Part 6

Whereupon Hot Biscuit Slim shook his father’s good hand, smiled enigmatically when the old man said, “I’m expectin’ you to succeed where I failed with sourdough, boy,” and left to inspect the cookhouse. Paul Bunyan and Johnny Inkslinger attended him. When the inspection was finished he had many recommendations to make. He demanded----

A new cookhouse, ten times the size of the present one.

Steam-power, force-feed batter mixers, and a hot cake griddle large enough for a battalion of second cooks to make a line around it.

A battery of great ovens for the baking of pies, cakes, puddings and cookies.

Bins for potatoes and other vegetables.

Fruit and vinegar cellars.

Baking powder and sugar barrels.

Sauerkraut tanks and a frankfurter shed.

An air-tight onion room.

A store of ham, bacon and eggs for the loggers’ breakfasts....

“Hold on a moment!” exclaimed Paul Bunyan in bewilderment. “Please tell me first: _what_ are hot cakes, pies, cookies, cakes, puddings, ham, bacon, eggs, potatoes, baking powder, sauerkraut, frankfurters and the rest of it? Can we get them from somewhere, or must I invent them?”

Hot Biscuit Slim patiently explained them to the great logger.

“Holy mackinaw!” said Paul Bunyan, greatly relieved, “I never imagined such things could be. I’m delighted that they’ve already been invented.”

Hot Biscuit Slim told him that they could all be grown or manufactured on the great farm. Then he went on to recommend that the flunkies be equipped with roller skates, thus tripling their efficiency. He made many other suggestions, and Paul Bunyan agreed to all of them.

“Now to work,” said Hot Biscuit Slim. “I’ll have a new sourdough dish for the loggers’ supper. Sourdough is a contraption that’s seen it’s day, but I’ll make the best of it while I got to use it. Send me your blacksmith.”

A unique smell met the loggers when they crowded eagerly into the cookhouse at suppertime, a delightful odor that overpowered the weakest among them. And when the flunkies trotted out, carrying huge platters heaped high with brown, globular mysteries, each one having a curious hole in the center, the famished loggers all bounced about on their benches in uncontrollable excitement, and well they might! For they were being served with the first doughnuts! Doughnut connoisseurs of to-day would have regarded them as crude; they were made from sourdough, they were hard as hickory and unsweetened. But Paul Bunyan’s loggers shouted over them; they discovered to their great leader the exuberance and expansion of feeling, the exaltation of spirit, the strengthening of moral qualities, which may develop from grand feeding. As he listened to the extraordinary uproar in the cookhouse and considered it he formed one of his great reflections: Meals make the man.

Jonah Wiles was the one dismal figure among the feasters. The doughnuts were bitter in his mouth because they were so pleasing to him. He devoured half a dozen of them and then forced himself to stop, for he was beginning to feel good-humored. His gaze turned shiftily towards the kitchen, where Hot Biscuit Slim was frying doughnuts with astonishing rapidity. The assistant cooks were rolling out the dough; Big Ole, the blacksmith, bare-armed and streaming with sweat, tossed the doughnuts on his anvil and punched the holes in them with swift strokes. Jonah Wiles glowered malignantly on the scene. With one meal the son of his enemy had brought happiness to the camp and achieved glory.

“He’ll learn Jonah Wiles has a few tricks yet,” the worst bunkhouse crank muttered savagely.

After supper he waited for a lull in the bunkhouse merriment. When it came he emitted a terrific groan.

“I’m afeard them new biscuits with the holes in ’em ain’t goin’ to set well on the stummick. I’m afeard----”

“Take yer bellyache outside!” yelled the loggers.

They shoved him through the door and began to roar out their favorite song, “Jack Haggerty.”

“I’ve still got some tricks,” said Jonah Wiles.

He entered the kitchen and greeted Hot Biscuit Slim with a twisted grin that was supposed to express sympathy and understanding.

“I’m yer pap’s best friend,” he said unctuously, “an’ I shore am glad to see yeh makin’ sech a fine beginnin’ with sourdough.”

“Yeh?” said Hot Biscuit Slim.

“Yes siree! An’ I allus like to help folks get along, too. I’ve jist thought uh somethin’ new to try with sourdough. Yeh see, the loggers been havin’ trouble gettin’ inner soles fer their boots. Now if yer pap was doin’ it, why he’d jist slip into all the bunkhouses to-night and put sourdough in every boot, fer.... Here now, don’t yeh go to hit me! I’m a ailin’ ol’ man, an’ crippled, too. What’s the matter uh yeh, anyway?”

Hot Biscuit’s face was afire with rage.

“So you’re the pizen ol’ devil what got my ol’ man into all that trouble, what nearly got him kilt, what ruint his life!”

He grasped a cold doughnut, swung it far behind him, then hurled it with terrific force at Jonah Wiles’ head. It struck him squarely between the eyes, and he dropped without a groan.

“There!” panted Hot Biscuit Slim. “You moanin’ ol’ hound--you hissin’ ol’ reptile--you squawlin’ ol’ tomcat!...”

When Jonah Wiles recovered consciousness two months later he discovered the camp in holiday attire. When he learned the occasion of the celebration he was bewildered. He saw the loggers forming in a great crowd on the shore of Redbottom Lake. The water line was low; the spring thaw had evidently come early, for the lake was black with logs. The logging had not been finished before the lake sank below its outlet. Yet the camp was celebrating. Jonah Wiles wondered. Had the new biscuits made the loggers so idiotically happy that no misfortune could quench their spirits?

Jonah Wiles saw that a new cookhouse had been built; the old one was now standing above a rollway on the lake shore. From crevices in its swelling walls, from the eaves and from the chimneys some thick white stuff was oozing and bubbling. “Sourdough!” exclaimed Jonah Wiles, yet more amazed.

At this moment Paul Bunyan lifted Sourdough Sam aloft in his hand that all the loggers might see him. The old cook waved a new crutch at his friends. He was dressed in an amazing fine style; he was even wearing a necktie. He seemed to be the hero of the celebration.

Paul Bunyan now made a speech. He told the loggers of all the marvelous edibles that Hot Biscuit Slim had revealed to him, and he explained in detail his latest and greatest invention, the Big Feed. When the loggers were done cheering Paul Bunyan paid a tribute to Sourdough Sam; the old cook’s creation had served a great purpose in the logging industry, he said. Its day was done now, but there remained a last great work for it to perform, a dramatic work that would keep the memory of its creator alive forever. It was fitting that Sourdough Sam should see this before retiring to his old home. Now Paul Bunyan turned to the big blue ox, who was hitched to blocks supporting the old cookhouse.

“Yay, Babe!” he commanded.

The blue ox heaved, the old cookhouse tottered, then it crashed down the rollway. A heaving mass of sourdough rumbled from its cracking sides and surged like a boiling tidal wave over the lake. The waters began to hiss and foam; the logs were all hidden from sight; the lake looked like a heavy white cloud had dropped into its basin. The loggers all stared prayerfully; hopeful, yet hardly daring to hope. Only Sourdough Sam had confidence in the rising powers of his sourdough. In Paul Bunyan’s hand, he shouted joyously and waved his new crutch. The great logger himself was not absolutely sure of success at first, but as the tumult of the lake waters increased, he too showed joy and carefully patted Sourdough Sam’s back with his little finger. The leader-hero was pleased to share the glory of this enterprise with such a noble and faithful little man. Now the waters rose so rapidly that the loggers rushed back in a panic. In half an hour the sourdough had caused the lake to rise so high that the season’s logs were all thundering down Red River valley. It was a grand day for everyone; but it was the grandest that Sourdough Sam had ever known.

Jonah Wiles was sickened by his enemy’s triumph. He contemplated the magnificence of the new cookhouse, and he realized that there was now small chance of promoting misery among Paul Bunyan’s loggers. The camp could be nothing but a hostile place for him in the new dispensation. A dejected, baffled man, he sneaked away in his white pants before the loggers returned, and shambled over the hills, traveling towards Kansas.

THE BLACK DUCK DINNER

Except in the spring, when the log drives were being made down the rivers, Sunday was a day of rest in Paul Bunyan’s camp. It was a day of earnest thought, and of cleanliness and pleasure also. For on Sunday Paul Bunyan planned the next week’s work, thought out his orations, imagined new inventions, and dreamed of historical exploits for the future. And on Sunday his loggers made their beds, cleaned their clothes, and shaved their faces. The pleasures of this day were the pleasures of the table, for Paul Bunyan, after building his second cookhouse, and developing his famous kitchen organization around Hot Biscuit Slim, the chief cook, originated the custom of grand Sunday dinners.

Every Sunday dinner was a feast; but some of them, of course, were nobler and more enjoyable than others. His roast pork and plum pudding dinners always delighted the loggers when they were served on winter Sundays; they shouted over the baked trout and cherry pie Sunday dinners that he gave them in the spring; in the summer a vegetable and strawberry shortcake Sunday dinner made them happy every time; and in the fall the Sunday dinners of fried chicken and peach cobbler made them prance and roar with pleasure. And the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners of roasted webfooted turkeys, cranberries and chocolate cake--the loggers were always speechless when they thought about them.

Every Sunday morning would see the loggers performing the ceremonies of cleanliness as soon as their after-breakfast pipes were smoked. First, the beds were made; and this was a more trying job than you would think, especially for the loggers who had poor eyesight. These unfortunates would throw their blankets into a pile, then shake them out one at a time, and attempt to replace them in the bunks. Here difficulties beset them, for Paul Bunyan’s blankets had small square checks; and it took a sharp eye to detect which was the long way of a blanket, and which was the wide way. Even the most sharp-eyed loggers would sometimes lose confidence in their vision when replacing these perplexing blankets; and they would remove them time and again before deciding that they were spread correctly. As for the cross-eyed and near-sighted men, it was sometimes pitiful to behold the most troubled of them stretching out blankets in their extended hands, turning them in slow revolutions, doubtfully placing them on the bunks, and then wearily lifting them again. These unfortunate men never quitted their Sunday bed-making until they were worn out; and all the following week they were sure that they had the long way of their blankets on the wide way of their bunks. They would swear to have them right next time; but every Sunday their attempts at bed-making would end in as unsatisfying a manner.

Everyone in the West knows that sheepherders of our time often worry themselves into insanity in their lonely camps, trying to discover the wide way and the long way of their quilts and blankets. Fortunately, Paul Bunyan’s loggers were all strong-minded men, and their blankets did no more than bedevil them.

After bed-making the loggers heated cans of water over small fires built out in the timber, and they washed their clothes. Shaving, boot-greasing, sole-calking, hair-cutting, beard-trimming, button-sewing, and rip-mending followed; and he was an expert in these Sunday morning chores who had time to stretch out on his smooth blankets for a smoke before the dinner gong rang at twelve.

At the ringing of this gong the inexpressible pleasures of Paul Bunyan’s Sundays began. First, the loggers enjoyed the ecstasy of eating; and it was an ecstasy they were fitted to enjoy gloriously. After dinner the loggers would lie on their bunks and dream drowsily all afternoon of a loggers’ paradise; and the paradise they dreamed about was none other than Paul Bunyan’s camp; but a camp whose life began each day with a Sunday dinner, and whose days were all like the warm drowsy hours of these Sunday afternoons.

But most of the loggers would be awake and hungry again at suppertime, ready to enjoy the Sunday supper of cold meat, potato salad, doughnuts, jelly rolls and coffee. Then in the twilight, and for a long time after the bunkhouse lamps were lit, they would smoke, and talk contentedly of the delight they got from Paul Bunyan’s cookhouse; and they would prophesy about the Sunday dinners of the future. There were no bunkhouse pastimes on Sunday nights. After some hours of low-voiced contented talk, the loggers would change their underclothes and get into their newly made beds, rested and inspired for Monday’s labor.

The great cookhouse which so ennobled and cheered Paul Bunyan’s loggers on their Sundays was the grandest and best planned affair of its kind ever heard of. The dining hall was so commodious and had so much room between the tables that four-horse teams hauled wagonloads of salt, pepper and sugar down the aisles when the shakers and bowls were to be filled. Conveyor belts carried clean dishes to the tables and returned the dirty ones to the wash room. The long-legged flunkies wore roller skates at mealtime, and the fastest among them could sometimes traverse the dining hall in forty-seven minutes.

But it was the kitchen, the powerhouse of this vast establishment, which had the most interest. This domain, ruled by the temperamental culinary genius, Hot Biscuit Slim, was as large as ten Ford plants and as noisy as the Battle of Gettysburg. The utensils that hung on its walls, from the steam-drive potato mashers and sleeve-valve, air-cooled egg beaters to the big armorplate potato kettles, the bigger force-feed batter mixers and the grandiose stew kettles, in which carcasses of cattle floated about like chips in a mill pond when beef dinners were being prepared--these polished utensils glittered even when the ranges were smoking their worst at hot cake time.

Paul Bunyan had devised the monorail system for this kitchen, and overhead cranes rattled about at all hours, carrying loads of dishes from the Dishwashing Department to the Serving Department, loads of vegetables and meats from the Supply Department to the Preparations Department, and loads of dressed food from the Preparations Department to the Finishing Department. The dishes were washed on a carriage like the log carriages of modern sawmills. The head dishwashers jerked levers that threw heaps of dirty dishes from the conveyor belts to the carriage, then the carriage was shot forward until the dishes struck a sharp-edged stream of soapy water that had dropped one hundred feet. The clean dishes were bucked off on live rolls, and the head dishwasher shot the carriage back for another load. Some of the clean dishes were run through dry kilns, and others were piled for air-drying by Swede dish-pilers, who wore leather aprons and mittens and could pile sixty thousand dishes per pair in twelve hours.

A list of the marvels of Paul Bunyan’s kitchen would fill a book as large as a dictionary. Elevators whirred between the kitchen and the vegetable bins, and a wide subway held four tracks that led to the fruit and vinegar cellars. A concrete chute carried the coffee grounds, eggshells and other waste to the kitchen yard, and from morning till night it roared like a millrace. Billy Puget, boss over the scraper gang, often had to work his mules and men fourteen hours a day in order to keep the kitchen yard cleaned of coffee grounds and eggshells.

Paul Bunyan’s loggers had little understanding of the tremendous organization that was required for the operation of such an establishment as the cookhouse. They thanked old Paul for feeding them so well, and they agreed that Hot Biscuit Slim was a powerful good cook. Less fortunate loggers of to-day think of Paul Bunyan’s camp life as a dream of bliss, and they are sure that if they had been there they would have worshiped Paul Bunyan. His own loggers, however, took the cookhouse glories as a matter of course, and they never realized what inventiveness, thought and effort were needed to give them such Sunday dinners and such Sunday afternoon dreams and content.

Nor did Paul Bunyan expect shouted praises and thanks from his loggers. He gave so much to them because he expected much from them. He worked his men twelve hours a day, and, had they thought about it, they would have been astounded by any idea of working less. And they would have been perplexed by any other scheme to ease their lot. If there were not to be great exertions, they would have asked, why their sturdy frames, their eager muscular force? If they were not meant to face hazards, why was daring in their hearts? A noble breed, those loggers of Paul Bunyan’s, greatly worthy of their captain! He himself told them in a speech he made at the finishing of the Onion River Drive that they were “a good band of bullies, a fine bunch of savages.” I should like to quote this speech in its entirety, for it celebrated the accomplishment of a historical logging enterprise, and it was a master oration which showed the full range and force of Paul Bunyan’s oratorical powers. But as nine days and eight nights were required for its delivery, it is obvious that no publication save the _Congressional Record_ could give all of it. It was at this time that Paul Bunyan served his great black duck dinner.

The speech ended on a Tuesday, and until the following Saturday morning there were no sounds save the snores of weary men and the scratching of the sleepless Johnny Inkslinger’s fountain pen. By Saturday noon he had a time check and a written copy of the oration for every man in camp. After dinner the Big Swede, using a fire hose, a ton of soap, and a tank of hair tonic began to give the blue ox his spring cleaning, and Johnny Inkslinger turned in for the three hours of sleep which he required each week. Paul Bunyan was arranging his personal belongings for the move to a new job and musing on his recent accomplishment. He had never driven logs down a rougher or more treacherous stream than Onion River. And the hills over which the timber had been skidded were so rocky and steep that they tried even the strength of the blue ox. Worst of all was the rank growth of wild onions that had covered the ground. They baffled all attempts to fell the trees at first, for they brought blinding floods of tears to the loggers’ eyes and made their efforts not only futile but dangerous. When the Big Swede was standing on a hillside one day, dreaming of the old country, he failed to observe a blinded logger come staggering up the slope, and he did not hear him mumble, “This looks like a good stick.” Not until the logger had chopped a notch in the leg of his boot had the Big Swede realized his peril. Paul Bunyan, baffled by such incidents, was about to abandon the whole operation when the alert Johnny Inkslinger heard of the failure of the Italian garlic crop. He quickly made a contract with the Italian government, which sent over shiploads of laborers to dig up the wild onions and take them home as a substitute for the national relish. When this had been accomplished it was possible to log off the country.

There had been other difficulties to overcome, too, and as Paul Bunyan spread out a tarpaulin and prepared to roll up his boots and workclothes, he remembered them and praised the saints that they were ended. The next job offered the best promise of easy and simple logging of any he had ever encountered. For miles the land rose in gentle slopes from a wide and smoothly flowing river; there was no brush or noxious vegetation among the clean, straight trees; and, best of all, the timber was of a species now extinct, the Leaning Pine. The trees of this variety all leaned in the same direction, and it was thus possible to fell them accurately without the use of wedges. Paul Bunyan was sure of a season’s record on this new job. He thought of the fresh brilliancy it would give his fame, and like a row of snowy peaks glimpsed through the spaces of a forest, his teeth glittered through his beard in a magnificent smile. But another thought quickly sobered his countenance. “Those good bullies of mine!” The words came in a gusty murmur. He dropped the tarpaulin and strode over to the cookhouse. Hot Biscuit Slim, the kitchen chief, came forth to meet him. There was a knowing look in the cook’s eyes.

“It’s to be a great Sunday dinner to-morrer?” he asked, before Paul Bunyan could speak.

“The greatest Sunday dinner ever heard of,” said Paul Bunyan. “I want this to be remembered as the noblest meal ever served in a logging camp. My loggers shall feast like the victorious soldiers of old time. It is a natural privilege of heroes to revel after conquest. Remember, as you prepare this feast, that you may also be making immortal glory for yourself.”

“You jest leave it to me, Mr. Bunyan!” answered Slim. “If the baker’ll do his part with the cream puffs, cakes and pies, I promise you I’ll make ’em a meal to remember. First, oyscher stew, an’ then for vegytables, cream’ cabbage, of course, mash’ potatoes an’ potato cakes, lettuce an’ onions----”

“No onions!” thundered Paul Bunyan. There was a terrific crash in the kitchen as hundreds of skillets and kettles were shaken to the floor.

“Uh--I forgot,” stammered Hot Biscuit Slim. “Well, anyway, they’ll be oyscher soup, vegytables, sauces, puddin’s, hot biscuits, an’ meat in dumplin’ stew an’ mulligan stew, an’ they’ll be drippin’ roasts, all tender an’ rich-seasoned--oh, the meat that I’ll give ’em! the meat--” he paused sharply, shivered as though from a physical shock, and misery glistened in his eyes--“only--uh--only----”

“Only you have no meat,” said Paul Bunyan gently.

“I’m admittin’ it,” said Slim wretchedly. “Honest, Mr. Bunyan, no matter how I try I jest _can’t_ remember to order meat, ’specially for Sunday dinner. I can remember vegytables, fruits an’ greens easy as pie, but, by doggy, I always forget meat. I ain’t pertendin’ a cook’s worth keepin’ who can’t remember meat, no matter how good he is at a fixin’ it. I wouldn’t blame you if you fired me right off, Mr. Bunyan.”

Hot Biscuit Slim leaned against the toe of the hero’s boot and wept.

“That means I must rustle deer and bear,” said Paul Bunyan patiently. “Well, bear meat and venison will make a royal feast when they have passed through your kettles and ovens. Light the fires, go ahead with your plans; you may yet make history to-morrow!”

He turned away, and Hot Biscuit Slim watched him worshipfully until he was a dim figure on distant hills.

“The best friend me an’ my pap ever had,” he said. “I’d do anything for a boss like that. I’ll learn to remember meat, by doggy, I will!”

Rumors of the marvelous dinner that was being planned reached the bunkhouses, and the loggers indulged in greedy imagining of the promised delights. The day went slowly; the sun seemed to labor down the western sky. Before it sank soft clouds obscured its light, bringing showers and early shadows.