Paul Bunyan sat down on six of the high hills above the whale corral,
pulled up a young fir tree and began to brush his beard and ponder. He
had no doubts of his own powers and he felt that Johnny Inkslinger was
as great as ever. The timekeeper’s recent obsessions and eccentricities
were due to the lowness of spirit, the stagnation of soul, which
comes sometime to all mental men. He was now recovered, and he would
certainly do his part in the making of logging history as well as
before, perhaps better. The trouble now was with the loggers. True men
of muscle, the best virtues for them to possess were unquestioning
loyalty and faithfulness to their leaders and simple confidence in
them. Oratory was good for them when it stimulated these virtues, but
ideas were poisonous; for they caused the loggers to become critics
and independent thinkers, and their minds were not fitted for such
occupations.
“Work and discipline will repair the damage,” decided Paul Bunyan.
“Work is the great consoler, for in it men forget the torments and
oppressions of life. And nothing is more tormenting and oppressive to
men of muscle than ideas. My loggers shall forget them. And strong
discipline shall release them from the troublous responsibilities of
independence. Again I shall have a camp of men who toil mightily and
make the hours between supper and sleep jolly with merry songs and
humorous tales.”
Saying this, Paul Bunyan rose and looked over the fir forest which
covered all the hills and threw shadows far over the silent waters
of the whale corral. The great logger regretted that he could not
remain here and fell these splendid trees; but something more than
plain logging was needed for his present purpose. A powerful task must
be set for his men, but a task that would not require arduous labor
from the blue ox. New Iowa best suited his need. There the climate was
as healing and mild as the one which Kansas had possessed before the
turnover of its sinfulness. Paul Bunyan’s maps showed that New Iowa had
great forests of orange palms in its valleys, and his samples proved
that these trees were tough cutting. The start for the New Iowa country
should be made at once.
Paul Bunyan went first to the camp office and called out the Big
Swede. He gave orders for Babe to be harnessed and hitched to the camp
buildings; then he called, “Roll out or roll up!” for the loggers. They
came out slowly, rubbing their eyes and expressing wonder, for they
had been sleeping only a short while. When their leader told them that
he was going to take them down to New Iowa they did not display their
usual childish excitement over a move; but they looked from one to
another with knowing grins and much eye-winking. The bunkhouse cranks
whispered, “Ol’ Paul’s off on another wild goose chase”; and some of
the boldest among them declared that they had never seen better logging
than the Oregon country offered, and if they had their way about it
they’d stay right here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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