Paul Bunyan's Kitchen
Oregon, Tall Tales
retold by
S. E. Schlosser
One winter, Paul Bunyan came to log along the Little Gimlet in Oregon. Ask any old timer who was logging that winter, and they'll tell you I ain't lying when I say his kitchen covered about ten miles of territory.
That stove, now, she were a grand one. An acre long, taller than a scrub pine, and when she was warm, she melted the snow for about twenty miles around. The men logging in the vicinity never had to put on their jackets 'til about noon on a day when Paul Bunyan wanted flapjacks.
It was quite a site to see, that cook of Paul Bunyan's making flapjacks. Cookie would send four of the boys up with a side of hog tied to each of their snowshoes, and they'd skate around up there keeping the griddle greased while Cookie and seven other men flipped flapjacks for Paul Bunyan. Took them about an hour to make enough flapjacks to fill him up. The rest of us had to wait our turn.
The table we had set up for the camp was about ten miles long. We rigged elevators to the table to bring the vittles to each end, and some of the younger lads in the camp rode bicycles down the path at the center, carrying cakes and such wherever they were called for.
We had one mishap that winter. Babe the Blue Ox accidentally knocked a bag of dried peas off the countertop when he swished his tail. Well, them peas flew so far and so fast out of the kitchen that they knocked over a dozen loggers coming home for lunch, clipped the tops off of several pine trees, and landed in the hot spring. We had pea soup to eat for the rest of the season, which was okay by me, but them boys whose Mama's insisted they bath more than once a year were pretty sore at losing their swimming hole.
Follow S.E. Schlosser's travels through Oregon as she researches ghost stories for Spooky Oregon, book 15 of the Spooky Series.
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Comments
I love Paul Bunyan! What a great American Classic Folk Tale.!
Posted by: Jeff | September 2, 2010 09:33 AM
it is a good folk tale
Posted by: Anonymous | September 20, 2010 11:26 AM
Great story guys keep it up(:
Posted by: Toad | September 20, 2010 12:00 PM
i like those stories there cool
Posted by: jonny depp | October 20, 2010 10:59 AM
i like it
Posted by: kyle | November 11, 2010 08:26 AM
I love these stories. I use them with my ESL students. Thanks for connecting us with our past.
Posted by: Thomas | November 16, 2010 12:46 PM
if i were up in oregon i would ask paul if he would share his flapjacks. he would probably say yes, but i would have to wait until he was done with his. i just hope none of them peas would've hit me! :)
Posted by: jacob | December 8, 2010 09:37 AM
this is the best
Posted by: bobbyson | December 15, 2010 12:18 PM
OMG! I love this! It's 2 funny! Seriously!
Posted by: FrannieApple | December 15, 2010 12:57 PM
I love is story our Global Studies teacher made us read and I LOVED IT!!!!! =)
Posted by: Gissi | February 3, 2011 06:07 PM
wow this was a great story for my project
Posted by: lisa | April 11, 2011 12:30 PM
it was great!!
Posted by: Anonymous | April 28, 2011 03:20 PM