American prose literature; English prose literature; Narration (Rhetoric)
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 figure 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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