow. When the last light of this day went out, the boughs of the great pines were creaking under heavy wet masses of snow like torn bales of blue cotton. There was a rush in the snowfall now, as a fiercer wind whipped it on; its heavy flakes were driven down in thick, whirling clusters, in streaming veils, leaping lines and dashing columns; and there were cloudlike swarms of the blue flakes, which settled slowly, floating easily in the hard wind. This wind got so strong that it shivered the timber, and the piles of blue snow which had gathered on the pine boughs were shaken down. Most of this snow fell into blue mounds around the trees, but some of it fell on the fauna of the forest, adding to their troublement.
At the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, the forest creatures of this land lived a free and easy life. Man was not there to embarrass them with accusations of trespass and to slay them for their ignorance of the crime. Their main problem was the overcrowding of the forests. The vast moose herds, who populated the woods so densely that traffic through their favorite timber was dangerous, made the matter of getting food a simple one for the carnivorous animals. There were many moose to spare, and the elders of the herds, like most prolific parents, never became frantically resentful over the loss of an offspring. The moose themselves, of course, lived easily on the crisp, juicy moose grass which grew so plenteously in these regions before the blue snow. So the carnivorous creatures of the forests lived a fast and furious life; and it is certain that if they were capable of praise, they had good praises for the moose meat which they got with such little difficulty. The coal-black bruins of the North were an especially happy crowd. Theirs was a gay, frolicsome life in the summer time, when the big bruins danced and galloped through sunny valleys and the small ones had rolling races on shady hillsides. In the fall, all fat and drowsy from moose meat, the bruins would go to sleep in their warm caves and dream pleasantly all winter.
They were all dreaming now; and the blue snow would no doubt have fallen and melted away without their knowledge had it not been for the moose herds which crowded the forest aisles. Moose at that time did not have it in them to enjoy wonder, and they had not learned to combat fear, for they were never afraid. Still, they had some imagination, and the moose trembled when the first blue snowflakes fell among them. They kept up an appearance of unconcern at first, eating moose moss as usual; but they sniffed gingerly at the blue streaks in it, and they stole furtive glances at each other as they bravely ate. This strange snowfall was certainly breeding fear of it in the hearts of all the moose, but each one seemed determined to be the last one to show it. However, as the day-end got near, and the wind grew more boisterous, shaking snow masses from the trees, some of the moose had fits of trembling and eye-rolling which they could not conceal. When a heap of snow dropped on the back of some timid moose, he would twist his head sharply and stare with bulging eyes at the mysteriously fearsome color, then he would prance wildly until the unwelcome snow was bucked from his shivering back. When the early shadows of evening came among the trees, the moose all had a heavy darkness of fear in their hearts. Little was needed to put them in a panic.
It was a great bull moose, a herd king, who forgot the example he owed to his weaker kindred and unloosed a thunderous bellow of terror which started the moose flight, the first memorable incident of the Winter of the Blue Snow. An overladen bough cracked above him; it fell and straddled him from quivering tail to flailing horns, burying him under its wet blue load. He reared out roaring, and his own herd echoed the cry; then a storm of moose bellows crashed through the forest. This tumult died, but there followed the earth-shaking thunder of a stampede.
The bruins, awakened from their pleasant dreams, came out from their caves and blinked at the hosts of terrified moose which were galloping past. The earth-shaking uproar of the flight at last thoroughly aroused the bruins, and they began to sniff the air uneasily. Then they noticed the blue snow; and now in front of every cave crowds of bruins were staring down at the snow; and each bruin was swaying heavily, lifting his left front foot as he swayed to the right, and lifting his right front foot as he swayed to the left. The bruins had no courage either, and, once they had got sleep out of their heads, nearly all of them took out after the moose herds. The wind roared louder with every passing minute this night. And the flakes of the blue snow were as dense as the particles of a fog. At dawn a blue blizzard was raging. But the fauna of the forest plunged tirelessly on, seeking a refuge of white snow.
And Niagara, made faithless by the Blue Terror, galloped behind them--Niagara, the great moose hound, bread-winner for the student of history, Paul Bunyon (his real name), and his companion also.
Paul Bunyon lived at Tonnere Bay. He dwelt in a cave that was as large as ten Mammoth Caves and which had a roof loftier than any tower or spire. But this cave was none too vast for Paul Bunyon, the one man of this region, but one man as great as a city of ordinary men. His tarpaulins and blankets covered one-fourth of the cave floor; his hunting clothes, traps and seines filled another quarter; and the rest of the space was occupied by a fireplace and his papers and books.
For Paul Bunyon was a student now. There had been a time when he had gone forth in the hunting and fishing season to gather the huge supplies of provender which he required, but now his days and nights were all spent with his books. Paul Bunyon’s favorite food was raw moose meat, and after he found Niagara in the Tall Wolf country he no longer needed to hunt. Each night Niagara trotted out in the darkness and satisfied his own hunger, then he carried mouthfuls of moose to the cave until he had a day’s supply of meat for his master. Niagara was ever careful not to frighten the moose herds; he hunted stealthily and with quiet. The moose at night were only conscious of a dark cloud looming over them, then numbers of the herds would disappear without painful sound. The moose, if they had thought about it, would have been only thankful to Niagara for lessening the congestion of the forests.
So Paul Bunyon fared well on the moose meat which Niagara brought him, and he lived contentedly as a student in his cave at Tonnere Bay. Each day he studied, and far into the night he figured. Taking a trimmed pine tree for a pencil, he would char its end in the fire and use the cave floor for a slate. He was not long in learning all the history worth knowing, and he became as good a figurer as any man could be.
Vague ambitions began to stir in his soul after this and he often deserted his studies to dream about them. He knew he would not spend his days forever in the cave at Tonnere Bay. Somewhere in the future a great Work was waiting to be done by him. Now it was only a dream; but he was sure that it would be a reality; and he came to think more and more about it. The books were opened less and less; the pine tree pencil was seldom brought from its corner. Paul Bunyon now used another pine tree which still had its boughs; it was a young one, and he brushed his curly black beard with it as he dreamed. But he was still a contented man at the time of the Winter of the Blue Snow, for his dreams had not yet blazed up in a desire for any certain attainment.
On the first day of the blue snow, Paul Bunyon was in a particularly contented mood. He sat all that day before his fire; so charmed with drowsy thoughts was he that he did not once look out. It had been dark a long time before he rolled into his blankets. He awoke at the dawn of a day that had scarcely more light than the night. He was cold, and he got up to throw an armful of trees on the fire. Then he saw the blue drifts which had piled up before the cave, and he saw the fog of the blue blizzard. He heard the roar of a terrific wind, too, and he knew that the storm was perilous as well as strange. But Paul Bunyon thought gladly of the blue snow, for it was a beautiful event, and the historians he liked most would write wonderful books about it.
He kicked the drifts away from the cave entrance, but the usual pile of slain moose was not under them. Paul Bunyon was a little worried, as he thought that Niagara might have lost himself in the blue blizzard. The possibility that the unnatural color of the storm might send the fauna of the forest, and Niagara as well, into panicky flight did not occur to him. He was sure that Niagara would return with a grand supply of moose meat when the blue blizzard had passed.
But the moose herds were now far to the North, fleeing blindly from the blue snow. The bruins galloped after them. Before the day was over, Niagara had overtaken the bruins and was gaining on the moose. At nightfall his lunging strides had carried him far ahead of all the fauna of the forest. He galloped yet faster as he reached the blacker darkness of the Arctic winter. Now the darkness was so heavy that even his powerful eyes could not see in it.... Niagara at last ran head-on into the North Pole; the terrific speed at which he was traveling threw his body whirling high in the air; when Niagara fell he crashed through ninety feet of ice, and the polar fields cracked explosively as his struggles convulsed the waters under them.... Then only mournful blasts of wind sounded in the night of the Farthest North.
The moose were wearied out before they reached the white Arctic, and hordes of them fell and perished in the blizzard; many others died from fright, and only a tiny remnant of the great herds survived. Some of the bruins reached the polar fields, and they have lived there since. Their hair had turned white from fright, and their descendants still wear that mark of fear. Others were not frightened so much, and their hair only turned gray. They did not run out of the timber, and their descendants, the silver-tip grizzlies, still live in the Northern woods. The baby bruins were only scared out of their growth, and their black descendants now grow no larger than the cubs of Paul Bunyon’s time.
Being ignorant of this disaster, Paul Bunyon was comfortable enough while the blizzard lasted. He had a good store of trees on hand and his cave was warm in the storm. He got hungry in the last days; but this emotion, or any emotion, for that matter, could have but little power over him when he was dreaming. And he dreamed deeply now of great enterprises; his dreams were formless, without any substance of reality; but they had brilliant colors, and they made him very hopeful.