COME UP FROM CHINA
There are many rumors concerning Paul Bunyan in his ability to create mountains with his hands, lakes with his steps, or canyons with a single swipe of his ax. As previously touched on before, the Paul Bunyan, known to lumberjacks, was a Goliath rather than a Gulliver in stature and had yet to place his footprints on Minnesota's one-thousand lakes. Truth be told, no credibility can be placed on such opinions. The fact of the matter is Paul Bunyan never worked alone, and would never under take such large projects without his crew. Paul never took short cuts and every part of this country he helped built, he did it piece by piece.
STRANGERS THANGS WHAT IN HEAVEN AND EARTH OR IN TARNATION—leastways, what Billy Shakespeare, he always used to say. And, y'know somethin', why, ol' Willy he didn't never even meet Paul.
'Cause it's gonna get weird in a minute, oh boy! See, Paul he followed the big timber clean cross the continent, he did, all the ways to Washington, Oregon and California, and such it is. Thereabouts, he built more camps and hauled more timber than what nobody before him ever never done. Like what abouts it says on thisen here:
“During the winter of the blue snow, Paul finished logging in Dakota and packed all his belongings on the blue ox and came West. It was the coldest winter on record. While making breakfast one morning Paul set the coffeepot on the back of the stove while it was boiling and it froze so quick the ice was warm.
It was right here on the Skomack away that Paul met Puget, Hood and Rainer that done so much to develop this part of the country, and here his son Jean was born. When he was 6 weeks old he jumped out of his cradle and cut all four posts out from under Paul's bed. Paul said: "That boy will be a logger if he lives."
Paul built his new camp, with everything new, even the dinner horn. Paul was bound to try that out, and the first time it was blown to call the men in for dinner he ran it out of the cook house door and gave one blast, and down went three sections of green timber.”
— Timberblast, The Seattle Star, November 23, 1920
Now, as ya should all know by now, whereabouts Paul goes some right odd things are sure to follow, like what I said at the start of things. Well, Paul he experienced his ox’s share of some mighty peculiar weather, such as the Blue Snow, what they was just talkin' 'bout, but over there on the West Coast, well, theys got earthquakes, and hurriquakes, and seaquakes, and justa 'bout everykindaquakes there is. And, to top it all off, they even got somethin' what not even Paul seen before.
What it is, Paul, he look down, y'see, and right there from underneath the ground come the rains straight from China. That what it be known as, “The Year the Rain Come Up from China.” The rain, it ain't come up from above, oh no, down below it did, like I told ya, y'see? Not Uganda, not Bhutan, not Moldova, not France—come up from China, yes sir.
Well, I'll bet ya it was a pretty good time for sellin' those boats 'cause that rain 'bout cover up all what there is to see, what it did. Well, it come up, and it pulled the everything straight out of the anything. Even took some of the trees right off them hills. Now, that part, Paul he didn't loose too much sleep over, 'cause it did a good bit of good for the good work he was doin', y'see? Well, if'n ya want to hear the rest of the story, well, take a gander at the bottom page, what where it says tales:
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TALES
They were all great men, but even so, the name of Paul Bunyan stands a little higher than the rest. It glows like a brilliant star among the lesser ones to encourage men on to deeds of greatness.
THE YEAR THE RAIN CAME UP FROM CHINA
If I remember rightly, he came this country astride his blue ox in the year of the blue snow, the same year that the rain came up from China.
Billy Puget, of the Puget Construction Co., had the contract to dig the Sound that now bears his name. Of the group mentioned above, Hood and Elliott were sub-contractors, the former digging our own Elliott Bay with his 40 badgers and mud-throwing catapult, the machine that piled the hills that Seattleites now tread; the latter digging the far-famed Hood canal. Probably without the aid of Paul Bunyan the combined efforts of the other three would only have terminated in the failure at such a vast undertaking.
As my memory would have it, the ox was a huge bluish beast, a mountain of strength and energy measuring 42 ax handles and a plug of tobacco between the eyes.
FIELD GLASSES TO KEEP REAR FEET IN VIEW
His huge length necessitated that Bunyan always carry a pair of field glasses to keep the beast's rear feet within range of vision. The animal's principal diet consisted of baled hay and hot cakes. It had a passionate taste for the latter; for supper he generally ate 50 bales of hay, wire and all, and then drank a mountain river dry.
When Bunyan first came to these parts, Puget had quite a camp at Muskilteo. At first he was rather skeptical about the prowess of the blue ox so he set Bunyan and his charge to the menial task of hauling egg shells away from the camp. When he say that in three days the job was completed his astonishment knew no bounds, for previous to this two steam shovels running continuously for 24 hours were required to perform this task. Straightway were Paul and his blue ox raised to a higher plane of prestige in camp.
CAPTURED THE LAST FUR-BEARING GOLDFISH
Bunyan was indeed a great man and a hunter of no mean ability, for besides having the distinction of shooting the last dodo and capturing the last fur-bearing goldfish, it is said he overcame a ring-tailed bavalorus single-handed.
Walking one day thru the wooded aisles and leafy bowers of that picturesque country where Tacoma now stands, he was attacked by an animal that rushed at him, jaws distended in fury. Paul picked up a club and stuck it down the unfortunate's throat as an insurance against being bitten. Grabbing its long ears, he tied them in a knot above its head and then yelled with a yell that would shame a timber wold. The beast died of fright.
RAIN TORE ALFALFA OUT BY THE ROOTS
When the rainy season came that year, I have previously stated that it came up from China. So it did, and tore all the hay and alfalfa out by the roots, so that now the diet of the blue ox must consist soley of hot cakes.
A stove seven blocks long and seventy new cooks were installed and twenty boys with hams tied to their feet would skate over its surface and thus keep it well greased. Hot cake dough was mixed in tanks 60 feet square, and travelling cranes were installed to transport the dough from mixer to the stove.
The last I heard of Bunyan and the ox they were moving dirt by contract from Grays Harbor with a Bagley scraper 73 feet wide.
Someone told me that later they worked at Panama. Bunyan might have, but not so with his ox, for I myself witnessed the untimely end of that faithful beast. One day, goaded on by hunger, the ox became unmanageable; he jumped and kicked till the ground shook--he shook his tail backward and forward so furiously that the wind of it blew over the cook tent; the ox broke his halter and straightway made for the palace of eats. He entered and started consuming some cakes with great voracity. He ate so fast that hunger just naturally overcame prudence, and he accidentally swallowed the stove, and died that night from an attack of acute indigestion.
They butchered him on the spot, salvaged the stove, and shipped the edible portions of that beast away in 60 refrigerator cars. And even now, when I sit and joust with a tough porterhouse steak I think of the blue ox, how tough he was, and of the days that were.
W.L. BARTHOLET.
Marysville, Wash.”
— W.L. Bartholet, The Seattle Star, November 23, 1920
[ DISCLOSURE: THE FOLLOWING IS REAL!—believe me—READER INDISCRETION IS ADVISED! ]
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