The Grindstone was invented by Paul the winter he logged off North Dakota.  Before that Paul’s axemen had to sharpen their axes by rolling rocks down hill and running along side of them.  When they got to “Big Dick,” as the lumberjacks called Dakota, hills and rocks were so hard to find that Paul rigged up the revolving rock.

This was much appreciated by the Seven Axemen as it enabled them to grind an axe in a week, but the grindstone was not much of a hit with the Little Chore Boy whose job it was to turn it.  The first stone was so big that working at full speed, every time it turned around once it was payday.

The Little Chore Boy led a strenuous life.  He was only a kid and like all youngsters putting in their first winter in the woods, he was put over the jumps by the oldtimers.  His regular work was heavy enough, splitting all the wood for the camp, carrying water and packing lunch to the men, but his hazers sent him on all kinds of wild goose errands to all parts of the works, looking for a “left-handed peavy” or a “bundle of cross-hauls.”

He had to take a lot of good natured roughneck wit about his size for he only weighed 800 pounds and a couple of surcingles made a belt for him.  What he lacked in size he made up in grit and the men secretly respected his gameness.  They said he might make a pretty good man if he ever got any growth, and considered it a necessary education to give him a lot of extra chores.

Often in the evening, after his day’s work and long hours put in turning the grindstone and keeping up fires in the camp stoves — that required four cords of wood apiece to kindle a fire, he could be found with one of Big Ole’s small 600-pound anvils in his lap pegging up shoes with railroad spikes.

It was a long time before they solved the problem of turning logging sleds around in the road.  When a sled returned from the landing and put on a load they had to wait until Paul came along to pick up the four horses and the load and head them the other way.  Judson M. Goss says he worked for Paul the winter he invented the round turn.

All of Paul’s inventions were successful except when he decided to run three ten-hour shifts a day and installed the Aurora Borealis.  After a number of trials the plan was abandoned because the lights were not dependable.

“The Seven Axemen of the Red River” they were called because they had a camp on Red River with the three-hundred cooks and the Little Chore Boy.  The whole State was cut over from the one camp and the husky seven chopped from dark to dark and walked to and from work.

Their axes were so big it took a week to grind one of them.  Each man had three axes and two helpers to carry the spare axes to the river when they got red hot from chopping.  Even in those days they had to watch out for forest fires.  The axes were hung on long rope handles.  Each axeman would march through the timber whirling his axe around him till the hum of it sounded like one of Paul’s for-and-aft mosquitoes, and at every step a quarter-section of timber was cut.