more canvas than a full-rigged ship. She was affectionate and lovable, and everyone said that Paul was mighty lucky to get such a wife. The only difference between her and other women was that of size-with her the measurements were yards or rods instead of inches.

As for Babe, the Great Blue Ox, 10 just where Paul got him has never been learned. It is thought that he secured him when but a calf, being attracted by his strange blue color, and reared him from calfhood with great care. The ox well repaid the kindness of his master, for he was with him through all his logging operations and was continually performing labors that could not have been done 20 in any other way. The Great Blue Ox

was so strong that he could pull anything that had two ends and some things that had no ends at all, which made him very valuable at times, as one can easily understand.

Babe was remarkable in a number of ways besides that of his color, which was a bright blue. His size is rather a matter of doubt, some people holding 30 that he was twenty-four ax-handles and a plug of tobacco wide between the eyes, and others saying that he was forty-two ax-handles across the forehead. It may be that both are wrong, for the story goes that Jim, the pet crow, who always roosted on Babe's left horn, one day decided to fly across to the tip of the other horn. He got lost on the way, and didn't get 40 to the other horn until after the spring thaw, and he had started in the dead of winter.

The Great Blue Ox was so long in the body that an ordinary person, standing at his head, would have had

to use a pair of field glasses in order to see what the animal was doing with his hind feet.

In Maine one day, hearing a thundering noise again, Paul looked ahead, 50 and was surprised to see a great round stone as big as a house rolling down the mountain-side toward the valley below. It came bounding along at great speed, gaining momentum with every turn, and as it rolled along it jarred the earth with the thunderous sounds he had been hearing. But strangest of all was the man who was running along beside it, holding something 60 tightly against it as it turned over and over. Paul looked more closely, and saw other stones rolling down hill in the same manner; and along with each one, keeping pace with it, was a tall, strongly-built man with something in his hand. "I wonder what queer new game they are playing," Paul said to himself, walking on to get a nearer view.

Then it was that he began to understand what the men were doing. Each of them had an ax in his hand, and was holding its edge to the stone as it turned over and over in its headlong flight down the steep slope. The men were grinding their axes!

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Thus it was that Paul Bunyan caught first sight of the Seven Axmen, mighty men of the woods, whose 80 heroic fame through later years was almost as great as his own. They were with him through most of his lumbering operations, and for many years. they continued to sharpen their axes in this way, starting a huge round stone rolling down a long steep hill and running along beside it holding the edge of an ax to it as it turned. Later, when they moved with Paul 90

to the Dakotas, they found no hills steep or long enough to serve their purpose, and it was then that Paul invented the revolving grindstone so common today to take the place of the rolling rocks. But that was a later development.

Along with his hard work, the great logger enjoyed a little sport now and 10 then. Best of all, he liked to hunt, and no one has ever equaled him as a hunter. He had a rifle that would kill game farther away than the average man could travel in a week, and he had invented a powerful shotgun that would kill wild geese so high in the air they would spoil before they could fall to the ground. He had a great deal of trouble that way until 20 he hit on the idea of putting salt on

his shot, which preserved the birds as they fell and allowed them to get to the ground while they were still fit for food.

Paul Bunyan puzzled over the problem of getting enough flapjacks for his men, and finally he ordered Big Ole to make him a huge griddle. So big was this griddle that the cook 30 greased it with telephone poles, on the ends of which were tied great bunches of gunny sacks for swabs. As Paul kept on hiring more men all the time, however, it was not very long before it became far too small, and he had his problem to make a griddle big enough to serve all his

men.

Everything was worked out on a 40 very definite schedule, and it was truly a wonderful sight to see the big griddle being put to its daily use. Along in the afternoon every day a gang of three hundred flapjack cooks would start getting down the flour

and fixin's from the elevators, start the mixers going, and stir up the batter under the careful supervision of the boss baker. Meanwhile, as the batter was being mixed, the cook boys 50 would have to grease the griddle. This they did by strapping whole hams or sides of bacon on their feet and skating around over the hot surface.

When the batter was all ready and the greasing done, someone on the edge would blow a whistle, and so big was the griddle that it took four minutes for the sound to get across. 60 At this signal, all the flapjack cook boys would skate to the edge and climb high on the fence that had been fixed for that purpose. A cook would then trip the chute from the mixers, and out would roll a wave of flapjack batter ten feet high. Any poor cook boy who hadn't climbed out of the way, and was overtaken by the spreading batter, was in the worst kind of 70 luck, for he would be found later in the flapjack just like a raisin in a cake.

Such wonderful food was served in Paul's camp that even the mice benefited from it. Just from picking up the crumbs that fell from the tables to the floor, they soon grew so big that they ran all the wolves out of the country, and the settlers that 80 came into the Dakotas later on shot them for tigers.

It was after his well proved a failure that Paul Bunyan made Lake Superior as a watering place for the Great Blue Ox, and from that time on, the big animal always had all he wanted to drink. Actual proof of Babe's size can be had just by looking at Lake Superior, for though the Great 90

Blue Ox is no longer in existence, the lake still is. Paul was rather proud of this piece of work, and it is said that always afterwards he wore as a watch charm the shovel with which he had dug the lake.

Water for the camp was also carried from Lake Superior, after Paul had completed it, for no place else 10 could the Little Chore Boy find water deep enough for him to dip the camp bucket in it. As his bucket was always leaking, the water he lost ran together in the hollows of the ground and made most of the ten thousand lakes that today lie in northern Minnesota between Lake Superior and the Red River. The Mississippi River is also said to have risen from this same 20 source, proof of which can be had just by visiting St. Paul or Minneapolis, past which the river may running, even today.

be seen

The Little Chore Boy carried all the water used in camp, and he went back and forth several times each day. He became greatly disgusted with his leaky bucket, but he never got a new one to replace it until after his amus30 ing experience with the Big Wind. He was going back to camp with a bucketful of water when the Big Wind came up, and it blew so hard that it was all he could do to keep from being blown away. He kept on his feet, however, and kept tight hold of his bucket of water, so that finally he made his way safely back to camp. It was not until he started to pour 40 the water he had brought into the

teakettle, though, that he found out what a remarkable feat he had performed. He had carried the water into camp without spilling a drop of it, in spite of the fact that the Big Wind had blown so hard that it had blown away every one of the weakened staves of the old bucket from around its contents.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

1. This is an account of the mythical hero of the men who worked in the lumbering region of our country in the early days; find passages that you regard as the most comic exaggerations in the story. Choose an incident to read to the class; emphasize the humor in your reading.

2. Describe the Blue Ox. You will be

interested in comparing this description with that in Robert Frost's poem in The Century Magazine, November, 1921.

3. Paul was a great inventor; how did he show his genius in inventing the grindstone? His shotgun?

4. How are the "tigers of the Dakotas" accounted for? The ten thousand lakes of Minnesota? The source of the Mississippi?

5. This story is from Paul Bunyan and His Great Blue Ox by William Wadsworth. You will enjoy other incidents in the book, as well as the illustrations by Will Crawford.

Library Readings. Paul Bunyan, Stevens; Paul Bunyan, Shepherd; The Adventures of Paul Bunyan, Bowman; "Paul Bunyan," Rourke (in The New Republic, July 7, 1920); "Paul Bunyan Goes West" (in The Nation, August 17, 1921); The Travels of Baron Munchausen, Raspe; "The Story of Hercules," Guerber (in Myths of Greece and Rome).

This morning as I passed into the Land Office, the Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from its rippling folds I heard it say: "Good morning, Mr. Flag Maker."

"I beg your pardon, Old Glory," I said; "aren't you mistaken? I am not the President of the United States, nor a member of Congress, nor even a 10 general in the army. I am only a Government clerk."

"I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker," replied the gay voice; "I know you well. You are the man who worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the tangle of that farmer's homestead in Idaho, or perhaps you found the mistake in the Indian contract in Oklahoma, or helped to clear that 20 patent for the hopeful inventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. No matter, whichever one of these beneficent individuals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. Flag Maker."

Flag stopped me with these words: 30 "Yesterday the President spoke a word that made happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn Club prize this summer.

"Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan 40 worked from sunrise until far into the night, to give her boy an education. She, too, is making the flag.

"Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. We are all making the flag."

"But," I said impatiently, "these people were only working!" Then came a great shout from the Flag:

"The work that we do is the making of the Flag. I am not the flag; not at all. I am nothing more than its shadow. "I am whatever you make me, noth

50

"I am your belief in yourself, your dream of what a People may become.

"I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, of heartbreaks and tired muscles.

"Sometimes I am strong with pride, when workmen do an honest piece of work, fitting rails together truly.

"Sometimes I droop, for then pur10 pose has gone from me, and cynically I play the coward.

"Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego that blasts judgment.

"But always I am all that you hope to be and have the courage to try for. "I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and ennobling hope.

"I am the day's work of the weakest man, and the largest dream of the 20 most daring.

30

"I am the Constitution and the courts, the statutes and the statute makers, soldier and dreadnaught, drayman and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk.

"I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of tomorrow.

"I am the mystery of the men who

do without knowing why.

"I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned purpose of resolution.

"I am no more than what you believe me to be, and I am all that you believe I can be. I am what you make me, nothing more.

"I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that big thing which makes this nation. My 40 stars and my stripes are your dream

and your labors. They are bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. For you are the makers of the flag, and it is well that you glory in the making."

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Franklin Knight Lane (1864-1921) was born near Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. He was taken to California in childhood, where he was graduated from the State University in 1886. He began his career as a newspaper reporter, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1889. He practiced law in San Francisco and had the honor of drafting a charter for that city.

In 1913 Franklin K. Lane became Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Wilson. A government railway, which made the wealth of Alaska more accessible, was built during his term of office. Dams were constructed in several western states for conserving the water supply in arid regions. Secretary Lane gave special attention to the Indians, and it was through the generous interpretation of his powers that many Indians became free citizens. At all times he advocated development of our national resources, He believed in the education of all illiterate without waste, as being real conservation. people and in the Americanization of our foreign population. His book The American Spirit, published in 1918, is made up of addresses he had delivered during the World War. "Makers of the Flag" is an address made by Secretary Lane in June, 1914, before the officers and employees of the Department of the Interior.

EXPLANATORY NOTE

The Stars and Stripes is one of the oldest national flags in the world. It was established June 14, 1777, by a resolution of the Congress of the United States of America. This resolution was officially published September 2 and 3, 1777, by the Secretary of the Congress. It provided for the number of stars, but said nothing about their arrangement or about the number of points in each star. Tradition tells us that the stars of the flag were the stars of the Washington family coat-of-arms. You will notice that the five-pointed star with one point upward is used.

Tradition also tells us that Betsy Ross of Philadelphia made the first Stars and Stripes. For fifty years after, she received