Paul Bunyan and the Giant Mosquitoes (Campfire Story)

If you think the mosquitoes are bad at your campsite, be glad you never worked in PAUL BUNYAN's camp.

One summer, the crew set up camp beside a great swamp, and that's when the MOSQUITOES found them. These weren't ordinary MOSQUITOES. They were as big as crows. Their wings sounded like sawmills. They could bite a logger right through his wool shirt, his long underwear and the bunkhouse wall, and some of the bigger ones carried off the camp's chickens for a snack.

The men tried everything. Smoke didn't work. Swatting didn't work; the MOSQUITOES just swatted back. Finally the loggers hid under the big iron cook kettles, the ones Sourdough Sam made soup in, and that seemed to do the trick.

For about a minute. Then the MOSQUITOES landed on the kettles and started drilling straight through the iron with their stingers. CLANG! CLANG! The points came poking right through, one after another, inches from the loggers' noses.

But PAUL BUNYAN was ready. He grabbed a hammer, and every time a stinger poked through a kettle, he bent it over flat on the inside. CLANG! Now the MOSQUITOES were stuck tight. They buzzed and pulled, and then, all together, they flew away, carrying the kettles with them. Sourdough Sam had to cook soup in his hat for a month.

Paul knew he needed a better plan. So he sent away to Texas for the biggest, toughest BUMBLEBEES in the world. Everybody knows bumblebees and mosquitoes can't stand each other. Paul figured the BUMBLEBEES would chase the MOSQUITOES clean out of the north woods.

The BUMBLEBEES arrived in a crate as big as a barn. Paul opened the lid, and out they flew, straight for the swamp. The loggers cheered. For two whole days there was a terrible battle in the sky, with buzzing and whining and stingers flashing in the sun.

And then it got quiet. Very, very quiet.

It turned out the BUMBLEBEES and the MOSQUITOES didn't hate each other after all. They'd gotten to talking, and they'd found they had a lot in common. Before the summer was over, they had settled down together and raised families.

That was the worst thing that could have happened. Their children were a brand-new kind of bug, and they had the worst of both families. They were as big as bumblebees and as hungry as mosquitoes, and they had stingers at both ends. They could get you coming and going!

The crew packed up camp so fast that they left the stove still warm. PAUL BUNYAN moved the whole outfit a hundred miles north, where it was too cold for any bug to follow.

And the old loggers say that's why, to this day, every Scout who goes camping in the north woods packs bug spray. Because somewhere out there in the swamps, the great-great-grandchildren of those bugs are still waiting.

MOSQUITOES!

Storyteller tips: end by slapping your own arm at the last MOSQUITOES. It always gets a laugh, especially on a buggy night.