American prose literature; English prose literature; Narration (Rhetoric)
Being ignorant of this disaster, Paul Bunyon was comfortable enough
while the blizzard lasted. He had a good store of trees on hand and
his cave was warm in the storm. He got hungry in the last days; but
this emotion, or any emotion, for that matter, could have but little
power over him when he was dreaming. And he dreamed deeply now of
great enterprises; his dreams were formless without any substance
of reality; but they had brilliant colors, and they made him very
hopeful.
The sun shone at last from a whitish blue sky, and the strange snow
fell no more. A snapping cold was in the land; and pine boughs were
bangled and brocaded with glittering blue crystals, and crusty blue
snow crackled underfoot.
Paul Bunyon strapped on his snow shoes and started out through the
Border forests in search of Niagara. His was a kingly figure as he
mushed through the pine trees, looming above all but the very tallest
of them. He wore a wine-red hunting cap, and his glossy hair and
beard shone under it with a blackness that blended with the cap’s
color perfectly. His unique eyebrows were black also; covering a
fourth of his forehead above the eyes, they narrowed where they
arched down under his temples, and they ended in thin curls just
in front of his ears. His mustache had natural twirls and he never
disturbed it. He wore a yellow muffler this morning under his virile
curly beard. His mackinaw coat was of huge orange and purple checks.
His mackinaw pants were sober-seeming, having tan and light gray
checks, but some small crimson dots and crosses brightened them.
Green wool socks showed above his black boots, which had buckskin
laces and big brass eyelets and hooks. And he wore striped mittens of
white and plum color. Paul Bunyon was a gorgeous picture this morning
in the frozen fields and forests, all covered with blue snow which
sparkled in a pale gold light.
That day and the next, and for five more days, he searched in vain
for Niagara; and neither did he see any moose herds in the woods.
Only the frost crackles broke the silences of the deserted blue
forests. And at last Paul Bunyon returned to his cave, feeling
depressed and lonely. He had not thought that the companionship of
Niagara could mean so much to him. In his mood of depression he
forgot his hunger and made no further effort to find food.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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