Microsoft KB Archive/152698

= Paul Bunyan: The Story of Paul Bunyan =

Article ID: 152698

Article Last Modified on 8/17/2005

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This article was previously published under Q152698



SUMMARY
This article includes the complete text for Paul Bunyan, as told in the program Rabbit Ears -- Paul Bunyan.



MORE INFORMATION
The story text can be found in the following location, where D is the CD- ROM drive letter:   Location                            Compact Disc -

D:\Supplmnt\Bunyan\Buntext.wri     Paul Bunyan compact disc PAGE 1

A lot of people will tell you about Paul Bunyan like they know the straight story. But they don't know an ax handle from an ox yoke in my book.

Paul flat-out invented loggin', and by the time he got done, the United States was fit for livin'.

PAGE 2

Listen up, and I'll tell you about Paul Bunyan, the greatest loggin' man there ever was.

Now, first time I saw Paul Bunyan was the Winter of the Blue Snow.

Me and the boys were sittin' in our cabin, huddled around the pot-belly stove.

PAGE 3

Outside, the snow was fallin' fast, furious, and blue. That's right.

It's a fact, the snow came outta the sky as blue as a Robin's egg.

That's why they called it the Winter of the Blue Snow.

PAGE 4

Pancakes was our dinner for the three-hundred-and tenth night in a row.

We was concentrating on talkin' and chewin' with our mouths closed, when it started thunderin' outside.

Then I seen him. He was carryin' the biggest, mightiest, dang-darndest ax I ever seen.

PAGE 5

We all ran outside to get a better look at what was coming our way. And there he stood, large as a mountain.

"Sorry to intrude, boys," he said, real friendly like. "Name's Paul Bunyan."

PAGE 6

"What do you fellas got cookin'? I've been eatin' beans all winter long, and when I got a whiff of your vittles, I had to stop by."

Well, now, we happened to have the greatest cook this side of Kalamazoo: Hot Biscuit Sally.

PAGE 7

And her pancakes were such good eatin' that we had 'em mornin', noon, and night.

So Sal made up a king-sized batch of pancakes for our guest, and in no time at all he was eatin' and talkin'.

PAGE 8

"I'm clearin' the timber off of Sulfur Mountain," Paul explained.

Me and the boys knowed that Sulfur Mountain was so steep that a person trying to walk up it would fall over backwards.

PAGE 9

"You mean you're clearin' off Sulfur Mountain by yourself?" I says.

"Yup," says Paul.

The boys didn't know what to think. Either this lad had beans in his head, or he knowed a few things about loggin' that we didn't.

PAGE 10

Brimstone Bill was gettin' a little hot under the collar.

Brimstone could cuss a blue streak, and he got especially perturbed when he thought a body was braggin'.

PAGE 11

"How in tarnation do you expect us to believe that you is clearin' that land by your lonesome," he snarled.

"I always work alone," said Paul.

PAGE 12

"Dad-blame-it!" cried Brimstone. "Then show us how you does it, 'cause I think you're full of soup!"

Paul got up, hefted his ax, and walked into the woods.

PAGE 13

"Alrighty, boys, stand clear."

Paul spat into his hands and choked the end of his ax handle. He wound up and swung. He felled twenty three trees with that first swing.

PAGE 14

Any one of those trees would have taken you or me at least six hours of choppin'.

Then he got his rhythm, and he started swingin' like a tornado goin' through a toothpick factory.

PAGE 15

Paul cleared forty acres during his little demonstration, and when the dust settled, any trees that were left standin' took one look around and laid down in fright.

"Well, that's how I do it," says Paul. He wasn't braggin', either.

PAGE 16

That boy was just the biggest, bestest, toughest, strongest, ding-dandiest logger there ever was.

And that's how we all come to join up with Paul during the Winter of the Blue Snow.

PAGE 17

One fine winter's day, while Paul was out scoutin' the countryside, he came across a baby ox, buried in the blue snow.

That calf had been in the snow so long that his hide was dyed solid blue.

PAGE 18

Paul blew three warm breaths into the calf, and that critter opened his eyes like he'd just been born.

Well, sir, when he looked up with them big blue eyes, somethin' inside of Paul began to melt.

PAGE 19

"Now there's nothin' to worry about -- I'm takin' care of you, babe, and I always will."

That's what everybody called the calf from then on: Babe.

PAGE 20

From the git-go, Babe ate a ton of grain a day, and was always lookin' for more. The fellers noticed that if they watched Babe for five minutes, they could see him grow right before their eyes.

PAGE 21

By the time Babe stopped growin', the distance between the tips of his horns measured one-hundred forty-two ax handles,

four bottles of sassafras soda, a plug of chewin' tobacco, and a hard-boiled egg.

PAGE 22

We was cuttin' through the woods like nobody's business, when one day Paul got a letter from Teddy Roosevelt, the President of the United States.

Seems Mr. Roosevelt was in a fix, and he needed a hand.

This is how the letter read:

PAGE 23

The White House

Washington, D.C.

Greetings, Paul Bunyan,

I wish to congratulate you on the bully job you

and your crew have done clearing the great

states of Wisconsin and Minnesota. We just

don't have enough room in this country for all

our people to live. I understand the Dakota

Territory would make a perfect place for

settlers' homes. Unfortunately, the entire

place is covered with trees.

With the power vested in me by the American

people, I hereby order you to clear the Dakotas

by next spring.

Thank you in advance for your help, and bully

for you.

Yours truly,

Teddy Roosevelt

The President

PAGE 24

"Well, if that ain't a kick in the britches," Paul said to the boys.

And with that, Paul dashed off a letter to Teddy Roosevelt:

The Woods

Somewhere near Minnesota

Dear Mr. President,

Consider the job DONE. I'll take care of

clearing The Dakotas, presently, forthwithly,

hence.

Sincerely,

Paul Bunyan

Logger

PAGE 25

In those days, the Dakotas were one gigantic forest, so thick with trees you had to pry your way in.

There wasn't a lick of open land in the entire territory. The trees were tall and fat, and the wood was so hard you'd dull your ax with just a single swing.

PAGE 26

It didn't take long for word to get around that Paul was doing some serious work out there.

Loggers started comin' out of the woodwork to work those woods with Paul's crew.

PAGE 27

Johnny Inkslinger was the accountant for Paul's loggin' enterprise, and even he couldn't count all the men.

The loggers slept in bunk beds with ten decks.

PAGE 28

So Johnny tried countin' the bunks and multiplyin' by ten to figure the number of men employed.

He gave up countin' at ten thousand, six hundred and twenty-three. That's a lot of men!

PAGE 29

Poor Hot Biscuit Sally was makin' pancakes six ways to Christmas, tryin' to keep everybody fed.

"Paul," she said, "I've burned out three griddles this mornin' alone, and some of our boys still don't have their breakfast. Now what are we gonna do about it?"

PAGE 30

"Sounds like we need a bigger griddle," Paul replied.

So Paul had Ole Jolson, the blacksmith, melt down fifty-three dozen steel plows, and forge a griddle that was an acre-and-a-half across ... well, close to that.

PAGE 31

Paul and Babe hauled it back to camp. When the two of 'em got back to the peak of Thunder Mountain, Paul decided to ride the griddle the rest of the way.

"Look out below," he yelled. With that, he took off, ridin' the griddle, and givin' out a whoop and holler that darn near made the needles on the pine trees thread themselves.

PAGE 32

He roared down that mountain, slicin' through the trees, and tore into camp and it wasn't long before Hot Biscuit Sal was makin' her first batch of pancakes on her new griddle.

PAGE 33

President Teddy Roosevelt wanted the Dakotas cleared by spring. Word was out that settlers was already headin' out there, ready to move in.

We was loggin' faster than a hog eats supper, but come February, we wasn't even halfway through.

PAGE 34

There was no way our crew was goin' to complete the job by spring. We were gettin' desperate.

Paul and his loggers were slowed to a standstill by the huge pile of cut trees.

PAGE 35

We were havin' a darn-awful time haulin' the timber out of there, 'cause the road was so crooked.

The road not only had S-turns and Z-turns, and U turns, it had turns shaped like every letter in the dad-blame alphabet, including a few that ain't even been invented yet.

PAGE 36

Paul had to do somethin' about that road. So he sat and gave it some thought.

Suddenly, Paul leaped up and cried out, "Sufferin' sequoias! I got it!" And this was his idea.

PAGE 37

He hooked up Babe to the far end of the road, and gave the blue ox the word to pull. It was that simple.

Babe started gruntin', and snortin', and pawin', and pullin', and, wouldn't you know it, the road started to move out.

PAGE 38

That little bit of give in the road was all Babe needed to feel.

He just started marchin' in a straight line, draggin' that road behind him, straightenin' it as true as a crow flies.

Once Babe straightened out the road, Paul Bunyan and his men worked day and night to keep on schedule. There were no breaks for chow, and no sleepin'.

PAGE 39

When the rooster crowed at the break of dawn on the first day of spring, Paul felled the last tree in the Dakotas.

He had kept his bargain with Teddy Roosevelt.

PAGE 40

Paul let loose a victory holler that blew down all the scrub pines that his men hadn't bothered to chop.

He was so full of beans 'cause he'd finished clearin' the Dakotas, he ran up to the top off Mount Rushmore.

PAGE 41

He carved Teddy Roosevelt's face out of granite with his ax, and then he added the faces of three other presidents: Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln.

It was Paul's way of personalizing the job for old Teddy, and, now that the trees was gone, it gave folks somethin' to look at.

PAGE 42

On the horizon, Paul Bunyan saw a wagon train, bringin' settlers to their new homes where the forest once had been.

Paul surveyed the miles of naked plains all around him. You'd have thought he'd have been happy, finishin' off the biggest loggin' job there ever was.

PAGE 43

But Paul grew downright sad thinkin' how carried away he got, clearin' the Dakota forest.

"Why these settlers will never hear the wind rustlin' through the leaves," Paul said to no one in particular.

PAGE 44

"They'll never ... they'll never get to sit under the shade of an elm tree on an August afternoon."

Paul and Babe headed north that day. Just picked up and went.

PAGE 45

Now, Paul Bunyan ain't dead or nothin', y'understand? Shoot! That boy's like a redwood -- he just gets bigger and stronger every year.

I know, 'cause I seen him with my own eyes a winter or two ago.

PAGE 46

Paul's done loggin', I'll tell ya that. Paul's plantin' trees now, instead of choppin' them down.

"I chopped a billion-trillion trees," Paul told me. "Now I'm fixin' to plant a billion-trillion."

PAGE 47

And if I know him, that's exactly what he'll do, too.

What's that you say? You want to help? Where can you find Paul Bunyan? Well, that's an easy one. He ain't hard to find.

PAGE 48

Go on out there to where the woods is the deepest, and the trees the thickest,

where the wind sings through the leaves, and the air is rich with the smell of pine: the heart of the forest. That's where Paul is, that's where he was, and doggonit, that's where he'll always be.

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Keywords: kbinfo kbfaq kbusage KB152698

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