from Wolf River Songs recorded and with notes by Sidney Robertson Cowell, Folkways #FE4001.

THE LITTLE BROWN BULLS
Sung by Robert Walker, Crandon, Wis, 1954

Not a thing in the woods had McClusky to fear
As he swung his gored stick o'er the big spotted steers.
They were young, sound and. quick, girding eight foot and three.
Said McClusky the Scotsman, "They're the laddies for me."

Oh, it's next come Bull Gordon, the skidding was full
As he hollered, "Wau-hush" to his little brown bulls.
They were . . . (young) . . . short legged and shaggy, girding six foot and nine,
"Too light," said McClusky, "to handle our pine,

"For it's three to the thousand our contract does call,
Our skidding 'tis good and our timber 'tis tail."
Said McClusky to Gordon, "To make the day full,
I will skid two to one of your little brown bulls!"

"Oh no," said Bull Gordon, "that you never can do,
Though your big spotted steers are the pets of the crew.
But mind you, my laddie, you'll have your hands full
When you skid one more log than my little brown bulls!"

O the day was appointed, and soon it crew nigh,
For twenty-five dollars their fortunes to try.
Both eager and. anxious, the morning 'twas found
The scalers and judges appeared on the ground.

That morning said Gordon with blood in his eye,
"Today I will conquer McClusky or die."
Said Sandy to Gordon, "We'll take off their skins
We'll dig them a grave, and we'll tumble them in."

'Twas first come Bull Gordon with the little brown bulls,
With a pipe in his mouth and a cud in his jaw.
But little did I think when I saw them come down
That a hundred and forty they'd easily yank 'round.

With a whoop and a yell came McClusky in view
With the big spotted steers, the pets of the crew,
Saying, "Chew your cuds slowly, boys, keep your
mouths full,
For you easily can conquer those little brown bulls."

O the sun had gone down, the foreman did say,
"Turn in, boys, turn in, you've enough for today,
For well we have called each man for his team;
Very well do we know which team holds down the beam."

After supper was over, McClusky appeared,
With a belt ready made for his big spotted steers;
To make it he'd tore up his best maCkinaW,--
He was bound to conduct it according to law.

O the scaler speaks up, said he, "Hold on a while,-
Your big spotted steers are behind just a mile.
You've skidded one hundred and ten and no more,
While Gordon has beat you by ten and a score."

O the boys they all hollered and McClusky did swear
As he tore out in handfulls his long yaller hair.
Said. McClusky to Gordon, "MY dollars you'll pull
And the belt you shall have for your little brown bulls!"

So here's to Bull Gordon and big Sandy John
For the biggest day's work on the Wolf River ever was done.
So fill up your bumpers, boys, fill them plumb full,
And we'll drink to the health of the little brown bulls."

Notes:
Stanza 1: gored stick -- goad. Girding 8 foot and 3 (inches). A team animal's girth, or the diameter of a tree, or the waist of a pretty girl, is always worth mention where these songs are sung.

Stanza 2: skidding was full -- full in the old sense of plenty (of work skidding logs to the river bank.)

Stanza 3 : three to the thousand - - "pretty big trees," of which you'd need only 3 to make 1000 feet of lumber. The bigger the tree, the harder it was to handle, of course, but the men like the challenge of a hard contract, as much for the sake of bragging of difficulties overcome as for pride in setting out logs that would cut up into the finest, widest planks. Stands of timber of this size were not common after 1870 in Wisconsin.

Stanza 5: $25 was a month's cash wages in 1875. The scalers were experienced men, expert at judging standing timber to estimate the lumber it would produce, responsible for laying out the work of the crews in advance, and for keeping track of what was done in a day.

Stanza 9 : holds down the beam (of the scales). A fine Bunyanesque conception, as though a single set of scales might hold all the loss skidded out by a team in a day.

Stanza 10 : A belt ready made ... This was the "law" of prize ring, where it was customary for the winner to be given a fancy belt. A mackinaw is a heavy woolen jacket, usually a brilliant plaid of "such material are still on a cheaper level than the famous Hudson's Bay blankets, which were accurately marked in the weaving, and were a fixed medium of exchange in the fur trade. The name comes from the (Michilli) mackinac Indian tribe of the Great Lakes area.

Stanza 11: As Rickaby points out, the big Scotsman never believed for a minute that his team could be defeated. The crews normally worked out of sight of one another, so that both scores would be known only to the scaler, who kept tally. To skid 110 logs in a day was no mean feat, and Bull Gordon's 140 logs must have been quite unimaginable to McClusky. The men I met agreed that such a tally was credible, but impossible today. I was taken in 1937 to admire the only remaining stand of timber of such size in Wisconsin: It is preserved as a memorial to the old days by a lumber company in Laona that today must confine itself to pulp wood for paper and various sawdust products.
in 1875.

Stanza 12: The second line usually reads: biggest day's work in the woods or on the river ever was done. But the men in the Walker and Ford families all worked on the Wolf River, which runs from northern Wisconsin down to Green Bay; and it was customary to incorporate factual local detail where one could.
dollars you'll pull -- in the sense of pull down a prize.

Further notes:
The LITTLE BROWN BULLS
Sung by Robert Walker, Crandon, Wis, 1954

This is the classic ballad of American lumber camps. No information about the author seems ever to have been found. Rickaby was told that the song "was made in Mort Douglas' camp in northeastern Wisconsin in 1872 or 1873, where (or so the singer believed) the contest between the two woods teams was staged"
The song's Wisconsin provenience is borne out by its rarity farther east, where it has usually been traced to singers from Wisconsin or Michigan. Texts vary little from singer to singer, since the details are accurate and familiar to an experienced audience, and they are all necessary to the story.
The text written out below is taken from the recording Mr. Walker made in 1937, so that anyone interested may compare it with the song as he sang it in 1954. He varies the tune with great freshness and musicality, very differently at many points from the 1937 recording.

The vagaries of melody preservation, adaptation and exchange are well illustrated by this song. The tune Rob Walker and his family use for Little Brown Bulls belongs in general to the King John and the Bishop tune family; it is close to Rickaby's Wisconsin B tune and to the one sung 20 years later to William Doerflinger by Archie Lant, a native of Ontario. It lacks, however, the down derry down refrain that usually travels with King John tune variants , whether the associated text is the King John ballad, or this song, or a different text entirely. A somewhat reduced southern relative of the variant Walker uses for Little Brown Bulls is the familiar Way Up On Old Smoky, now well established in juke boxes here and in Europe.

Bob Walker sings a much finer King John tune variant, refrain and all, for a hair-raising text called The Pickled Jew, embodying the widespread folk tale of the body shipped in a cask of alcohol or brine, the cask being then innocently broached during the voyage under stress of thirst or famine.

On the other hand, the fine Ford-Walker family version of the traditional King John ballad goes to a different tune entirely, with a longer and quite different refrain.

Mr. Walker says he spoke the last 3 words instead of singing them "because it was kind of customary, I guess. . . just gettin' through with the song." He learned this song "from a fellow in Jennings a good many years ago. He probably took it up from some other lumberjack, I guess. The use of the term lumberjack by loggers themselves has been called into question, but none of my Wisconsin friends had any quarrel with it.