John Shears was three weeks returning from the spot whither Babe had kicked him. Meek, humble, chastened, repentant, he came to Paul Bunyan and declared himself willing to submit to the dire punishment which he supposed awaited him. He expected to be made to eat gravel for a month, at the very least. The good and mighty Paul Bunyan, however, merely ordered John Shears to get back to the farm. But he put a ban on parsnips. As for Little Meery, when he heard that John Shears had returned, he twisted his hat around--his hair was never parted now,--he took a grand chew of fire cut, hitched up his tin pants and growled. “Let’s walk on him! Let’s put the calks to him! Let’s cave his head in!” Little Meery had become a logger indeed, and he lived gloriously ever after. [Illustration] SHANTY BOY In Paul Bunyan’s time, camp entertainment was of, by and for the woodsmen. In Paul Bunyan’s camp there were hypnotic story-tellers, singers who could make you laugh and cry in the same moment, and steppers who could do a breakdown fit to shatter the frame of a bunkhouse. “Ol’ Paul” knew the importance of social pleasures for his loggers, and he made natural provision for them. A good bunkhouse bard was marked by the great logger’s especial favor; many a man who toiled poorly was saved from the lowly life of a farm hand by his ability to dance, whistle and sing. Consequently Paul Bunyan’s Bunkhouse Nights are as famous in history as his great feasts and labors. Every night but Sunday, when the twelve hours of toil in the woods were ended and supper was over, the tired loggers would be cheered and consoled by the bunkhouse bards. There was one for each shanty, and each one had his own particular virtues. There was Beeg An’tole, for example, who made his mates in Bunkhouse 999 hilarious as he told quaint tales about logging in “dat ver’ fines’ countree, which she’s t’ree weeks below Quebec.” Angus MacIlroy of Bunkhouse 1313 was made to sing “The Island Boys” a dozen times a night by his song-loving comrades. And Tinty Hoolan of Bunkhouse 6000 jigged with such violence and speed that a modern jazz band would have gone crazy trying to make music fast enough for him. The rattle of his jigging feet sounded like the buzz of a big bee. His bunkhouse cronies boasted that he could imitate any known sound with his feet except a tired logger’s snore. And this, anyone admitted, defied imitation or description. Tinty Hoolan was a swamper, and a poor one; his feet, however, saved him from life among the scissor-bills on Paul Bunyan’s farm.