Now these were three of the greatest of Paul Bunyan’s bards, and no one has ever found words to describe them or to give them fitting praise. And if words fail with them, how can they reveal the brightest star of all Paul Bunyan’s performers? Indeed, Shanty Boy, of Bunkhouse 1, was more than a star; he was a constellation, for he was an entertainer with a thousand talents. What old logger does not feel his own soul dance as he hears, in the Bunyan histories, the soft, vibrant patter of Shanty Boy’s right foot, the thunderous stamp of his left foot, the sharp rattle of his heel-cracking in a great breakdown? He not only danced with his feet, but with his hands and eyes; he had a dancing grin, too, which would shine now on the right side of his face, now on the left. Shanty Boy put his whole soul into his dancing. And so he did with his stories. When he told a Swede story he _was_ a Swede, and when he told a dirty story he _was_ dirty. He was never content with mere pretending. He made entertainment of everything, and he did it naturally. A log would roll over his leg when he was at work. That night he would hobble down the bunkhouse aisle like an ailing old man, talking in the mournfullest way. “Oh, lawdy, boys! I ’low I ain’t long fer _this_ life. Thet new medicine I’m usin’ don’t ’pear to be doin’ my rheumatiz no good, no good a-tall. I spect I’ll be havin’ to change to ’nuther kind agin.” Then he’d hobble back again, drawing his sore leg up like a string-halted horse, and groaning, “M-m-m-! M-m-m! I ’low I feel worse’n anyone thet ever lived in this here world--an’ lived.” If somebody asked him what time it was, he would take out his old watch, hold it at arm’s length, throw back his head and squint at the watch like he was looking at it through glasses. He claimed that “grandpap carried thet watch fer nigh on forty year, an’ it won’t tell the time onless I look at it jest like he did.” Sometimes he would sit down by the stove and eat an apple or a raw turnip. Then he would pull his hat down over his eyes, and while he chewed away, looking as solemn as a politician, he would make the hat bob up and down to keep time with his jaws. No one else could have done this without seeming foolish, but Shanty Boy always kept a kind of dignity when he was performing that made men respect him even when they were laughing at him.