Mule Skinner's Song
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 23/11/2020

Day 250 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg writes: "When the rosy fingers of dawn came stealing on soft feet along the eastern horizon, and it was time to get up and go to work, we sometimes heard a negro mule skinner singing of himself, of George McVane, and of three mules, two with names and one anonymous." Thus James Stevens, author of "Brawnyman" and other books, tells how in a Puget Sound logging camp he heard the musical fragment given here.

Stevens tells how he often met Mr. Puget, the contractor who hired Paul Bunyan to bring Babe the Blue Ox and dig out Puget Sound. Mr.Puget told Stevens how rain was interfering with Paul and Babe on the excavating work, and one day when a water-spout came traveling up as far as the Sound had been dug then, Paul dived deep, swum till he was under the waterspout, and then climbed with powerful overhand strokes till he reached the top. When Paul came down the waterspout was gone. "What did you do?" asked Mr. Puget, Paul answering, "I turned it off."

Though there are many stories there seem to be no songs of or by Paul Bunyan.

There is, however, one of and by a black mule skinner.