Jim Moses, age 13, of Reno, Nev., for his question:

WHO WAS JOHNNY INKSLINGER?

Do you remember Paul Bunyan? He was the mythical hero of the lumberjacks and the greatest of America's legendary miracle workers who settled and developed a big country in the late 1800s. To provide drinking water for his giant blue ox, Babe, Bunyan scooped out the Great Lakes.

And that tale isn't even one of Bunyan's "tallest."

Bunyan had a timekeeper named Johnny Inkslinger. His name came from the loggers' word for camp clerk.

Inkslinger invented figures and bookkeeping to replace Bunyan's crude method of keeping accounts by chopping notches in trees.

Johnny Inkslinger made the first fountain pen by connecting his pen to a barrel of ink with a rubber hose. He saved large amounts of ink by not crossing his "t's" or dotting his "i's."

Bunyan paid Johnny Inkslinger $30 a month for his work, which was a tall amount almost 100 years ago.