AS I’ve already told you, when we were going to get to go North, we didn’t have any idea we’d run into such an exciting and dangerous mystery, but when a gang of boys get together on a camping trip in the wild North, something is pretty nearly always bound to happen, which it did.

On the way we went through a city which advertised itself as the Capital of the Paul Bunyan Playground—Paul Bunyan being what is called a mythical lumberman of the North, and was supposed to have been terribly big like a giant in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, which is a fairy story every boy ought to know—only instead of Paul Bunyan being a bad giant, he was a good one, and was always doing kind things for people.

We stopped to get some gas for Barry Boyland’s station wagon—which is what we were all riding in—right across from a tourist camp called “Green Gables,” and Little Jim gasped and said, “LOOK! Who and what is that?”

I looked out at what Little Jim was looking at, and saw what he saw, and it was a great statue of a man with a beard and mustache, standing with one hand upraised and the other on a back of a statue of a great big extra big blue cow which had horns. Poetry spoke up and said, “That’s Paul and Babe.”

“Paul and Babe Who?” Dragonfly wanted to know, and Poetry, who, as I’ve told you before, had a lot of books in his library, all of a sudden reached down into a briefcase he had with him and pulled out a book and said, “That’s Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox, whose name is Babe. It was the blue ox whose footprints were so large that when it walked around they sank deep into the ground, and everywhere it went it left big holes. Then when it rained, the rain water filled up the holes and that made all the eleven thousand great big blue-watered lakes which live in Minnesota.”

Little Jim, who likes fairy stories and legends, grinned and said, “What made the water blue, then? How come?” You see, nearly all the water in nearly all the great big hundreds of lakes we’d already seen on our trip was as blue as the blue on the hair ribbon Circus’ sister wore to school at Sugar Creek.

“What made the lakes blue?” asked Poetry with a question mark in his voice. He puckered his fat forehead, and said, “Blue—oh that!” He thumbed his way through the Paul Bunyan book quick, to see if there was anything in the book to explain it, but there wasn’t. So he said, “Old Babe, the ox, was blue, you know. One day when he was out swimming in the headwaters of the Mississippi, the blue began to come off, and pretty soon the Mississippi, which flows through a lot of lakes up here, was all blue. The water flowed all around from lake to lake and pretty soon the lakes’ waters were all blue, too!”

Well, it made as good an untrue story as any of the rest of the exaggerated ones in the Paul Bunyan book so we added it to the list and decided to tell it to our folks when we got back to Sugar Creek.

Pretty soon we drove on, right straight down through the pretty little modern-looking city, where there were lots of people walking the streets in vacation clothes.

Pretty soon we passed a Tourist Information place, on the right side of the road where there was a very tall cement water tower, that was shaped exactly like my pop’s big long six-battery flashlight back home, being a lot larger at the top. Little Jim squinted his pretty blue eyes up at it like he was thinking about something. Then we went on, and Poetry read to us different crazy things the mythical Paul Bunyan was supposed to have done, such as he had been such a big baby when he was born that it took six large storks to carry him to his parents; and Paul’s pet mosquitoes dug the wells up here where we were; his soup bowl was so large it was like a lake and the cook had to use a boat to get across it; also his pancake griddle was so large that they greased it by tying greasy griddlecakes on the bottoms of some men’s shoes and they skated around over its surface to grease it for Paul—things like that.

Little Jim surprised us all of a sudden by saying, “Anybody want to hear how all the people decided to move up into this country and stay here?—How Paul Bunyan and I working together got them to come, when nobody wanted to?”

“How?” Dragonfly wanted to know. “What do you mean YOU and Paul Bunyan worked it? Paul used to live here long before you were born. You never even saw him!”

“Oh I didn’t, didn’t I?” Little Jim asked and had a very mischievous grin on his innocent face. “Want to hear the story?” “Sure,” Poetry and I said, and Dragonfly said, “No.”

Little Jim said, “All right, I won’t—anyway, it’s too important a story to tell to such a small unappreciative audience.” He sighed like he was sleepy and curled up with his head on my lap and sighed again and almost before I knew it he was actually asleep.

It felt good having Little Jim lying with his head in my lap, he being my almost best friend except Poetry, and also being a really wonderful little guy and was the best Christian in the whole Sugar Creek Gang. He was always thinking and saying important things about the Bible and heaven, and the One who had made the world, and also about His Son who had come here to this pretty world once and died on a cross which was made out of a tree, just to save anybody who would repent of his sins and believe on Him.

I looked down at that pretty curly head, and thought of Sugar Creek and my parents and little Charlotte Ann, and was lonesome for a minute. Then pretty soon I was sleepy myself and the flying tires of the station wagon sort of sang me to sleep too. Once I half woke up on account of Little Jim wiggled in my lap and I heard him mumbling something. I was too sleepy to listen, but it sorta sounded like he maybe thought he was at home getting ready to crawl into bed and go to sleep. I kinda bent my ear down a little and listened close to his perspiring face and say! I heard some of the prettiest words you ever heard in your life and they were, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take....” Little Jim was kinda mumbling the words. I’d heard the poem before, in fact my folks had taught it to me, and when I was littler I’d said it at night myself. But Little Jim said something else I couldn’t quite make out, but it sounded like this: “Please also—bless—Little Snow-in-the-face, and help him to get well...” Then I felt Little Jim’s shoulder relax against my stomach and I knew he was sound asleep. In another jiffy I was asleep myself.

When I woke up we were still flying along with Barry at the wheel, and most of us sitting in lying-down positions, getting a swell afternoon nap. It was wonderful to ride along that fast, and also wonderful to see all the things we saw, as the road wound itself around and around like the winding barefoot-boy paths through the Sugar Creek woods along Sugar Creek itself. At the town of Pass Lake, most of us got out, stretched ourselves and bought postcards at a drug store and sent them to our folks. I sent a card that showed some men climbing a tree, and some great big fish were at the bottom looking up like hungry bears look up at boys.

I said to my folks, “Pretty soon we’ll be making camp,” which we did about a quarter of a mile from the place we’d been the year before on Santa’s lake front property—Santa, as you know, being the great big laughing fat man who likes boys almost as much as Old Man Paddler does.

“Where’s Mrs. Santa?” Poetry asked that kind person, maybe remembering the blackberry pie she’d given us, and maybe missing her very friendly and extra special giggle, which we’d all liked to hear so well. I had looked forward to seeing her laugh with her eyes as well as hearing her laugh with her bird-like voice.

Santa, who was sitting in his big white boat which was beached near where we were making camp, and was helping Tom Till get his fishing pole and line ready for a fishing trip in the morning, said to Poetry, “She’s gone to California, but will be back early next week, before you boys have to go back to Sugar Creek.”

Well, it was almost time for the sun to go down, and we would have to get busy pitching our tents. Barry called to us from the station wagon which was parked close by, “Hey, Gang! Let’s get the tents up.... Hey, you, BILL! POETRY! TOM!”

We all beat it and pretty soon were working like boy scouts, doing what is called “making camp.” Barry’d picked a site not far from the lake, and also not too far from a wood pile, so a gang of boys who were lazy only when there was work to do, wouldn’t have to carry wood too far. Also he picked a place where there wouldn’t be too much shade so it wouldn’t be too damp, and yet there would be sunshine every day if there was any.

“Why don’t we put the tents under this big tree right here?” Circus asked, and Barry said, looking up at the tree, “See that great big half dead limb there?”

Dragonfly looked up and saw it, and said, “Sure, what of it?” and Little Jim spoke up and said, “The wind might blow some night,” and then turned and ran to where Big Jim was, about fifty feet away and who, with his jack-knife, was cutting green sticks of different sizes to help us make what Barry called an outdoor kitchen, which he said was going to be like the kind the Chippewa Indians used to use.

All of us were either giving or obeying orders, and in a few jiffies our tents were up and the outdoor kitchen was nearly finished.

“O.K., you guys—you and Poetry,” Barry ordered Poetry and me, “roll up a couple of those big round rocks over there, get a couple of forked sticks, and push them right into the fire.” We already had a roaring fire going in a place where it was safe to have one. No boy or anybody ought to start a fire in any forest or woods any time unless it is in a place where there is supposed to be one, and where it can’t spread, or a whole forest might get burned up.

“What on earth?” I thought, as Poetry and I grunted a round rock apiece up as close to the hot fire as we could, and then pushed them the rest of the way with forked sticks so we wouldn’t get burned, ourselves.

“Wait and see,” Barry said, and we did, but kept wondering, “Why on earth?” We got two other rocks also, while the rest of the gang helped put up the tents and made things ready for our first night’s sleep. I had a tingling feeling all inside of me, and just knew we were going to have the most wonderful time of our lives.

It didn’t take us long to get supper over, which we cooked ourselves on a little two-burner pressure gas stove which Barry had brought along, he not wanting us to take time to cook in real Indian style, which we would most of the time.

“Ouch!” different ones of us said to each other and all of a sudden started slapping around at mosquitoes. “Here—rub this on,” Barry said, “and be careful not to get any too near your eyes and lips.” He handed us a couple of bottles of mosquito lotion and we smeared our bare hands and ankles and necks and ears and faces with the sickenishly-sweetish-smelling stuff, and right away it was just like there wasn’t a mosquito in the world.

Santa came over and we all sat around the camp fire, with the pretty sparks and flames playing above the beds of coal and the four large roundish rocks in the middle of it.

After we’d all listened to Barry tell us an honest-to-goodness Bible story about something that had happened on Galilee Lake once, we all took turns telling made-up stories. It was Little Jim who suggested we all make up Paul Bunyan stories and since it was a good idea, we decided to try to see who could make up the best one, and so we started. First, though, Barry told us the thrilling and very interesting Bible story, which maybe I ought to tell you here myself, ’cause it was one of the best stories a real red-blooded gang of boys ever heard.

All of us were in a sort of half circle around the camp fire, on blankets and also on each other, some of us leaning up against each other, like right that minute I was against Poetry.... “Get over,” Poetry said to me. “Don’t crowd so close.”

“I’m trying to get warm,” I said. “It’s cold. I’m using you for a windbreak.”

And Circus said to Poetry—“You’re a windbreak when it’s cold, and when it’s hot we lie behind you in the shade,”—Poetry, as you know, being fat as a small cow. Most of us giggled, except Poetry.

“It happened like this,” Barry began,—and I noticed Little Jim reach into his vest pocket, and pull out his New Testament to look up the place where Barry was getting the story from. I did the same, and so did most of the gang, except Tom Till who had forgotten to bring his. I looked at him and he swallowed like he was embarrassed, so I reached out mine to him and he sort of looked on, although I knew he couldn’t see very well, and wasn’t very good at reading the Bible anyway. Besides it was more interesting to watch Barry’s brown face and his one all-gold front tooth sparkling in the firelight when he talked.

It was one of my very favorite Bible stories and was about some fishermen who lived near a great big blue-watered lake that was thirteen miles long and seven miles wide and had thousands of fish in it. Two brothers, named Peter and Andrew, were fishing, not with poles but with nets, and two other brothers whose names were James and John, whose Pop’s name was Zebedee and whose Mom’s name was Salome, were using another boat. I was feeling sorry for the double brothers ’cause they hadn’t caught any fish and I was wondering what their Moms would say when they got home, when Barry started in to telling about a big crowd of people coming along listening to Someone telling wonderful stories and also telling them about the Father in Heaven and how to live right and things like that; and the crowd got so close to the Speaker that He might have been crowded into the water.

He turned and asked Peter to let Him borrow his boat, so He could get into it and push out from shore a little, and then He could talk to the crowd and not get trampled on and also the crowd’d be able to see Him. It was a bright idea, I thought, and wished I had been there, ’cause if it was wonderful to hear our minister at Sugar Creek tell about Him in his very interesting sermons, it would have been even wonderfuller to have been beside that pretty blue-watered lake that day and listened to the Saviour right while He was talking....

Pretty soon, the Speaker’s sermon was over, Barry said, and then He, just as if He wanted to pay Peter for being so courteous as to let Him make a pulpit out of his boat, told Peter to shove the boat into the deep water and let down the nets for some fish.... Say, Peter didn’t want to do it, ’cause he had been fishing around there all night, and hadn’t caught anything, and he might have wondered, “Why do it again and make a fool of myself?”

“But,” said Barry,—and I could see his all-gold tooth shining as he talked, and even though he was smiling, his face was very sober—“it is better to obey the Lord, boys, even if it does seem foolish to the world for you to do it, than it is to disobey Him. Besides, He has a right to give us orders, since He is the Son of God....”

He kept on talking, but for a minute, I looked at Circus, who I noticed had his fists doubled up, and was lying on his stomach and his elbows, looking up and across the fire at Barry. Also he had his chin resting on his doubled-up fists and the muscles of his jaw were working and I knew he was maybe imagining himself to be Peter and his thoughts were right out in that pretty lake, and he was seeing the whole thing with his mind’s eye like I was....

When my thoughts got back to Barry again, he was farther along in the story to where the net was suddenly jammed full of great big bouncing, swishing, lunging, splashing fish, and Peter and Andrew had to have help to pull the net in. Also right that second, the big strong net began to break in places and some of the fish were getting away, so Peter let out a yell for James and John to make a dive for their boat—in fact, to bring their boat with them which they did quick, and both of the boats were so jammed full of fish that both of them started to sink. That scared Peter, and also all of a sudden Peter realized that the Man he’d been listening to was more than a man, but was also the Lord. He all of another sudden realized what a terrible sinner he was, and he forgot all about the bouncing, swishing, lunging, splashing fish and dropped down on his knees and cried out to the Lord, “Go away, Lord, leave me. I’m a sinful man!”—on account of he was so ashamed of himself for being a sinful man, he didn’t think he was good enough to be anywhere near the Lord....

But say, Jesus had done all this on purpose to get Peter to believe in Him, and He told him not to be afraid any longer, but said, “Fear not; henceforth thou shalt catch men...”

When Barry said that, Circus’ bright eyes lit up and he interrupted the story to say, “What’d he mean by that?” Before Barry could answer, Little Tim Till surprised us all by cutting in and saying across the crackling fire to Circus, “He meant, ‘Don’t be scared; from now on you’ll be what our Sugar Creek minister calls a soul winner.’”

Well, it was a wonderful true story, and for some reason I had the happiest feeling all inside of me. I not only wished all of a quick sudden that I had been there and had maybe been Peter or Andrew or one of Mother Salome’s two boys, but I felt also that maybe the most important thing in the world was to be a soul winner, or a fisher of men...

Well, the story was done and the sky above the lake toward where the sun had gone down, reminded me of the reddish, purplish and also yellowish spread-out feathers of a terribly big fantail pigeon.