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Title: Vacation Camping for Girls

Author: Jeannette Augustus Marks

Release date: July 13, 2017 [eBook #55110]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by readbueno, Mary Svela, Harry Lamé and the
        Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
        (This file was produced from images generously made
        available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VACATION CAMPING FOR GIRLS ***




Produced by readbueno, Mary Svela, Harry Lamé and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
(This file was produced from images generously made
available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)







  Transcriber’s Notes

  Text printed in italics in the source document has been transcribed
  between _underscores_, text in small capitals has been converted to
  ALL CAPITALS.




  VACATION CAMPING
  FOR GIRLS




  VACATION
  CAMPING FOR
  GIRLS

  By
  JEANNETTE MARKS

  [Illustration]

  ILLUSTRATED

  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  1913


  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

  Copyright, 1912, by DAVID C. COOK PUBLISHING COMPANY

  Printed in the United States of America




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                 PAGE
      I. CAMPING CHECK LISTS                 1
     II. CAMP CLOTHES                       13
    III. FOOD                               24
     IV. COOK AND COOKEE                    37
      V. LOG-CABIN COOKERY                  46
     VI. THE PLACE TO CAMP                  68
    VII. CAMP FIRES                         77
   VIII. OTHER SMOKE                        87
     IX. FITTING UP THE CAMP FOR USE        94
      X. THE POCKETBOOK                    107
     XI. THE CAMP DOG                      118
    XII. THE OUTDOOR TRAINING SCHOOL       127
   XIII. THE CAMP HABIT                    139
    XIV. CAMP CLEANLINESS                  147
     XV. WOOD CULTURE AND CAMP HEALTH      157
    XVI. WILDERNESS SILENCE                171
   XVII. HOME-MADE CAMPING                 181
  XVIII. THE CANOE AND FISHING             193
    XIX. THE TRAIL                         209
     XX. CAMP DON’TS                       221




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                          PAGE
  Camp Footgear                             15
  A Group of Camp Utensils                  33
  Nessmuk Range and Small Cook Fire         79
  Sleeping Bags and Camp Cot                99
  A Group of Tents                         109
  Bough Lean-to and Frame                  113
  Some Game and Water Birds                131
  Birds Every Camper Should Know           135
  Leaves of Familiar Trees                 137
  Some Common Fish                         199
  Fishing Tackle                           201
  Rod Case, Tackle Case, Net and Creel     205
  Angling Knots                            207
  The Dipper                               213
  Moose, Buck, Doe, Fawn and Caribou       215
  Animals the Camper May Meet              217




  VACATION CAMPING
  FOR GIRLS




CHAPTER I

CAMPING CHECK LISTS


There are some considerations in camping which are staple; that is,
questions and needs all of us have to meet, just as there are staple
foods which all of us must have. No one knows better than the old
camper, who has shaken down his ideas, theories, practices, year after
year in the experiment of camping how true this is. If one is wise, one
goes well prepared even into the simple life of the woods or mountains
or lakes; and it is in a practical way, and under three so-called check
lists, (1) camp clothes, (2) camp food, and (3) camp equipment, that I
wish to tell you something about camp life for girls.

From the point of view of clothes there are two kinds of camping: one
more or less civilized, the other “rough.” In the first perhaps we shall
be allowed a small box or trunk. In the second we have to depend
entirely upon a duffle bag or a knapsack. To the camper who plans for a
good many comforts, there is only one warning to be given: don’t be
foolish and take finery of any sort with you. Not only will it be in the
way, but also a girl does not look well in the woods dressed in clothes
that belong to the home life of town or city.

There is an appropriate garb for the wilderness even as there is the
right gown for an afternoon tea. Except for this warning, what you will
put in your trunk will be simply an extension of the comforts which you
have in duffle bag or knapsack.

As the capacity of duffle bag or knapsack is very limited, the check
lists for its contents must be made out with rigid economy. The most
important item is foot gear. A well-made pair of medium weight boots,
carefully tanned, drenched with mutton tallow, viscol, neat’s-foot oil,
or some similar waterproof substance, will prove the best for all-round
usefulness. These boots must be broken in or worn before the camping
expedition is undertaken. Nothing is so foolish as to start out in a new
pair. Have in addition to the boots a pair of soft indoor moccasins.
These are good to loaf around camp in. They are grateful to tired feet,
and, rolled, take up but little space in the knapsack. To the boots and
moccasins add from two to four pairs of hole-proof stockings of some
reliable make. If you can get a really first-class stocking and are
crowded for space, two pairs will do. One goes on to your feet and the
other into your knapsack. There should also be several combination
suits, preferably of two weights, high necked, and with shoulder and
knee caps.

Now, see that the skirt you wear is of durable material; blue serge or
tweed (corduroy is often too heavy); that it has been thoroughly shrunk,
and is six inches off the ground anyway. Twelve would be better. Your
skirt should be provided with ample pockets; the sweater and jacket
also. Under the skirt wear a pair of bloomers, the lighter and slimsier
they are, the better; and the stouter the material, the more practical
for wear. I have tried many kinds, and believe percaline which is light,
strong, slimsy and washable, the best. Silk is not suitable at all. A
flannel shirt waist or blouse, a windsor or string tie, a soft felt hat
with a sufficiently wide brim, but not too wide, complete your costume.

Into the knapsack put two coarse handkerchiefs, a silk neckerchief to
tie around your neck, the stockings and combination suit already
mentioned, a string of safety pins clipped one into another, a
toothbrush, tubes of cold cream and tooth paste (tubes take up the least
room and are the easiest to carry), a cotton shirtwaist, a nail file,
comb, small bottle of the best cascara sagrada tablets, a pair of cotton
gloves for rough work, a cake of castile soap, a towel, a stiff nail
brush, _and, if you are wise_, a book for leisure hours, preferably an
anthology of poems or a collection of essays which will afford food for
reflection.

In your preparations let it be the rule to strip away every unnecessary
article. Take pride in getting your kit down to the absolute minimum.
Keep weeding out what you don’t need, and then after that, weed out
again.

The same principle of rigid economy in selection will obtain in the
check list for food. It is the minimum of expense in the woods that will
bring the maximum of comfort. In arranging for the “duffle” to be taken
with you there is one thing that can be counted upon with mathematical
certainty: hunger. You are going to be hungrier than you have been in a
long time. The problem is, then, how to tote enough food and _get_
enough food to supply your wants. The carriage, the keeping, the
nutritive value, all these things have to be taken into consideration in
wood life. At home we have fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh meats
in abundance. How can we supply these things for our camp table? We
can’t! But desiccated potatoes, dried apples, apricots, prunes, peaches,
white and yellow-eye beans, dried lima beans, peas, whole or split,
onions, rice, raisins, nuts, white and graham flour, corn meal, pilot
biscuit, rolled oats, cream of wheat, cocoa (leave coffee and tea at
home), sweet chocolate, syrup for flapjacks, baking soda, sugar, salt, a
few candles (helpful for lighting a fire in wet weather, as well as
good for illumination), matches, molasses, a little olive oil--all
these things, with careful planning, we may have in abundance. To these
items you should add good butter--the best salted butter is none too
good--some cans of condensed milk and evaporated milk and cream, and a
flitch of bacon. Meat makes a dirty camp, and a dirty camp means skunks
and hedgehogs prowling around. In a properly thought-out dietary it will
be entirely unnecessary to tote meat. All that is needed for use you can
get at the end of your fish rod or through the barrel of your shotgun,
and upon the freshness of what you catch or shoot you can depend. Dr.
Breck, in his “Way of the Woods,” says that if he were obliged to choose
between bacon and dried apples and chocolate, he would always take the
apples and chocolate. Both portage and health will be served by avoiding
the carriage of a lot of tin cans. The ration of each article needed you
can work out with your mother or housekeeper, according to the number
of people to be in the party, the menus you plan, and the length of your
stay. For a cooler for your food, you will find a wire bait box, sunk in
clean running water, excellent. The question of grub, or duffle, as it
is called in camp life, in proper variety, abundance and freshness, is
the most difficult question of all. To this problem a seasoned camper
will give his closest attention.

There are other articles, plus the food stuffs, which we must add to our
check lists--chiefly articles of equipment. Two or three pails nesting
into each other, a tin reflector baker for outdoor cooking, enamel-ware
plates, cups and bowls, pans, dishpans, dishmop, chain pot-cleaner,
double boiler, broiler, knives, forks, spoons, pepper and salt shakers,
flour sifter, rotary can opener, long-handled and short-handled fry
pans, a carving knife and a fish knife. The cost of these things
carefully bought, will be about six dollars. There should also be in
your kit some nails and a hatchet, toilet paper, woolen blankets,
mosquito netting (tarlatan is better), twine, tacks, oilcloth for camp
table, and some fly dope.

With these articles, plus a little knowledge of woodcraft, there is
almost no wilderness into which a capable girl cannot go and make an
attractive home. But a little woodcraft we must know; the rest we can
learn as we go. There is one fuel in the woods which skillfully used
will kindle any fire, even a wet fire, and that is birch bark. You can
always get an inner layer of dry birch bark from a tree. Keep a check
list of different kinds of wood and have it handy until you learn these
woods for yourself. Brush tops or slashings will help to start a quick
blaze. Hickory is fine for a quiet hot fire. The green woods which burn
readily are white and black birch, ash, oak and hard maple. Look for
pitch, which you are most likely to find in old trees, and that will
always help out and start any fire. Woods that snap, such as hemlock,
spruce, cedar and larch, are not to be recommended for camp fires, as a
rule. To be careless or stupid about the camp fire may be to endanger
the lives not only of thousands of wild creatures in the wilderness, but
also the lives of human beings.

Be careful to have pure water to drink. You cannot be too careful. If
you are in doubt about the water, don’t drink it, or at least not until
it has been thoroughly boiled. Take with you, besides those I give, a
few useful recipes for cooking experiments. They will bring pleasure and
variety on dull days. Choose a good place for your cabin or shack or
tent, whichever you use, especially a place where the natural drainage
is good. Know before you set out whether black flies, mosquitoes and
midges have to be encountered and go prepared to meet them. They are
sure to meet you more than halfway. Don’t take any risks on land or
water. The people who know the way of the woods best are those who are
least foolhardy. Common sense is the law that reigns in the wilderness,
and, in having our good time, we cannot do better than to follow that
law.

So much for skeleton check lists, many of which, in the chapters to
come, at the cost of repetition, I shall amplify. Among the questions
which I shall take up are the all-important ones of camp clothes, camp
food, cooking, the place, camp fires, furnishing the camp, the
pocketbook, the camp dog, the outdoor training school, the camp habit,
wood culture, camp health, camp friendship, homemade camping, the canoe,
fishing, and the trail. This great, big, beautiful country of ours is
full of girls, real CAMP FIRE GIRLS, who love the keen air of out of
doors and the smell of wood smoke and the freedom of hill and lake and
plain, and to them I want my little book to come home and to be a camp
manual which will go with them on all journeys into the wilderness.




CHAPTER II

CAMP CLOTHES


If you have been camping once, there is no need for any one to help you
decide what wearing apparel to take the next time. Through the mistakes
made and the discomforts involved, the girl will have learned her lesson
too well to forget it. But there is always the girl who has not been
camping. It is chiefly for her benefit that I am writing these chapters
on camp life for girls.

In the first place, there are two kinds of camp clothes to be
considered, for there are two kinds of camping: (1) the expedition which
permits taking a box or trunk with you, and (2) the rougher camping that
allows only the carrying of a duffle bag or a knapsack. If you are
limited to a knapsack or a duffle bag, your kit must be of the most
concentrated sort and chosen with the greatest care. You will find ten
or fifteen pounds the most you wish to tote long distances, although at
the beginning this size of pack may seem like nothing at all to you. As
I have found personally, even seven pounds, with day after day of
tramping, may make an unaccustomed shoulder ache under the strap.

[Illustration: MOCCASIN BOOT]

[Illustration: TOBIQUE MOCCASIN]

[Illustration: HURON INDIAN MOCCASINS]

[Illustration: MOCCASIN SHOE]

[Illustration: MECCOMOC OXFORD]

[Illustration: ELKSKIN MOCCASIN]

If you are to be limited to a small duffle bag, or a fairly capacious
knapsack, what are the articles of clothing without which no girl can
start? Let us take up the most important item first, and that is
foot-gear. Wear a well-made pair of medium weight boots, thoroughly
tanned, soaked with viscol, or rubbed with mutton tallow both on the
inside and the outside, to make them waterproof. _Never start out with a
new pair of boots on your feet._ If necessary, get your boots weeks
beforehand, and wear them from time to time till they are thoroughly
comfortable. In addition to these boots which you wear, take a soft pair
of indoor moccasins. These can be worn when you are tired and loafing
around camp, or while the guide is drying or greasing your boots. If you
have ever worn moccasins and are going to tramp in a moccasin country,
that is, a country of forest trails and ponds, then buy a pair of heavy
outdoor moccasins; larrigans or ankle-moccasins are best. These should
not be too snug. Worn over a heavy cotton stocking, or a light woolen
one, or woolen stockings drawn over cotton, the moccasin is the most
ideal foot-gear the wilderness world can ever know.[1] Neat’s-foot oil
is also excellent for greasing moccasins. Buy from two to four pairs of
hole-proof stockings of some reliable make. If these stockings are
first class and can be depended upon, two pairs will do. One pair you
will wear, the other goes into your knapsack. Have also several
combination suits, some for your bag and one for your back. These suits
should be high-necked and with shoulder and knee caps; of sufficient
warmth for cold days and nights; in any case porous and of two weights.

  [1] If you have room take with you an extra pair of shoes. When you
  have become a real woodswoman you will never be without woolen socks
  and moccasins. The thick, soft sole of sock and moccasin spare tender
  feet which are not accustomed to hard tramping and rough paths.

If you are going to tramp in a skirt, as you must if your route touches
upon civilization, _see that it is short_. Six inches off the ground is
none too much, and twelve is a good deal better. In an outing of this
sort it is as poor form to wear a long skirt as it would be to wear a
short skirt at an afternoon tea in civilization. The skirt should be of
some good quality khaki, army preferably, or a tweed; it should be
thoroughly shrunk, and if it seems desirable, it should be possible to
put this camp skirt in water and wash it.[2] Have ample pockets on
either side of the front seams. If I had to choose between the best of
sweaters and a jacket with a lot of pockets in it, I should always
choose the latter, and that is not on account of the pockets alone, but
because it is a more convenient article of clothing. In case of cold
weather it affords better protection, also better protection against
rain as well as cold. You can have it made with two outside pockets and
several inside--the more the merrier. Underneath the skirt wear a pair
of bloomers. The lighter and stouter these are, the more of a comfort
they will be. I have found a good quality of percaline to be the best
investment. Percaline is light, strong, slimsy after a little wearing,
and washes well. I have never yet found a silk that was practicable in
the woods. Silk bloomers go well with the comforts of civilization, but
they are not fit to endure the test of roughing it. A flannel shirtwaist
or blouse, a Windsor or string tie, a soft felt hat--you may have it as
pretty as you wish, provided it is not too large or over
trimmed--complete the outfit which you carry on you, so to speak.

  [2] You can buy an ideal hunting suit at any of the big shops in
  Boston, New York or Chicago for from $8 to $10.

Now to return to the outfit you carry in your pack and not on your back.
A pair of indoor moccasins, an extra pair of hole-proof stockings (these
you must have, not only on account of a possible wetting, but also
because the stockings must be changed every day, for you cannot take too
good care of your feet), two coarse handkerchiefs of ample size, a silk
neckerchief to tie around your neck, an extra combination suit, a few
safety pins clipped one into another until you have made a string of
them, a tooth brush, a little tube of cold cream and a tube of tooth
paste (the tubes are not breakable and take up the least room, they are
therefore the best to carry), a cotton or linen shirtwaist of some kind,
a nail file, a comb, a small vial of cascara sagrada tablets, several
rolls of film for your camera--the camera itself can be slung on a strap
from the knapsack--a pair of garden gloves for rough work with sooty
pots and kettles, a good-sized cake of the best castile soap, a towel, a
good stiff nail brush, and one or two books.

Personally I feel that the books are as indispensable as anything in the
knapsack, for in moments of weariness, or when storm-bound, they prove
the greatest comfort and resource. The volume taken must not be a novel
which read through once one does not care to read again. Better to take
some book over which you can or must linger. I have tramped scores of
miles with the “Oxford Book of English Verse” in my knapsack, and it has
proved the greatest imaginable pleasure and solace. A small anthology
or a book of essays, or something that you wish to study, as, for
example, guides about the birds or the trees or the flowers, are good
sorts of volumes to tote with you--besides, of course, this camping
manual.

Your kit for the rougher kind of camping, provided you have guides or
men folks who will carry the food, or “grub,” as it is called in camp
parlance, and the blankets, is now complete. But for the one girl who
goes on this rougher sort of camping expedition, twenty go into the
woods to be happy in a quite civilized log cabin or shanty. These girls
will be taking a camp box with them, or a trunk, and can add to their
wardrobe. There is no excuse, however, for adding the wrong sort of
thing. There is no excuse for wearing unsuitable, unattractive old rags
about camp, clothes which have served their civilized purpose and have
no fitness for the wilderness life. Let me give you one other word,
from an old timer at camping, about what you should wear. _Don’t be
foolish and put in any finery._ The finery is as out of place in camp as
your camp boots would be at a garden party at home. But several middy
blouses, more shoes, more stockings, another skirt, a number of towels,
a few more books--all will prove just that much added food for pleasure;
first, last, and always, be comfortable in camp. There is no reason for
being uncomfortable unless you enjoy discomfort. Anything, however, over
and above what you actually need will be only a hindrance. Those who go
camping, if they go in the right spirit, are looking for the simple
life; they want to get rid of paraphernalia, not to add to it. To learn
the happy art of living close to nature, means stripping away
unnecessary things. There is no place in camp life for fussiness or
display of any sort. All that is beyond the daily need is so much
litter and clutter, making of camp life something that is a burden,
something that is untidy, uncomfortable, confused. Of no thing is this
more true than of a girl’s camp clothes.




CHAPTER III

FOOD


There are several reasons why the camp food is almost more important
than any other consideration. To begin with, most girls are leading a
more active life than they are accustomed to living at home. This makes
them hungry, and, add to the exercise the natural tonic of invigorating
air, the camper becomes fairly ravenous at meal time. There are other
reasons, too, why food is an all-important question. If one is in the
real wilderness, it will be difficult to get. One is obliged, therefore,
to consider carefully beforehand the kinds of food necessary for a
well-provided table and a well-balanced diet. Another reason for taking
thought about this whole subject is the portage. All the foods must be
toted in, and not all kinds will prove suitable or economical in the
long run for this sort of portage. Finally, there is the question of the
ways and means for keeping the food, after it is once safely in camp, in
good condition.

As a rule, when we go on our expeditions we leave regions where it is
easy to get a great variety of foods. The city or its suburb or a
comfortable country town, is the place we call home. Our tables are
filled the year long with fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, fresh meats,
and all kinds of bread. This dietary in all its variety, to which we
have been accustomed at home, is quite impossible of realization in the
camp. We might just as well make up our minds to that at once. Yet
accustomed to vegetables and fruits as we are, we need them both in
wholesome quantities. How shall we get them? Potatoes of course, if the
camping expedition is for any length of time, that is ten days or more,
must be lugged. And lugging potatoes is heavy work over a trail. As for
the other vegetables and fruits, and even meats, most people buy large
quantities of tinned articles and so get rid of the whole question.
Personally I think that this is a great mistake. It was a delight to me
to find in Doctor Breck’s “Way of the Woods” that he, if obliged to
choose between bacon and dried apples and chocolate, would always choose
the chocolate and dried apples. And when the question of portage as well
as health enters in, it may be said right here that it is quite
impossible to carry a pack full of tins. But aside from the comfort of
the guides, a tin-can camp is not likely to be a wholesome one. I am
convinced that tin-can camping is responsible for whatever ills people
experience when they go into the woods.

It is quite simple to get different kinds of dried vegetables and
different kinds of dried fruits--and the best are none too good--in
bulk. At present there are even evaporated potatoes on the market for
campers. Such dried foods pack and carry best and are most wholesome.
Both white and yellow eye beans, dried lima beans, peas, whole and
split, onions, evaporated apples, dried prunes, dried peaches and
apricots, rice, raisins, nuts of all kinds, lemons, oranges, and even
bananas, if they are sufficiently green, can be quite easily taken into
camp. Various sorts of flour and meal, too, will be needed. Find out how
much it takes to bake the bread at home and add that to the length of
your stay plus the number of the campers and plus a little more than you
actually need, and you will be able to work out the flour problem for
yourselves. There should be then white and graham flour, or entire
wheat, corn meal, pilot bread (memories of toasted pilot bread in camp
can make one smile from recollected joy), some rolled oats, cereals like
cream of wheat which carries well, cooks easily, and is hearty, and
various sorts of crackers.

Now the writer does not think meat necessary in camp. Except for the
fish caught and the birds shot, none need be eaten. All the meat element
or proteid necessary is provided for in the beans, peas, and nuts. But
it is well to take a flitch of bacon or a few jars of it to use in
broiling or frying the fish or game. Pork and lard are entirely
uncalled-for in a properly thought out dietary.[3] Sufficient good
fresh butter is very much needed. If campers feel that they must have
other tinned meats, the best kinds to take are the most expensive, ox
tongue, and that sort of thing. Several months ago four of us started
off on a ten days’ camping expedition into a very northern wilderness
unknown to us. One of the party, needlessly ambitious, took a preserved
chicken in a glass jar bought from the finest provision house in Boston.
By the time we reached our destination, the chicken was anything but
preserved. Indeed, unless all signs failed, it had already embarked upon
a new incarnation. No arm in the party was long enough to carry it out
and set it on a distant rock for the skunks to visit. Nor shall I soon
forget a certain meat ragout which we concocted in a Canadian
wilderness. We had the ragout, but alas, we had a good deal else, too,
including a doctor who had to cover half a county to reach us! Aside
from the fact that people who live in cities and towns eat altogether
too much meat, in camp there is not only the question of its
uselessness, but also the fact that there are no ways to care for it
properly. Meat makes a dirty camp.[4]

  [3] A brother camper says that he thinks even the fish would feel
  neglected without pork. On the contrary, trout are very sensitive to
  good bacon--in short, prefer it to salt pork. If you do not believe
  this true fish story, then catch two dozen half pound trout, slice
  your bacon thin and draw off the bacon fat. Take out the bacon, put
  the fat back into the frying pan--don’t burn yourself--and pop in
  one-half dozen trout. After the first mouthful you will find that my
  contention that trout are most sensitive to bacon entirely true. Be
  sure to put a little piece of bacon on that first bite. Following
  that, all you have to do is to keep on biting until your share of the
  two dozen trout is consumed. Remarkable how those two dozen will
  fly--almost as if the little fellows had turned into birds! The reason
  I am opposed to pork and lard camping is that we all know nowadays how
  diseased such meat may be. To go into the woods for health and run any
  avoidable risks is folly. Get a flitch of the best bacon and the best
  bacon is Ferris bacon. From this you will get enough fat for all
  frying purposes; also, in case you use fat as a substitute for butter,
  there will be enough bacon fat for cakes, etc.

  [4] I cannot emphasize too often the absolute importance of keeping a
  _clean camp_. Mr. Rutger Jewett, to whom this camping manual and its
  author are indebted for many wise suggestions, thinks that it is not
  always feasible to burn up everything. “Every camp,” he writes, “has
  some empty tin cans. It seems to me that the best plan in this case is
  to have a small trench dug, far enough from the camp to avoid all
  disagreeable results and yet not so far away that it is inaccessible.
  Here cans and unburnable refuse from the kitchen can be thrown and
  kept covered with earth or sand to avoid flies and odors. Everything
  that can be burned, should be.” The only difficulty in my mind is, in
  case the region is hedgehog-infested, that those charming creatures
  will form their usual “bread-line”--this time to the trench--and add
  digging to their accomplishments in gnawing. However! Better rinse out
  your tin cans; Sis Hedgehog is less likely to mistake the can for the
  original delicacy.

All food refuse should be burned up, anyway, never thrown out into the
brush, and it is difficult to burn meat bones. The girl or woman who
keeps a dirty camp is beneath contempt. There is likely to be one
neighbor, if not more, in the vicinity of every camp, who will make
things uncomfortable for the campers. He should be called the camp pig,
and he is the hedgehog. Also his cousin, the skunk, will hang around to
see what is carelessly thrown out or left for him to eat. The hedgehog
is the greediest, most unwelcome fellow in the woods, and even the fact
that the poet Robert Browning had one as a pet will not redeem him in
the eyes of the practical camper. He hangs around any camp that is not
kept clean, gnaws axe handles which the salty human hand has touched,
licks out tin cans which have not been rinsed as they should be before
they are thrown away--in short, he follows up every bit of camp
slackness. There is only one way to keep off hedgehogs and that is to
have an absolutely tidy camp.

In addition to the food stuffs already mentioned, there are several
others which should be taken in the necessary quantities. Salt and
pepper--better leave tea and coffee at home and take cocoa--soda, sugar,
a few candles (helpful in lighting a fire in wet weather, as well as for
illumination), matches, in a rubber box if possible, kerosene if your
camp outfit will permit such a luxury, olive oil, maple syrup for
flapjacks, molasses, condensed and evaporated milk or milk powder.

[Illustration: REFLECTOR BAKER.]

[Illustration: HOLD-ALL.]

[Illustration: PATENTED FRY PAN.]

[Illustration: HUNTING KNIFE.]

[Illustration: BIRCH BARK CUP.]

The articles which need to be cooled can be kept fresh in a nearby
brook. Dead fish, however, should never be allowed to lie in water, but
should be wrapped up in ferns or large leaves. If you are camping for
any length of time, by making a little runway out of a trough you can
have freshly flowing water, cooling butter and other food stuffs, all
the time. Or a receptacle constructed something like a wire bait box
will prove as good as the flowing water. This sunk into a cool pond or
lake, makes an admirable ice chest, into which the finny creatures
cannot get. In some rotation which you have decided upon, the care of
the food should receive the especial attention from one girl every day.
In this way hedgehogs, skunks, mice, rats, ants, will all be kept at a
distance.

There are in addition to these various food stuffs and their care, as I
said in the first chapter, many articles necessary for camp life about
which we must think. If you are going off for a few days with a guide,
he will attend to these things for you. But if you are setting up a camp
for yourself, you will need to have them in mind. They are, two or three
tin pails of convenient sizes nesting or fitting into one another so
that they can be easily carried, a tin reflector baker for outdoor
cooking, a coffee pot if you are foolish enough to take coffee,
enameled ware plates and cups, basins, pans, dishpans, a dishmop, a
chain pot-cleaner, a double boiler, a broiler, knives and forks, spoons
big and little, pepper and salt shakers, flour sifter, a rotary can
opener, a frypan, long-handled and short-handled, a carving knife and a
fish knife if you intend to do a great deal of fishing. There are many
kinds of cooking kits. There is a good one for four persons which may be
obtained at about six dollars from any large hardware dealer. Add to
these things which have been mentioned fish hooks, a lantern, lantern
wicks, nails of different sizes, a hammer--don’t forget the
hammer!--toilet paper, woolen blankets, mosquito netting (if it is a
mosquito-infested district), fly dope to rub on hands and face, oilcloth
for camp table, some twine and some tacks.

Equipped with these articles and what you carry in your knapsacks and
what you wear, there is almost no wilderness in which a girl cannot
have a good time, improve her health, and be the wiser for having
entered the wilderness.




CHAPTER IV

COOK AND COOKEE


Any of you who have ever seen a lumber camp will remember something of
how it is constructed. Separate from the main building is the
superintendent’s office, a little cabin built usually of tar paper and
light timber; then there is the hovel, as it is called, in which the
horses and cows are stabled, and finally there is the big main building
where the crew sleep and eat. But separated from the men’s dormitory by
a passageway that leads into the outdoors, is the big room used as
kitchen and dining room. Just beyond this and opening into the kitchen,
is the room in which the cook and his assistant sleep.

In these two rooms in the wilderness, cook and cookee reign supreme.
They are the most important persons in the camp. They are the best
paid. Their word is law. They have a room by themselves, partly for
cleanliness’ sake, and also because the success of the whole camp
depends more or less upon them. But it is not alone the lumber cook and
cookee who make or mar the success of camp life. It is also the cook in
the hotel camp, and even more, the cook in the hundreds of thousands of
home camps which make glad our holiday season. The king pin of life,
physically--and I might say morally, too, for wherever the health is
excellent the morals are likely to be so--is good, pure, abundant food,
properly cooked.

Nowhere is the art of cooking put so to the test as in camp. You have
less to do with; you have bigger appetites to do for and more need
physically for the food you eat. There is one article which, if you are
planning to do more cooking out of doors than can be done in a pot of
water over a fire and a frying pan, you must have, and that is a tin
reflector baker. One year I was caught in the steadiest downpour which I
have ever known while camping. We were on the West Branch of the
Penobscot, in an isolated region at the foot of Mount Katahdin, the
highest mountain in the state of Maine. We had nothing to sleep under
except a tent fly, and the rain drove in night and day, keeping us
thoroughly wet. Our Indian guides managed to make the fire go in front
of the leaky tar paper shack which we used as a kitchen. There was
nothing we could do profitably but cook, so I amused myself cooking. I
managed to bake, in the rain, before an open fire, within that little
tin reflector baker, some tarts which were very successful. Many other
articles, too, were cooked and came out thoroughly edible. That was
indeed a test of the little tin baker which I shall never forget.

There is one sort of kindling fuel unfailingly useful in the woods. Even
the rain cannot dampen its blaze. The fuel to which I refer is
birch-bark. It will light when nothing else will light, I suppose
because of the large amount of oil in it. Even when you take it wet from
the ground, instead of stripping it from a tree--and you can always get
an inner layer of dry birch-bark from a tree--it will burn and kindle a
good fire. A box of matches is a natural possession for a boy, but I am
not so sure that this is true with a girl. Every camper should have a
hard rubber box of matches in his possession, should know where it
is--always in an inside pocket if possible--and should take good care of
it. But to go back to that wet day and the shining little tin baker on
the West Branch at the foot of Katahdin. There are some woods which are
good for rapid, quiet burning and some that are poor, as every
experienced woodsman will tell you. You must keep, until you know it by
heart, a check list of different kinds of wood, just as you must keep a
food check list and other check lists. If it is a big camp fire, which
for jollity’s sake or the sake of warmth you wish to start, and do not
care to keep going for a long time, almost any sort of wood will serve.
Brush tops or slashings will do quite well to start such a blaze.
Hickory is the best wood for use when you want a deep, quiet hot fire
for cooking. There is scarcely any better wood for the camp cook to use
than apple, but that most campers are not likely to be able to get. The
green woods which burn most readily and are best to start a quick fire
with are birch, white and black, hard maple, ash, oak, and hickory. The
older the tree the more pitch there will be in it, and the pitch is an
effective and noisy kindler of fires. Hemlock, spruce, cedar, and the
larch, all snap badly. I have been obliged to use a good deal of cedar
in an open Franklin in my camp study this last summer. It has never
been safe to leave one of these cedar fires without shutting the doors
of the Franklin stove. I have known the burning cedar to hurl sparks the
entire length of the cabin. As the chinking is excelsior, you can
imagine what one of those cedar sparks would do if it snapped onto a bit
of the excelsior. Cabins not chinked with excelsior are usually chinked
with moss, which is almost as inflammable. With woods that snap, the
camper can never be too careful, and no fire made of snappy wood should
ever be built near a cabin or a tent. One spark, and it might be too
late to check the quickly spreading fire.

There is another thing about which the camp cook and all girls camping
need to be very careful, and that is the drinking water. One cannot be
too exacting in this matter, too scrupulous, too clean. Provided there
is spring or lake water about whose purity there can be no doubt, the
question is settled. In this connection it may be said of drinking:
when in doubt, don’t. A quarter of a mile, a half a mile, a mile, is
none too far to go to get the right sort of water. This can be done in
squads, one set of girls going one day and another the next. This water
must be used for the cooking, too. If there is any doubt about the water
supply, it should be filtered or boiled or both. Go into camp ready to
make pure water one of your chief considerations, and never, under any
circumstances, drink water or eat anything, even fish, which may have
been contaminated by sewage. How vigilant one has to be about this an
experience of my own, some months ago, will show you. The pond to which
we were going was indeed in the wilderness, inaccessible except by
canoe. I had walked one long “carry,” paddled across a good-sized
pond--two miles wide, I think--and had been poling up some quick-water.
The “rips” were low, and scratching would better describe the efforts
to which we were put than poling does. My hands became so dry from the
incessant work with the pole that I had to wet them to get any purchase
on it at all. A greased pig could not have been harder to hold than that
pole. When finally we reached the little mountain-surrounded pond for
which we were making up the quickwater, I was hot, breathless,
exhausted. I could think of only one thing, and that was a drink of
water. There were a few camps about the lake, but it did not enter my
mind that they would empty their sewage into it and take their fish and
their water out of it. Yet after I had drunk, the first thing I noticed,
in passing one camp, was that they unmistakably did empty their sewage
into the pond. No evidence was lacking that it all went into the water
not far from where I had taken a drink. It is not a pleasant subject,
but it is one about which it is necessary to speak.

It is well to take in your kit some place, unless you are an
accomplished cook and have it all in your head, a small, good cook book.
The first thing which you should recollect about the rougher sort of
camping is that you will have no fresh eggs or milk with which to do
your cooking. You should have recipes for making your biscuits,
johnnycake, bread, corn-pone, cakes, flapjacks, cookies, potato soup,
bean soup, pea soup, chowder, rice pudding, and for cooking game and
fish. In that veteran book for campers, “The Way of the Woods,” some
good recipes for the necessary dishes are given. Whatever dishes you
plan to make in the wilderness should be simple and few. Anything beyond
the simplest dietary is not in the spirit of camp life, and will only
detract from rather than add to the general pleasure. Those recipes
which seem to me absolutely necessary I will give to you in the next
chapter.




CHAPTER V

LOG-CABIN COOKERY


Did you ever get to a camp fire or log-cabin stove at eleven o’clock and
know that there must be a hearty meal by twelve? I have lots of times.
The only way to do, if one must meet these emergencies on short notice,
is to have what I call “stock” on hand. In using this word I do not mean
soup stock, either. What I mean is that there must be some vegetables or
cereals or other articles of food at least partially prepared for
eating.

I remember one summer when I was very busy with my writing. I was chief
cook and bottle washer, besides being my own secretary, and I had three
members in my family to look out for--a friend with a hearty appetite, a
big dog with a no less hearty appetite and a rather greedy little Maine
cat. The question was how to carry on the work which was properly my
own and at the same time attend to cooking and other household work. I
hit upon a plan which served excellently with me. I do not recommend it
to any one else, especially to girls who will be going into the woods
for a vacation and will have no duties except those connected with their
camp life. But this plan of mine demonstrated to me once and for all
that, even if one is very busy, it is possible to have a bountifully
supplied table.

The first day I tried the experiment I went into the kitchen at eleven
o’clock. Never had I been more tired of the everlasting question of what
to have to eat. It seemed to me that there was never any other question
except that one, and I determined, with considerable savage feeling, to
escape from it. At eleven o’clock I chopped my own kindling, started my
own fire, and began twirling the saucepans, frying pans and baking tins
which I wanted to use. I was set upon cooking up enough food to last for
three or four days, and I did. At two o’clock not only was all the food
cooked and set away for future consumption, but also we had eaten our
dinner. In that time what had I prepared? There was a big double boiler
full of _corn meal_. After this had been thoroughly boiled in five times
its bulk of water and a large tablespoonful of salt, I poured it out
into baking tins and set it away to cool. Various things can be done
with this stock; among others, once cool, it slices beautifully, and is
delicious fried in butter or in bacon fat, and satisfying to the
hungriest camper. Also a large panful of _rice_ had been cooked. This
had been set aside to be used in _croquettes_, in _rice puddings_ and to
be served plain with milk at supper time. So much for the rice and the
corn meal. I had broken up in two-inch pieces a large panful of
_macaroni_. This was boiled in salt water, part of it cooled and set
away for further use, some of it mixed with a canful of tomato and
stewed for our dinner and the rest baked with tomato and bread crumbs,
to be heated up for another day. On top of the stove, too, I had a
mammoth _vegetable stew_. In this stew were potatoes, carrots, parsnips,
cabbage, beets, turnips, plenty of butter and plenty of salt. The stew
remained on the stove, carefully covered, during the time that the fire
was lighted and was put on again the next day to complete the cooking,
for it takes long boiling to make a really good stew. Inside the oven
were two big platefuls of _apples_ baking. These had been properly cored
and the centers filled with butter and sugar and cinnamon; also two or
three dozen potatoes were baking in the oven, some of which would serve
for quick frying on another day. In addition to the food mentioned, I
set a large two-quart bowl full of lemon jelly with vegetable gelatin.
It took me exactly fifteen minutes to make this jelly and during that
time I was giving my attention to other things besides. I made also a
panful of baking powder biscuits which, considering the way they were
hustled about, behaved themselves in a most long-suffering and
commendable fashion, turning out to be good biscuits after all.

Now, the import of all this is that, with planning, a little practice
and some hopping about, a good deal of cooking and preparation of food
can be done in a short time. Unnecessary “fussing” about the cooking is
not desirable in camp life. The simpler that life can be made and kept
the better. The more we can get away from unwholesome condiments, highly
seasoned foods, too much meat eating and coffee drinking, too many
sweets and pastries, the better. The girl who goes into the woods with
the idea of having all the luxuries--many of them wholly unnecessary
and some of them undesirable--of her home life, is no true “sport.” The
grand object for which we cook in camp is a good appetite and that needs
no sauce and sweets.

What are some of the recipes a girl should have with her for log-cabin
cooking? In the first place, we must take with us a good recipe for
_bread-making_. There are so many I will give none. The best one to have
is the one used at home, but let me say here that no flour so answers
all dietetic needs in the woods as entire wheat. Delicious baking powder
biscuits can be made from it as well as bread. Also know how to _boil a
potato_. You think this is a matter of no importance? It would surprise
you then, wouldn’t it, to know that there are some people devoting all
of their time teaching the ignorant and the poor the art of boiling a
potato. You can boil all the good out of it and make it almost worthless
as food, as well as untempting, or you can cook it properly, making it
everything it ought to be. Know, too, how to _clean a fish_. Oh, dear,
you never could do that! It makes you shiver to think of such a thing.
Very well then, camp is no place for you. Your squeamishness which might
seem attractive some place else will only be silly there, making you a
dead weight about somebody else’s neck. Does your brother Boy Scout know
how to clean a fish? Did you ever know a real boy who did not know how
to clean a fish? Why not a real girl, then, perhaps a Camp Fire Girl?
Oh, but the cook--no, you will be the cook in camp or the assistant
cook. Then get your brother to show you how to cut off its head and to
scale it, if it is a scaly fish, how to slit it open, taking out the
entrails, how to wash it thoroughly and dry it, how to dip it in flour
or meal and to drop it into the sizzling frying pan, how to turn it and
then finally the moment when, crisp and brown, it should be taken out
and served. Know, too, how to pluck and clean a partridge.[5] One day
this last summer I went up the cut behind my camp, intent upon finding a
partridge for our supper. I hadn’t gone far before I found one and with
the second shot of my rifle brought the poor fellow down. I took him
home to the cook whom I had with me then, the daughter of a neighboring
farmer. I gave her the bird and told her to get him ready for supper.
She said she couldn’t; she didn’t know how.

  [5] If your mother and brother have not taught you how to _clean fish_
  and _pluck partridge_, then it would be best to go to the butcher and
  fishman and take lessons of them. If it is possible to go on your
  first expedition with a good guide, that will settle the whole
  difficulty, for your guide will know the best way and be glad to teach
  you.

“Don’t know how?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

She said that she did not know how to pluck and clean a partridge.

“Well,” I replied, “you know how to clean a chicken, don’t you?”

“Mercy me, no!” she objected, looking pale and silly. “Mother always
cleans the chickens.”

Mother always cleans the chickens! Mother does a good deal too much of
the things that are somewhat unpleasant in this American home life of
ours. This girl had been perfectly willing that her mother should do all
the work which seemed to her too disagreeable or unpleasant to do
herself. But I am glad to say, and her mother ought to have been
grateful to me, she helped in dressing that partridge and I did not care
a tinker when, after it had been cooked, she seemed to feel too badly to
eat very much of it. I wonder how her mother had felt after all the
hundreds of chickens she had killed, plucked, cleaned and cooked for
that very girl of hers.

You must know, too, how to _boil an egg_, and do not do as I saw that
same incompetent farmer’s daughter do--I suppose because she had left
almost everything to her very competent mother--do not boil your eggs in
the tea kettle. The water in the tea kettle should be kept as clean and
fresh as possible. There is no excuse for a _dirty tea kettle_. We
should be able in the woods, too, to know how to scramble eggs, if one
has them, and to make omelets, and to boil corn meal, and the best ways
for cooking rice and of baking fruits. Good apple pies, too, if you can
make pastry without too much trouble, will not go amiss.

There are a few recipes which you must get out of the home cook book,
besides the few which I will now give you. _Baking powder biscuits_ are
not easy to make. Even very good cooks sometimes do not have success
with them. Do not be discouraged if at your first effort you should
fail. Keep on trying. You must learn, for I think it can be said that
baking powder biscuits constitute the bread of the woods. I know farming
families in northern Maine who do not know what it is to make raised
bread. They have nothing but baking powder or soda and cream of tartar
bread. Use one quart of sifted flour, one teaspoonful of salt, three
rounding teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one large tablespoonful of
butter and enough milk, evaporated or powdered milk, or fresh if you
have it, to make a soft dough. Mix these things in the order in which
they are given, and when the dough is stiff enough to be cut with the
top of a baking powder can or a biscuit cutter, sprinkle your bread and
also your rolling pin with flour and roll out the dough. It will depend
upon your oven somewhat, but probably it will take you from ten to
fifteen minutes to bake these biscuits.

A recipe for corn meal cake, too, should be in one’s camp kit. The
simpler that recipe the better. Some forms of _corn bread_ take so long
to prepare that they are not suitable for the woods. The one I shall
give you will prove practicable. You might take one from your own home
cook book, too, if you wish. Mix the ingredients in the order in which
they are set down and bake them in a moderately hot oven. If you haven’t
anything else to use, bread tins a third full will serve. One cup of
whole corn meal, a half a teaspoonful of salt and a cup of sugar, a
whole cup of flour, three teaspoonfuls of baking powder--these should be
level--one egg, one cup of milk and a tablespoonful of melted butter.

_Pancakes_ you must also know how to make. One can’t very well get along
in the wilderness without some sort of griddle cake, the simpler the
better. Sour milk pancakes are the best, particularly as it is not
necessary to use eggs if one has sour milk, but that is not always
feasible, as frequently you will have to use evaporated milk. Mix a
pint of flour, a half a teaspoonful of salt, a teaspoonful of soda, one
pint of sour milk, and two eggs thoroughly beaten. See that your frying
pan, for in camp you will cook your cakes in the frying pan, has been on
the stove some time. Grease it thoroughly with bacon fat or butter;
never use lard unless you have to. Cook the cakes thoroughly. You will
find turning your first hot cakes something of an adventure.

There should also be among our log-cabin recipes some directions for
telling you how to make at least two kinds of _nourishing soup_ without
stock. Soup with stock in camp life is not practicable. Pea or bean
soups are the most satisfying and satisfactory. The peas or beans must
be soaked in cold water over night. Pea or bean soups take a long time
to make, so that it is not always practicable to have them in camp. I
will give you a recipe for _split pea soup_. Take with you, if you are
likely to need it, also, a recipe for black bean soup. After soaking
over night, pour the water off the split peas and add to the cup of peas
three pints of cold water. Do not let the liquid catch on the sides of
the pan in which the peas are simmering. When the peas are soft, rub
them through a strainer and put them on to boil again, adding one
tablespoonful of butter, one of flour, one-half teaspoonful of sugar and
a teaspoonful of salt. You don’t need pepper--better leave pepper at
home and if you get so that you don’t miss it in camp, then you need
never use it again. It is wretched stuff, anyway, doing more to harm the
human stomach than almost any other food poison in use.

_Baked beans_, too, make a prime dish for camp life, partly, I suppose,
because, like corn meal and pea and bean soups, potatoes and the
heartier kinds of food, they are so satisfying to the camper’s appetite.
It isn’t necessary to cook your beans with pork, substitute some kind
of nut butter, peanut butter or almond butter, or plenty of fresh dairy
butter. The quart of pea beans should be soaked in cold water over
night. In the morning these beans must be put into fresh water and
allowed to cook until they are soft but not broken. Empty them into a
colander and then put them in the bean pot, or if you haven’t a bean
pot, a deep baking dish will do. Put in a quarter of a cup of molasses
and a half cup of butter and pour a little hot water over the beans.
Keep them all day long in an oven that is not too hot. Don’t put any
mustard in your beans; mustard is as great an enemy to the human stomach
as pepper, and that is saying a good deal.

Against a rainy day when you may wish to amuse yourselves with
additional dishes, or a hungry day when you are cold and ravenous, I
will add a few more recipes. _Corn pone_ is good. This is just corn
bread baked on a heated stone propped up before the fire till the
surface is seared. Then cover with hot ashes and let it bake in them for
twenty minutes. After that dust your cake and eat it. I have told you
how to make _corn meal mush_. With butter and sugar (in case you have no
milk) it is excellent. What do you say to some _buckwheat cakes_ on a
cold, rainy night? If you say “yes,” all you have to do is to mix the
self-raising buckwheat flour with a proper amount of water and drop some
good-sized spoonfuls into a hot, greased frying-pan. The turning of hot
cakes is the next best fun to eating them. Mash your boiled potatoes,
season with butter and salt and milk if you have it. After that, call it
_mashed potato_. It is good to eat and keeps well for paté cakes or a
scallop. When hungry, _fried potatoes_ can be eaten with impunity by the
most zealous dietarian. Fried potatoes are naughty but nice. _Mushrooms_
are nice, too, but dangerous. If you have a trained botanist or someone
who has _always_ gathered mushrooms for eating, then perhaps it will be
safe to cook this bounty the woods spread before you. If you must have
_bacon_ you cannot get bacon that is _too_ good. _Ferris bacon and hams_
are the finest and most reliable cured pork in this country. And since
we are speaking of pork and therefore of frying, let me give you one
caution: _Never use the frying-pan when you can avoid doing so._ No
amount of care can make fried foods altogether wholesome. Even an
out-of-door life cannot altogether counteract the bad effects of fried
food. You can make good _broth_ from small diced bits of game or
whatever meat you have, when the meat is tender, add vegetables and
allow the whole to boil for some time. _Chowder_, too, is a standard
dish for camp life. Take out the bones from the fish and cut up fish
into small pieces. “Cover the bottom of the kettle with layers in the
following order: slices of pork, sliced raw potatoes, chopped onions,
fish, hard biscuit soaked (or bread). Repeat this (leaving out pork)
until the pot is nearly full. Season each layer. Cover barely with water
and cook an hour or so over a very slow fire. When thick stir gently.
Any other ingredients that are at hand may be added.” (Seneca’s “Canoe
and Camp Cookery” and Breck’s “Way of the Woods.”) A _white sauce_ for
fish and other purposes will be found useful. Melt tablespoonful of
butter in saucepan; stir in dessert-spoonful of flour; add ½ teaspoonful
salt; mix with a cup of milk. Except for the ginger, _gingerbread_ is
not a bad cake for the woods. One cup of molasses, one cup of sugar, one
teaspoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda, one cup of hot water,
flour enough to form a medium batter, ½ cup melted butter, and a little
cinnamon will make it. You might experiment with _Chinese tea cakes_
made with ¼ cup butter, one cup brown sugar, ⅛ teaspoonful soda, one
tablespoonful of cold water, and one cup of flour. Shape this mixture
into small balls, and put on buttered sheets and bake in a hot oven.
_Molasses cookies_ are good and substantial, not a bad thing to put in
the duffle bag on a day’s tramp. Use one cup of molasses, one
teaspoonful of ginger, one teaspoonful of soda, two teaspoonfuls of warm
water or milk, ½ cup of butter, enough flour to mix soft. Dissolve the
soda in milk. Roll dough one-third of an inch thick and cut in small
rounds. Two well known candy recipes will add to the pleasures of a
rainy day and a sweet tooth. _Penuche_: Two cups brown sugar, ¾ cup
milk, butter size of a small nut, pinch of salt, one teaspoonful of
vanilla, ½ cup walnut meats. Boil the first four ingredients until soft
ball is formed when dropped in water. Then add vanilla and nuts, and
beat until cool and creamy. _Fudge_: 2 cups sugar, ¾ cup milk, 3
tablespoonfuls cocoa, a pinch of salt, butter size of small nut, ½ cup
walnut meats if desired. Cook same as penuche.

Perhaps, in conclusion, I should advise you to learn something about the
_boiling of vegetables_ and tell you not to cut the top off a _beet_
unless you want to see it bleed, and lose the better part of it. Put
your beet in, top and all. When cooked, it will be time enough to cut it
and pare it. Be sure if you cook _cabbage_ that it is cooked long
enough, and has become thoroughly tender. The same is true with
_parsnips_ and _carrots_. If you are in a hurry slice up your carrots or
parsnips or cabbage or potatoes and they will cook more rapidly.

Be sure that your camp dietary has plenty of _stewed fruits_ in it. That
will be so much to the good in the camp health. A bottle of _olive oil_
also will prove a great resource; in fact, a can of olive oil would be
even more practical and the oil is always capital food. Although the
most elaborate recipes are given for making a _mayonnaise dressing_ it
is really very simple to make, and once made can be kept on hand as
“stock.” I have been making mayonnaise since I was a little girl, and,
as I cook something like the proverbial darky, I do not know that I am
able to give you any hard and fast directions for making the dressing.
With me it is an affair of impulse; I use either the white of an egg or
the whole egg, it does not make any difference--the shell you will not
find palatable--beating it up thoroughly, gradually adding the oil,
putting in a little lemon juice from time to time and plenty of salt.
Cayenne pepper is ordinarily used in mayonnaise, but if the dressing is
properly seasoned with salt and lemon it needs neither cayenne nor
mustard. What it does need is thorough and long beating, a cool place,
and a few minutes in which to harden after it is made.

You will learn one thing in the woods which perhaps will be a surprise.
In that life it is men who are the good cooks. Indeed, it is surprising
how much cleverness men show in domestic ways when they are left to
their own devices and how helpless they become as soon as a woman is
around. If you go astray any woodsman, any guide, almost any “sport” can
help you out in the mysteries of cooking.




CHAPTER VI

THE PLACE TO CAMP


For most girls the place in which they are to camp will depend very
largely on the locality in which they live. But few people want to, or
feel that they can, travel long distances to secure their ideal camping
ground. Yet there are some things about the place to camp which most of
us can demand and get. When one has learned a little of the art of
camping, it is really surprising how many good camping grounds may be
found in one’s own immediate neighborhood.

The first question to be decided is the sort of expedition which we
shall undertake. Are we going to rough it for a few days or a couple of
weeks, taking things as they come and not expecting any of the comforts
we ordinarily have? Are we going to sleep in the open, cook and eat in
the open? If we are to “pack” all that we shall have along with us, is
it to be a river trip or a lake trip in a canoe? Is it to be a walking
expedition or with horses? The least expensive item will prove to be the
one that involves taking the fewest number of guides, and which is
carried out on shank’s mare. Every expedition which is continually on
the move through an isolated and rough country should be equipped with
one guide to each two people. If it is a stationary camp, one guide to
three or four people will be the minimum. But that _is_ the minimum.
Registered guides command big pay for their work, usually about three
dollars a day, and their food and lodging provided for them.

When we cannot make up for our oversight or mistakes or stupidities by
trotting around the corner to procure what we have forgotten, or taking
up a telephone and ordering it sent to us, or sending a message to the
doctor, who must come because we have exhausted ourselves, or got
indigestion from badly planned and badly cooked food, it behooves us to
be careful. Only a word to the wise is necessary. To use a slang phrase
which contains in a nutshell almost all that need be said on the
subject: _don’t bite off more than you can chew_. If you are starting
out on a strenuous walking expedition, be sure that all in the party are
accustomed to hard walking and are properly shod and in fit condition
for the work. With these requirements attended to, your duffle bags full
of the right shelter and food stuff, a capable man or capable men in
charge of the expedition, there is nothing in the world which could be
better for a group of healthy girls than a walking tour. I have walked
scores of miles with my own little pack on my back and been all the
better for the hard work and the hard living. More of us need hard
living as a corrective for our over-civilized lives than we need
luxuries. If it is a canoe trip, it is well for several members of the
party to know how to paddle and even to pole up over the “rips” of
quickwater. Thank fortune that the girl of to-day has sloughed off some
of the inane traits supposed to be excusably feminine, such, for
example, as screaming when frightened. The modern girl doesn’t need to
be told that screaming and jumping when she goes down her first
quickwater in a canoe are distinctly out of order. I remember one
experience in quickwater when I was not sure but that I should have to
jump literally for my life. In some way the Indian with whom I was had
got his setting pole caught in the rocks, and we were swung around
sidewise over a four-foot drop of raging water. If the pole loosened
before we could get the nose of the canoe pointed down stream, the end
was inevitable. No one could have lived in those raging waters. The
canoe would have been rolled over and we pounded to pieces or crushed
upon the rocks. We clawed the racing water madly with the paddles, which
seemed, for all the good they could do, more like toothpicks than
paddles. But slowly, inch by inch, straining every muscle, we managed to
work around. Needless to say, we escaped unharmed, except for a wetting.
In this case as always, a miss is as good as a mile--a little “miss”
which was most cordially received by me. The Indian said nothing, but I
noticed that there was some expression in his face while this adventure
was going on, and that is saying a good deal for an Indian.

After some of the questions connected with the kind of expedition are
thought out, it is just as well to consider the place in which one
wishes to camp, for that will determine much else. All things being
equal, it is well to get a sharp contrast in locality, because that
means the maximum of change and tonic. In my experience there are only
two kinds of camping grounds to be avoided--no, I will say three. First,
there is swampy, malarial land, infested by mosquitoes and other
unpleasant creatures. Second, there is ground on which no water can be
found. Camp life without access to water is an impossible proposition.
And thirdly--a possibility fortunately which does not occur in many
localities--ground that is infested by venomous snakes is unsafe. Even
in so beautiful and fertile a region as the Connecticut Valley, where I
live when not at my camp in the Moosehead region, and where I frequently
go camping, the question of snakes has to be taken into consideration. I
have encountered both the rattlesnake and the copperhead, two of the
most deadly reptiles known, in the Connecticut Valley.

If, when you are at home, you live on land that is low, and high land is
accessible for your expedition, I think you cannot do better than camp
on the hills or the mountains. On the other hand, if you are ordinarily
accustomed to living among the hills, a camping ground on low land by
sea or lake will bring you the greatest change. Some girls might prefer
to camp deep in the very heart of the woods. Personally I do not. I
think it is likely to be very damp there, and to be so enclosed on every
side that the life grows dull. I like a camping ground on the shore of a
pond, or on a hill side with a big outlook, or at the mouth of a river.

One of the most beautiful camping grounds I have ever known is in a
deserted apple orchard miles away from civilization. Once upon a time
there was a farm there, but the buildings were all burned down. Remote,
perfect, sheltered, I often think the original Garden of Eden could not
have been more beautiful. And there is the original apple tree, but in
this case most seductive as apple sauce. You make a mistake if, before
you get up your camp appetite, you assume that apple sauce need not be
taken into account. When your camp appetite is up, you will find that
the original sauce on buttered bread will put you into the original
paradisaic mood. And there are all sorts of extension of the apple that
are as good as they are harmless, apple pie, apple dumpling, apple cake,
and baked apples.

It may not seem romantic to you, but you will find it practical and,
after all, delightful to camp a mile or so away from a good farmhouse,
as far out on the edge of the wilderness as you can get, for, the farm
within walking distance, it is possible to have a great variety of food:
fresh milk and cream, eggs, an occasional chicken, new potatoes, and
other vegetables in season. With the farm nearby, you can say, as in the
“Merry Wives of Windsor”: “Let the sky rain potatoes!” and you have your
wish fulfilled. It is probable, too, that the farmer in such an
isolated region will be glad to help in pitching the tents, in lugging
whatever needs to be lugged from the nearest village or station, in
making camp generally and, finally, in striking the camp. It is likely
that for a reasonable sum he will be glad to let you have one of his
nice big farm Dobbins and an old buggy for cruising around the country.
In any event, choose ground that affords a good run-off and is dry;
select a sheltered spot where the winds will not beat heavily upon your
tents, and never forget that clean drinking water is one of the first
essentials. Keep away from contaminated wells and all uncertain
supplies. With these injunctions in mind, you can find only a happy,
healthful, invigorating home among the “primitive pines” or under the
original apple tree.




CHAPTER VII

CAMP FIRES

  “The way to prevent big fires is to put them out while they are
  small.”--CHIEF FORESTER GRAVES.


Lightly do we go into the woods, bent upon a holiday. There we kindle a
fire over which we are to cook our camp supper. How good it all smells,
the wood smoke, the odor of the frying bacon and fish and potatoes; how
good in the crisp evening air the warmth of the camp fire feels; and
above all, how beautiful everything is, the deep plumy branches on whose
lower sides shadows from the firelight dance, the depth of darkness
beyond the reach of the illuminating flame, the rich strange hue of the
soft grass and moss on which we are sitting! It is all beautiful with
not a suggestion of evil or terror about it, and yet, unchecked, there
is a demon of destruction in that jolly little camp fire before which we
sit. Now the supper! Nothing ever tasted better, nothing can ever taste
so good again, the fish and bacon done to a turn, the potatoes lying an
inviting brown in the frying pan, and the hot cocoa, made with condensed
milk, steaming up into the cool evening air.

After supper we lie about the fire and sing or dream. Perhaps some one
tells a story. The hours go so rapidly that we do not know where they
have gone. And when the evening is over? The fire is still glowing, a
bed of bright coral coals and gray ash. The fire will just go out if we
leave it. Besides, we haven’t time to fetch water to put it out with.
No, nine chances out of ten, if we leave the fire it will not go out,
but smoulder on, and a breeze coming up in the night or at dawn, the
fire springs into flame again, catching on the surrounding dry grass
and pine needles. Soon, incredibly soon, it begins to leap up the
trunks of trees. Before we know it, it is springing from tree to tree,
faster than a man can leap or run.

[Illustration: NESSMUK RANGE.]

[Illustration: SMALL COOK FIRE.]

In dry weather you and I could go out into the woods anywhere, and with
a match not much bigger than a good-sized darning needle, set a blaze
that would sweep over a whole county, or from county to county, or from
state to state. Millions of dollars’ worth of damage would be done, and
the chances are that the careless, wanton act would be the means of
having us put into prison--which is precisely where, given such
circumstances, we should be.

Have we ever stopped to think for a moment, we who camp so joyfully,
what loss and injury such carelessness on our part may mean to a whole
community? To begin with, there are the forests themselves, and all they
represent in actual timber, in promise for future growth, and in
security for rain supply. Then in fighting the fire thousands of
dollars’ worth of wages will have to be paid and hundreds of men’s lives
will be in danger. The sweep and fury of such forest fires, unless one
has lived in the neighborhood of one as I have, is beyond the
comprehension or the imagination. Burning brands are blown sixty feet
and more over the tops of the highest trees and the heads of the men who
are fighting the fire. Before they can check the blaze of the fire
nearest them, one beyond them has already been started.

Also there are the life aspects, big and small, of such a fire. Not only
are the lives of the men who fight the blaze endangered, but all the
homes, camps, farmhouses, villages, and their inmates are in imminent
risk. What it has taken others years to gather together, to construct,
may be swept away in a few hours. Helpless old people, equally helpless
little children--all may be burned.

Beyond this question of human life, which every one will admit is a very
great one, is still another which, I am sorry to say, will not seem so
important to some girls. Maybe it is not, but if you have ever heard the
screams of an animal, terrified by fire, being burned to death, as I
have; if you have ever heard the blind frenzied terror of the stampede
which takes place, the beating of hoofs and the screams of creatures
that are trying to escape, but do not know how, as I have heard
them--then you will have a new sense of the tragedy which a forest fire
means to the creatures of the forest. Of a forest fire it may be said,
as of an evil, that there is absolutely no good in it: it is all bad,
all devastating, all injurious.

In a forest fire scores, hundreds, thousands of wild creatures are
killed, those little creatures which, given the chance, are so friendly
with their human brothers. Think, the little chickadees, tame, gay,
resourceful, filling even the winter woods with their song, the tiny
wrens, the beautiful thrushes, the squirrels and chipmunks, who need
only half an invitation and something on the table to accept your offer
of a nut cutlet, the rabbit who lets you come within a few feet of him
while he still nibbles grass, and looks trustingly at you out of his
round prominent eyes, the bear that thrusts his head out of the edge of
the woods, full of curiosity to see what you are doing, the deer, even
the little fawn, who will become your playmate and take sugar from your
hand--all these trusting, interested, friendly creatures are killed by
the hundreds of thousands in a forest fire. The smoke stifles them, the
loud reports of the wood gases escaping from the burning trees terrify
them, and the light and heat confuse them. It is difficult to find a
single good thing to say for a forest fire. It spells devastation, loss,
untold suffering, and in its path there is only desolation. The
merciful fire-weed springs up after it, trying with its summer flame to
cover the black ravage, the gutted ground, where the demon has burned
deep into the peaty subsoil. Everywhere one sees what an awful fight for
life has taken place: thousands of little birds, suffocated by the
smoke, have dropped into the flames, thousands of creatures, tortured by
the heat, have rushed into the fire instead of away from it. Worse than
the flood is fire, because the suffering is so much the greater. Somehow
there is something utterly, irredeemably tragic to any one who has gone
over these great fire-swept stretches of land in our country; the thick
stagnant water that is left, the charred bones, and the look of waste
which shall never meet in the space of a human life with repair.

No time to put out the camp fire? That little fire will just go out of
itself, will it? Yes, probably, when it has accomplished what I have
described for you, when it has killed happy life, razed the beautiful
trees, gutted out the earth, and devoured, careless of agony, all that
it will have. Fire is the dragon of our modern wilderness, and it will
be glutted and gorged, and not satisfied until it is. That jolly little
camp fire is worth keeping an eye on, it is worth the trouble, even if
we have to go half a mile to fetch it, to get a pail of water and ring
the embers around with the wet so that the fire cannot spread. Never
leave a camp fire burning; no registered guide would do such a thing,
and no sportsman. It is only those who don’t know or who are criminally
careless who would. If the public will not take responsibility in this
matter, the fire wardens are helpless. Some enemies these men must
inevitably fight: the lightning which strikes a dead, punky stump in the
midst of dry woods, which, smouldering a long while, finally bursts into
flame; the spark from an engine; even spontaneous combustion due to
imprisoned gases acted upon by sun-heat. But there is one enemy which
the fire wardens should not need to meet, and that is man: the boy or
girl camping, the man who drops a cigar stump or match carelessly onto
dry leaves, the hunter who uses combustible wadding in his shotgun. Let
us help the fire wardens, those men who live on lonely mountain summits
or in the midst of the wilderness with eyes ever vigilant to detect the
starting of a fire--let us help, I say, these fire wardens to get rid of
one nuisance at least, and let us keep our great, cool, wonderful
American forests as beautiful as they have ever been and should always
be for those who are in a holiday humor.




CHAPTER VIII

OTHER SMOKE


There will not be much opportunity to dwell on all the wealth of
information that comes to the real camper. The life of the woods is not
only a lively one, but one teeming with intelligences and the kind of
information which one can get no place else. My years of camping have
stored my mind full of pictures and full of memories about which I could
write indefinitely. In the practical activities of camp life we mustn’t
forget that the silent wonderful life of the wilderness is ours to study
if we but bring keen eyes to it, quick hearing and receptive minds.

Let me tell you of one experience which I had some four years ago on the
edge of a solitary little pond in the forest wilderness. Our way lay
over a narrow trail, now through birches full of light, then through
maples, past spruce and other trees, down, down, down toward the little
pond which lay like a jewel at the bottom of a hollow. It was a favorite
spot for beavers and we were going to watch them work. Their rising time
is sundown, so we should be there before they were up. It was growing
quieter and quieter in the ever-quiet woods, and when we hid ourselves
behind some bushes near the edge of the pond on the opposite side from
the beaver houses, there was scarcely a sound, and the drip of the water
from a heron’s wings as the bird mounted in flight, seemed astonishingly
loud.

Soon the beavers, unaware of us, came out of their houses and began to
work, steadily and silently. We knew them for what they were, builders
of dams, of bridges, of houses, mighty in battle so that a single stroke
from their broad flat tails kills a dog instantly, wood cutters,
carriers of mud and stone--animals endowed with almost human
intelligence and with an industry greater than human. And I never saw
work done more quietly, efficiently and silently than I did that night
by the edge of Beaver Pond.

As we sat there peering through the bushes I thought instinctively of
the silent work which we do within ourselves or which is done for us.
Deep down within us so much is going on of which “we,” as we speak of
the conscious outer self, are not aware. Take, for example, the frequent
and common experience of forgetting a word or a name. Despite the
greatest effort we cannot recall it, and finding ourselves helpless we
dismiss the matter from our minds and go on to other things. Suddenly,
without any seeming effort on our part the word has come to us. Now this
reveals a great truth about a great silent power: _all we have to do is
to set the right forces to work and frequently the work is done for us_.
With this serviceable power within us, why not make use of it
habitually? It renews itself constantly and waits for us to call upon it
for protection, for comfort, for correction and strength. It insists
only that we think as nearly rightly as we can. Beavers of silence are
busy within us.

Much of the work of this silent power is done in our sleep-time. It is
important, therefore, that our last thoughts at night and our first in
the morning should be the best of which we are capable. Prayer is a
profound acknowledgment of this power within us. We have all heard the
expression, “the night brings counsel.” And probably most of us have
said, “Oh, well, we’ll just sleep on that!” Why “sleep on it”? Because
we have confidence in this silent power whose processes, whether we
sleep or wake, are constantly at work within us, even as night and day,
a natural power, directs the growth of tree and flower. Again we have
counted upon the work of industrious beavers of silence--the silent
workers within each one of us.

The woods are full of lessons never to be learned any place else.
Insensibly are we, in this vast big intelligent life of the forest, led
on to meditate about the things we see. I often wish not only that I
could place myself at certain times in those solitary places by edge of
pond, deep in forest, on the hillside, following the trail, but also
that I might send a friend or two to the healing which can be found in
the wilderness. For example, the girls who find nothing but troubles and
vexations in life, who groan if the conversation languishes, are likely
to have some of their troubles slip away from them and their talk become
more cheerful. Who can be in the woods, who can live in the great out of
doors and not feel optimistic, at least hopeful and interested? To
every girl inclined to be moody, often to suffer from the conviction
that living is difficult and perhaps not worth while, I commend camp
life. Activity, distraction are its powerful and wholesome remedies for
melancholy. In that life one is obliged to work mind and body much as
the beavers work, one’s attention is held to something every minute. The
whole current of our thoughts has been changed and for the time being we
are distracted from the old bruised ways of thinking. The very
alteration that comes with wood life gives us a chance to think rightly.
Who can be troubled or bored or bad tempered and follow the trail? Who
can be indifferent and be conscious of the energy and intelligence of
beaver and squirrel, of rabbit and bird, of deer and moose? Soon the
whole misery-breeding brood of cares, of doubts, of perplexities that
existed before we left our home drop away from us. We can use the
influence of this vast sane life of the wilderness for ourselves and by
its strength make good.




CHAPTER IX

FITTING UP THE CAMP FOR USE


Any girl who has crossed the ocean knows how impossible, the first time
she entered her little white cabin, that bit of space looked as a place
in which to sleep and to spend part of her time. There seemed to be no
room in it for anything; it was difficult to turn around in, there were
so few hooks on which to hang things, and the berth--dear me, that
berth! So her thoughts ran. Yet gradually, as she learned the ropes, she
was able to make it homelike. With experience she learned that the more
bags she had in which to put things, the easier it was to keep this
little stateroom in order. The next time she took with her every
conceivable sort of bag for every conceivable sort of object. Also she
had learned that the more she could do without unnecessary things in her
cabin and steamer trunk, the more comfort was hers to enjoy. By the time
she had crossed the ocean often, she had learned the art of having
little but all that she needed with her--the art of making herself
comfortable in a stateroom.

Even so is there an art in learning how to camp, a happy art of which
there is always something left to learn. The oldest campers never get
beyond the point where they can make a slight improvement in their kit
or their methods. In the end you will work out your own salvation for
the kind of camping you wish to do. It is my intention to point out to
you only what might be called the ground plan of fitting up a camp for
use. Those little individual adaptations which every one of us makes,
increasing familiarity with camp life will help you to make for
yourselves.

First, last, and always, when making out your camp lists, revise them
carefully with the idea of cutting out everything unnecessary. All
besides what you actually need will be clutter. The best way to do is to
make out your lists, putting down everything that comes to you. Then go
over them by yourselves and a second time with some one else. Your check
lists for camp are important and should always be conscientiously made
out, with nothing left to chance, nothing done hit or miss.

If you are to furnish a camp, remember that your packing boxes can do
great work in helping to set you up in your new home. In rough camping
such boxes do well for dressers, washstands and, with a little
carpentry, also for clothes presses. A piece of enameled cloth on the
top of the one to be used as a washstand, and a towel or white curtain
strung on a string in front of it, behind which you can put dirty
clothes, make a thoroughly satisfactory article of furniture. In camp
there is no need to think about elegance. Fitness and usefulness are all
the girl need ever consider. It is astonishing how much beauty your
homely cabin and white tent will acquire--a beauty all their own.

For tent camping the usual camp cot bed is probably most satisfactory,
for it is light and readily carried. If you are on the march and
carrying at the most a tent fly for protection, you will, of course,
sleep on bough beds or browse beds. Small, cut saplings, well trimmed,
make good springs for beds. Any guide can help you to make the beds, and
you would better be about it early, for it takes a good three-quarters
of an hour to make a comfortable bough bed. Perhaps a few suggestions
will not come amiss. You will, of course, have both good hunting knives,
worn in a leather sheath on a leather belt, and belt-sheath hatchets.
With the hatchet cut down a stout little balsam tree. From this break
the tips from the big branches, having them about one foot in length.
These foot-length stems make good bed springs and are the only bed
springs you will have on a balsam couch unless you provide the spring
yourself because of some green worm who is industriously measuring off
the length of your nose, no doubt in amazement that there should be
anything so extraordinarily long in the world. However, he is a harmless
little chap, and the balsam tree having treated him very kindly, he will
be greatly surprised at any other kind of entertainment which he may
receive from you. Now, having got your “feathers,” select a smooth piece
of ground with a slight slope toward the foot. Press the stems of the
feathers into the earth, laying them tier after tier as you have seen a
roof shingled, until your bed is wide enough, long enough, and soft
enough to give you a good and sweet-scented night of sleep upon it.
Lay a fair-sized log along each side and across the foot. This balsam
bough bed can be made up as often as you wish with fresh feathers. Place
one blanket on top and it is ready for your use. If you have got pitch
on your hands in doing this, rub them with a little butter or lard and
it will come off.

[Illustration: DR. CARRINGTON’S SLEEPING BAG.]

[Illustration: “KENWOOD” SLEEPING BAG.]

[Illustration: RUSTIC CAMP COT.]

There is still an easier bed to make. A bag of stout bed ticking, filled
with leaves and grass, forms an excellent mattress and has the virtue of
being portable, for the bag can always be emptied, folded up, packed,
and refilled at the next camp ground. A thin rubber blanket or poncho
laid over this makes it an absolutely dry bed at all times. If you are
to camp in a log cabin, probably the most comfortable bed for you to
plan is a spring, bought at the nearest village, and nailed onto log
posts a foot and a half high. With your ticking mattress filled with
straw, your day lived in the great out of doors, no one will need to
wish you pleasant slumber.

It is well to have a good supply of tarlatan on hand. This is finer than
mosquito netting and therefore more impervious to stinging insects. If
you camp in June, or the first week or so in July, you are likely in
many parts of the country to find black flies, mosquitoes, and midges to
battle against. There should be enough tarlatan to use over the camp bed
and also enough to cover completely a hat with a brim and to fall down
about the neck, where it can be tied under the collar. A more expensive
head-net of black silk Brussels net can be made. This costs a good deal
more, but the great advantage of it is, that the black does not alter
the colors of the world out upon which one looks. Don’t make any mistake
about the importance of some kind of netting and fly dope, or “bug
juice,” as the antidotes for insect bites are sometimes called. There
are various kinds of fly dope, any one of which is likely to prove
useful. There is an excellent recipe for the making of your own fly dope
in Breck’s “Way of the Woods,” which I give here.[6] A tiny vial of
ammonia will also prove useful. One drop on a bite will often stop
further poisoning from an insect sting. Inquiries should always be made
beforehand whether one is likely to encounter black flies and midges.
Those who have met them once are not likely to wish to have a second
unprotected meeting. They are the pests of the woods and the wilderness.

  [6]  “Breck’s Dope:
       Pine tar                         3 oz.
       Olive oil                        2  “
       Oil pennyroyal                   1  “
       Citronella                       1  “
       Creosote                         1  “
       Camphor (pulverized)             1  “
       Large tube carbolated vaseline.

Heat the tar and oil and add the other ingredients; simmer over slow
fire until well mixed. The tar may be omitted if disliked.”

I will give, just as they occur to me, a few other articles which will
be useful in the camp life: a small cake of camphor to break over things
in the knapsack and keep off crawlers; a small emergency box containing
surgeon’s plaster and the usual things; vaseline, witch hazel; jack
knife; tool kit; a map of the region in which you are camping and a
diary in which to take notes. To these might be added sewing articles, a
sleeping bag if you care to use one, and a folding brown duck waterpail.
The catalog from any sporting goods place will suggest a thousand other
articles which you may care to have.

With a few planks to saw up into lengths, and a few white birch
saplings, a most attractive camp dinner table can be made. Over this a
piece of white oilcloth should be laid and kept clean by the use of a
little sapolio. It is best not to buy an expensive stove for the cabin.
A second-hand kitchen range, which can be purchased for a few dollars,
will do quite well for the cooking cabin or shack, and an open Franklin
stove for the living cabin. If one is going to camp in tents and wants a
stove in one of them, it will be necessary to buy a regular tent stove.
Anything else would not be safe.

As far as actual furniture is concerned, except for camp stools or
benches and camp chairs, if you wish to be very elegant, the camp is now
furnished. But there are still to be considered the necessary utensils
for cooking and other purposes. I will enumerate them again just as they
occur to me, and not necessarily in the order of their importance:
kerosene oil can, molasses jug, pails, a tin baker, a teapot, tin and
earthen dishes, tin and earthen cups, basins for washing, pans for
baking and for milk, dishpans, dishmop, double boiler, broiler, knives,
forks, teaspoons, tablespoons, mixing spoons, pepper box, salt shaker,
nutmeg grater, flour sifter, can opener, frying pans--one with a long
handle for use in cooking over open fires--butcher knife, bread knife,
lantern, bucket, egg beater, potato masher, rolling pin, axe, hatchet,
nails, hammer, toilet paper, woolen blankets, rubber blankets, crash for
dish towels, yellow soap, some wire, twine, tacks, and a small fireless
cooker if you know how to use one. A good fireless cooker can be built
on the premises.

Possessed of these articles, any one who knows anything about the woods
can be most comfortable. They can, of course, be added to indefinitely.
One may make camp life as expensive and complicated as one pleases. But
to do that seems a pity, for it is against the very good and spirit of
the wilderness life. The wood life and all its new and invigorating
experience should take us back to nature. It is for that we go into the
wilderness and not to bring with us the luxuries of civilization. Part
of the wholesomeness of camp life lies in learning to do without, in the
fine simplicity which we are obliged to practice there. Common sense is
the law of the wilderness life, and let us be sure that we follow that
law.




CHAPTER X

THE POCKETBOOK


One of the objects of some girls on their camping expeditions is to keep
the trip from becoming too expensive. The maximum of value must be got
from the minimum of pence. And I think that is as it should be, for,
with economy, the life is kept nearer a simple ideal, is made more
active and more wholesome. All sorts and conditions of camping have been
my lot, the five-dollar-a-day camping in a log cabin (?) equipped with
running water and a porcelain tub, and the kind of camping one does
under a fly with the rain and sunshine and wind driving in at their
pleasure. Although I do not advise the latter as far as health results
are concerned, given that the party is in fair condition they will be
none the worse for the experiment.

Camping for a party of four or five should usually cost something
between eight dollars and eighteen dollars apiece per week. This rate
includes a guide and a good deal of service, a rowboat, a canoe, and no
care about food. But the longer I camp the more I am of the opinion that
the simpler and more independent the life is, the greater health and
pleasure it will bring. It has been said about camping, “Much for
little: much health, much good fellowship and good temper, much
enjoyment of beauty--and all for little money and, rightly judged, for
no trouble at all.”

[Illustration: “TANALITE” WATERPROOF WALL TENT.]

[Illustration: TOILET TENT.]

[Illustration: KHAKI STANDARD ARMY DUCK WALL TENT.]

[Illustration: TENT STOVE-PIPE HOLE.]

[Illustration: FRAZER CANOE TENT.]

[Illustration: WATERPROOF DINING FLYS FOR WALL TENT.]

The girl who is the right sort gets more fun out of camp life when she
does at least part of the work herself. Let her economize and use her
own ingenuity and do the work. Any group of three or four girls can
provide all the necessary “grub” for themselves at $3 a week per
capita. This sum does not include rental or purchase of tent. A good
tent, 7 × 7, big enough for two at a pinch, can be bought complete (this
does not include fly) for about $7. You can get tents second-hand often
for a song, or as a loan, or you can rent your tent for 10 cents a day.
Get at least a few numbers of one or several of the following sporting
magazines: _Outing_, _Country Life in America_, _Forest and Stream_,
_Field and Stream_, _Recreation_, _Rod and Gun in Canada_. Look in the
advertisement pages of these magazines for the names of sporting goods
houses and send for catalogs. Then choose your style of tent. The
different kinds of tents are legion. The Kenyon Take-Down House, too, is
a capital camp home. It is “skeet”-proof and fly-proof. Send to Michigan
for a catalog, and then go like the classic turtle with your shell on
your back. In groups of four or more, the $10 laid by for a vacation
should bring two holiday weeks--possibly a day or so over; $15, three
weeks and a bit over, and $20 a whole glorious month. Expensive camping
may be the “style” in certain localities, but it is not necessarily the
“fun.”

For eight weeks this past summer my family of two members camped with
two servants. In addition we had the occasional services of a man who
did all the heavy work. There was not enough for the servants to do in
the cottage and log cabin of our establishment. They were discontented,
faultfinding, and wholly out of the spirit of camp life. All of the day
that their tone of voice reached was helplessly ruined. The only way to
keep the camp joy and pleasure was to keep out of their way. On our camp
table we had silver, embroidered linen cloths, the same food, in almost
the same variety, that we had it at home, and the same amount of
service. All I can say is that it was a perfect nuisance--as perfectly
planned and executed a nuisance as one could well conceive. Everywhere
these servants looked they found things which did not suit them. What I
think they wished was a modest twenty-thousand-dollar cottage in that
great and wonderful wilderness.

[Illustration: FRAME FOR BOUGH LEAN-TO.]

[Illustration: BOUGH LEAN-TO.]

In the autumn I camped alone for two weeks in a log cabin. I say alone.
I was not alone, for I had three friends with me--a collie puppy, a
blind fawn, and a year-old cat. They were the best of companions--for
better I could not have asked. I never heard a word of faultfinding, and
I was witness to a great deal of joy. It is a curious fact about camp
life that if a girl has weak places in her character, if she is selfish
or peevish or faultfinding or untidy, these weaknesses will all come
out. But my four-footed friends were good nature itself, young, growing,
happy, contented. And they had excellent appetites. I tell you this
because I want you to see how much of an item their food was in the
expenses I shall enumerate. This might be called a little intimate
history of at least one camp pocketbook. The fawn had a quart of milk a
day and much lettuce, together with the kind of food which deer live
upon: leaves, grass, clover, ferns. I had to pay for her bedding of hay.
The puppy and the cat shared another quart of milk between them. The cat
hunted by night, but the puppy was fed entirely by hand on bread, milk,
an occasional egg, cereals, and vegetables. My own fare consisted of all
the bread and butter I wished, cocoa, condensed milk, bananas, apples,
eggs, potatoes, beans, nuts, raisins, cauliflower, chocolate, and a few
other articles. And there was, too, the denatured alcohol to be paid
for--a heavy item, for I used only a chafing dish and a small spirit
lamp. The milk was eight cents a quart on account of the carriage, the
butter was thirty-eight cents a pound, the eggs twenty-five cents a
dozen. Except for cutting up and splitting the wood for my open Franklin
stove, the wood cost me nothing. But I paid a man a dollar for half a
day’s work. We weren’t seven, but we were four in that camp community.
How much do you think the food for all averaged per week in those two
weeks? Three dollars a week, and we had all that we wanted and more,
too.

When girls plan carefully and intelligently, when they exercise good
sense in the cooking and care of food, there is no reason why, with a
party of four or five girls, from three dollars to four dollars apiece
per week should not cover all living, exclusive, of course, of the
traveling expenses. And the camping can be done for less. I commend
these expense items to all Vacation Bureaus and to Camp Fire Girls.

In the two weeks I camped alone I was very busy with my writing. To this
I was obliged to give most of the daylight. Besides this, I had much
business correspondence to attend to. It takes time to care properly for
animals, and my pets had not only to be fed, but also to be brushed and
generally cared for. I planned to spend some time every day with the
blind fawn so that I might amuse her. I did all these things, took care
of my little cabin, had time for a walk every afternoon, and went to bed
when the birds did, to get up the next morning at five o’clock. Had I
been able to give my thought entirely to the food question, I am certain
that the expense of these items might have been made even less.

Some girls will think this is getting back to the simple life with a
vengeance. So it was but I can assure you that those two weeks were most
happy and profitable in every way--far better than the over-served,
over-fed months which had preceded them. For any girl who needs to
forget how superficial to the real needs of life the luxuries are; for
any girl who is lazy in household ways; for any girl who needs character
building; for any girl who is in need of deep breathing and the pines;
for any girl who wants more active life than she gets in her own home;
for any girl who is of an experimental or adventurous turn of mind; for
any girl who needs to be drawn away from her books; for any girl who
wants to form new friendships in a big, sane, and beautiful world where
the greetings are all friendly; for any girl--for every girl--who wants
much for little; the log cabin, the tent, the shack in the wilderness,
by pond or lake, upon the hillsides or in the valleys, will prove a “joy
forever.”




CHAPTER XI

THE CAMP DOG


When I began to go into the wilderness to camp, I was much more
credulous than I am now. Everywhere I went in the woods I saw an
implement which looked like a cross between a pickaxe with a long handle
and the largest pair of tweezers ever seen. This was always lying up
against something as if just ready for use, much as one sees an axe
resting against a cabin wall or on a chopping block. I couldn’t make out
what this could be used for. Finally, curiosity getting the better of me
and no opportunity for seeing it used offering itself, I asked.

“Oh, that,” answered the guide with a twinkle in his eye, “that is the
camp dog.”

“How nice!” I thought. “Why is it called camp dog?”

“Well, you see it does most of the work for us and being so faithful and
handy we’ve just got naturally into the way of calling it a camp dog.”

I was still more impressed when he gave me then and there several
illustrations of its usefulness. But the end of the tale of the camp dog
is not yet,--in fact it was a very long tale for me, the end of which
you shall have in good season.

Generally speaking it may be said that it is the guide and not this
implement which is the camp dog. It is he who is faithful, always handy,
always willing. And it is he who is more imposed upon than any other
member of the camp community. The guide is a responsible person,--_the_
responsible person. He is usually registered and his pay is always good.
He needs every dollar he gets and every bit of authority, too, for he
works hard and often for groups of people who are thorough in only one
respect and that is in their irresponsibility. The guide has to be sure
that fires are kindled in the right places and that they are really out
when they should be; he must keep his party from foolhardy acts of any
kind; he must be sure that they have a good time and certain that they
are not overtaxed; if it comes off cold or is cold, he must keep them
warm; he must see, despite every vicissitude, that they are enjoying
themselves; he must do the cooking--and he must be a good cook,--boil
the coffee, wash the dishes, pitch and strike the tents; he must pilot
the members of the party to the best places for fishing, often bait
their hooks or teach them how to bait, dig their worms; and give their
first lessons in casting a fly; must instruct them in all necessary wood
craft and keep them from shooting wildly; he must see that the game laws
of the state are observed, also the fire laws; if anything should
happen to a member of his party, he will, in all likelihood, be held
responsible for it; and finally, always and all the time, no matter how
he himself feels, he must be agreeable, obliging, useful.

Now if the man who has all these burdens to bear is not a camp dog, I
should like to know what he is? To those of us who have been into the
woods year after year, it is a sort of boundless irritation to see some
members of the camping party sitting about idle while the guide does the
work. Part of the value of camp life is its activity, its activities.
Another part of its good is the skill which comes from learning to be
useful in the woods. The life out-of-doors should be a constant training
in manual work,--call it wood work if you wish. I am reminded of a story
told in “Vanity Fair” about a lazy, indifferent student who was in the
class of a famous physicist. The freshman sprawled in the rear seat and
was sleeping or was about to go to sleep.

“Mr. Fraser,” said the physicist sharply, “you may recite.”

Fraser opened his eyes but he did not change his somnolent pose.

“Mr. Fraser, what is work?”

“Everything is work.”

“What, everything is work?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I take it you would like the class to believe that this desk is
work?”

“Yes, sir,” wearily, “wood work.”

From the moment that school of the woods is entered every girl has her
wood work cut out for her, if she is taking camping in the right spirit.
It is all team play in the wilderness, or if it is not, it is a rather
poor game. Helpfulness is one of the first rules and every camper should
be willing to help the guide. Usually the guides are a fine set of self
respecting, dignified, resourceful men. And I think it might be said
with considerable truthfulness that when they are not what they ought to
be, it is nine times out of ten due to the undesirable influence of the
parties they have worked for. Your guide is your equal in most respects
and your superior in others. He should be met on a footing of equality.
I use this word advisedly and I do _not_ mean familiarity. Well-bred
girls do not meet anyone, whether in the wilderness or in civilization,
on this footing immediately. The party should be willing and glad to
help the guide in every possible way. That does not signify doing his
work for him but it does indicate helping him.

A routine of some sort should be adopted and is one of the best ways to
assist him. One girl should be on duty at one time and another at
another and all in regular rotation. No camp life can go on
successfully without some law and order of this sort. For it is just as
necessary for the smooth running of household wheels in the log cabin as
it is in the city home. Whoever occupies the guide’s position, that is
the one who is chiefly responsible for everything, should be ably helped
by the whole party but not by the whole party at the same time. Evolve a
system for the particular conditions of the camp life in which you find
yourself and stick to it. Let one girl or one set of girls help one day
and another the next. Let the girl be detailed to do one kind of work
one day and another another. This system, with proper rotation, means
that nobody gets tired of her work. A girl cannot be too self-reliant if
she is ever to be wise in the way of the woods. There is no need for
discouragement if everything is not learned at once, for camping is like
skating and is an art to be learned only through many tumbles and
mistakes. Be prepared to take it and yourself lightly--in short, to
laugh readily over the mistakes made in the art of living in the woods.

Now we have come to the very tip of the tail of the camp dog. You will
be interested to know how an old timer was obliged to laugh at herself.
I am ashamed to tell you how recently this occurred. I was in the
northernmost wilderness of the state of Maine, and near a big lumber
camp, when I saw a “camp dog” lying on the ground, its long axe handle
shining from use, its pickaxe blade a bright steel color, and the tooth
at the back looking as if it had been often used. I was delighted.

“Oh,” I said to my guide, “look at that camp dog lying there!”

He was particularly attentive to my pronunciation, for he said I
pronounced some words, such as “girl,” as he had never heard them
pronounced before. I saw a curious expression pass across his face.

“What did you say that was?” he asked.

“Why, that camp dog lying there.”

“Camp dog!”

Then he began to laugh and he kept right on until the woods echoed with
his roars.

“Well,” he said finally, wiping away the tears, “if that doesn’t beat
everything! That isn’t a camp dog, that’s a cant dog,--you know what you
cant logs and heavy things over with, roll ’em over and pry ’em up with
when you couldn’t do it any other way. My grief, to think of your
calling that a camp dog all these years!”

And he went off into another guffaw.




CHAPTER XII

THE OUTDOOR TRAINING SCHOOL


Many girls think of outdoor life as of something to be enjoyed if they
have plenty of time. As a matter of course they take their daily bath.
But the outdoor exercise comes as an accessory. It is still
unfortunately true that boys more than girls take camp life for granted.
Yet girls, and students particularly, should realize that it is economy
of time to be out of doors. This they need both for their work and for
their health. Outdoor exercise, with its bath of fresh air and the
natural bath of freshly circulating blood it brings with it, its
training school for the whole girl, is as essential as the tub or sponge
bath. But how many of us think of it in that way?

To be outdoors is to have the nerves keyed to the proper pitch. If fresh
air is not a tonic to the nerves, then why is it that moodiness and
depression fall away as we walk or row or lie under the trees, and we
become saner and more serene? When one is depressed the best thing to do
is to go out of doors. Altogether aside from any formal wisdom of book
or student or teacher, there is wisdom with nature. _If the head is
tired, go out of doors! If the body is fagged, go out of doors! If the
heart is troubled, go out of doors!_ The life out there, as no life
indoors can, will make for health, for charity, for bigness. Petty
things fall away, and with nature equanimity and poise are found again.
It isn’t necessary to bother someone about woes real or imaginary. All
that is necessary is to get out among the trees and flowers, the sky and
clouds, the joyous birds and little creatures of field and wood, and
hear what they have to say. There will be no complaining among them,
even about very real difficulties.

A great deal is heard concerning hygiene in these days, the study of it,
the practice of it. The biggest university of hygiene in the world is
not within houses but outside, up that hillside where the trees are
blowing, in the doorway of our tent, on the lawn in front of the house,
out on the lake, even on a city house-top, and, last resort if
necessary, by an open window. One reason why many people are concerned
about this question of hygiene is because they know that not only are
human beings happier when they are well and strong, but also because a
healthy person is, nine times out of ten, more moral than one who is
sick or sickly. Ill health means offense of some kind, often one’s own,
against the laws of nature or society. We have, too, to pay for one
another’s faults. But life lived on sound physical principles, with
plenty of sunshine, cold water, exercise, wind, rain, simple food and
sensible clothing, is not likely to be sickly, useless or burdensome.

[Illustration: BITTERN]

[Illustration: LOON]

[Illustration: PARTRIDGE]

[Illustration: RED-BREASTED MERGANSER]

[Illustration: WOODCOCK]

[Illustration: MALLARD]

The body is not a mechanism to be disregarded, but an exquisitely made
machine to be exquisitely cared for. Nobody would trust an engineer to
run an engine he knows nothing about. Yet most of us are running our
engines without any knowledge of the machinery. Why should we excuse
ourselves for lack of knowledge and care when, for the same reasons a
chauffeur, for example, would be immediately dismissed? How many of us
know that the nerves are more or less dependent upon the muscles for
their tone? How many of us realize how important it is to keep in
perfect muscular condition? We sit hour after hour in our chairs, all
our muscles relaxed, bending over books, and begrudge one hour--it ought
to be three or four!--out of doors. The person who can run furthest
and swiftest is the one with the strongest heart. The person who can
work longest and to the greatest advantage is the one who has kept his
bodily health.... _It may be laid down as an absolute rule that any
individual can do more and better work when he is well than when he is
not in good physical condition._ Ceaseless activity is the law of nature
and the body that is resolutely active does not grow old as rapidly as
the one that is physically indolent.

Much out-of-door life, much camping, keep one young in heart, too. It
isn’t possible to grow old or sophisticated among such a wealth of
joyous, wholesome friendships as may be found in nature, where no
unclean word is ever heard and where no unfriendliness, no false pride,
no jealousy can exist. A great English poet, William Wordsworth, has
told us more of the shaping power of nature, its quickening spirit, its
power of restoration, than any other poet. It would be well for every
girl to take that wonderful poem “Tintern Abbey” out of doors and read
it there. Wordsworth, still a very young man when he wrote it, tells how
he loved the Welsh landscape and the tranquil restoration it had brought
him

        “’mid the din
    Of towns and cities.”

A higher gift he acknowledges, too, when through the harmony and joy of
nature he had been led to see deeply “into the life of things.”

There is something the matter with a girl who hasn’t an appetite, as
sharp as hunger, to escape from her books and camp out of doors. If
outdoor life cannot engross her wholly at times, banishing all thoughts
of work, then she should make an effort to forget books and everything
connected with them for a while. A young girl ought to be skillful in
all sorts of outdoor accomplishments, rowing, swimming, riding and
driving if possible, canoeing, skating, sailing a boat, fishing,
hunting, mountain climbing.

Fortunately there is more of the play-spirit connected with outdoor life
than there used to be. Both school and college have fostered this
wholesome attitude. If a girl doesn’t like active sports she should
cultivate a love for them. You can always trust a person who is
accomplished in physical ways, for anyone who has led an intelligent
out-of-door life is more self-reliant. Her faculty for doing things, her
inventiveness, her poise, her “nerve” are all strengthened. I recall an
instance of this “faculty” and inventiveness. We were on a wild Maine
lake when an accident happened to the canoe, a necessity to our return,
for we were far away from all sources of help. Apparently there was
nothing with which to mend it. But our Indian guide found there
everything he needed ready for his use. He scraped gum off a tree, he
cut a piece of bark, and then he rummaged about until he discovered an
old wire. With these things he securely mended a big hole. Oftentimes it
seems as if the very appliances with which city children are provided
tend to make them incapable.

[Illustration: YELLOWBIRD]

[Illustration: FIELD SPARROW]

[Illustration: SONG SPARROW]

[Illustration: GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH]

[Illustration: CHIPPING SPARROW]

[Illustration: WOOD THRUSH]

[Illustration: HERMIT THRUSH]

[Illustration: SWAINSON’S THRUSH]

[Illustration: WILSON’S THRUSH]

[Illustration: PHŒBE BIRD]

[Illustration: SCARLET TANAGER]

[Illustration: MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT]

[Illustration: BLUEBIRD]

[Illustration: WREN]

[Illustration: BLUE JAY]

[Illustration: CHICKADEE]

[Illustration: RUBYTHROAT]

[Illustration: WHIP-POOR-WILL]

[Illustration: NIGHT HAWK]

[Illustration: SCREECH OWL]

The girl who lives out of doors acquires unlimited resourcefulness.
Outdoor life quickens and sharpens the perception. And for the girl to
have her power of observation sharpened is worth a great deal. The
capacity for accurate and quick observation education from books does
not always develop. One must go back to nature for that, one must live
out in the woods and fields all one can, one must be able to tell the
scent of honeysuckle from the scent of the rose, and know the fragrance
of milkweed even before that homely weed is seen, and know spruce,
balsam and white pine even as one knows a friend. Eyes must be able to
detect the differences not only in colors and shapes of birds, but in
their flight, and ears know every song of wood and field. Then the
services of beauty, its music, its color, its form, will be always about
us and nature’s health and strength and beauty become our own, not only
her gaiety and “vital feelings of delight,” but also her restraint upon
weakness, and her kindling to the highest life--the life that is
spiritual.

[Illustration: BLACK SPRUCE]

[Illustration: BALSAM FIR]

[Illustration: WHITE PINE]

[Illustration: BLACK OAK]

[Illustration: BEECH]

[Illustration: LARCH]

[Illustration: BIRCHES]

[Illustration: CHESTNUT]

[Illustration: HORSE CHESTNUT]

[Illustration: MOUNTAIN MAPLE]




CHAPTER XIII

THE CAMP HABIT


If there were no such thing as habit, life would be nothing but a
perpetual beginning and recommencing over and over again. All that we do
or think marks us with its imprint, leaving behind it a tendency--a
tendency towards repetition is the beginning of habit, and because of it
we can get the camp habit just as we can get any other habit. The
instinct to repeat our camping out of doors gradually grows stronger. At
last, scarcely conscious of the existence of the demand, we have come to
feel that we cannot pass our holiday in any other way. The first camping
experience stands out in bold relief because it is new. As we live into
it, its first impressions are lost. And it is at this moment, if we are
made of the right stuff and have in us the right longings and needs,
that we begin to have the camp habit.

Just as with people, maybe we scarcely realize how much it means to us.
But let us stop to think about it, let us give this good camp habit a
full opportunity if we can in our lives. Already the camp habit has
become a need, almost an imperious demand. We feel that once in so often
it must be satisfied and in the splendid grip of this good habit we make
way for it. Never let us become dull to any of its values. Never let us
forget, however shot with black and white it may be, even gray at times,
the difficulties of camping may make life seem--never let us forget the
treasures that it pours in upon us and the ways in which the camp habit
serves us.

It is a sad and a great truth which perhaps women and girls have not yet
fully realized, that the whole manner of our body, of our souls is
controlled by the goodness, or the badness of our habits, our moral
character, our physical temperament. There is a sort of natural
medicine, raising what is not good inevitably up to what is better. That
is what the camp habit does for us, raising what is not healthy, not
strong, not sane, not joyous, not self-reliant up to what is strong,
healthy, joyous and full of self-control. Is not this alone sufficient
reason for giving the camp habit once in so often full sway in our
lives? What better could we do than, in order to re-establish ourselves,
to claim again the wise big relationships of out-of-doors and a thousand
and one little and big friends whom we can find there?

Bad habits are thieves, for they take away our energies, our abilities,
our joys. And the indoor habit is a thief. It shortens life, it takes
away from health, it saps energies, it dilutes joys, it makes foggy
heads and punky morals. The sane girl will get out of doors every
opportunity instead of spending her time in a hot room, playing cards,
or eating stuff that is not fit to put into the human stomach or
flirting with boys, who if they are the right sort of boys, would much
prefer, too, to be out of doors. Good habits, like this camp habit are
benefactors, great philanthropists; they strengthen us and they give us
more energy. They increase our ability, they multiply our joys compound
interest-wise. Good habits are careful accountants and every day or
every year as it may be, they put the interest of strength, of
intelligence, of joy, in our hands to be used as we think best. The camp
habit wisely used, obliges us to open our eyes and see life more truly.
It obliges us to lift our own weight, take our part in things, that part
may be washing dishes or it may be turning griddle cakes,--it forces us
to know ourselves better and it gives us more power to control
ourselves. The camp habit--get it quickly if you haven’t it
already--assures us of good health and success where, for example, the
indoor habit has brought us nothing but ill health and failure. It is a
habit worth while getting, isn’t it?

A good many of us know ourselves, such as we are, pretty well and we
feel that we do not want to know ourselves any better. Things are bad
enough as they are. Yet if we can’t have a more intimate knowledge of
ourselves, if we don’t arrange our lives better, if we don’t plan for
the future more carefully, what are our lives likely to be like when the
curtain goes down? How are we ever going to take the proverbial ounce of
prevention if we are not certain to a fraction what it is we must
prevent? Camp is a splendid opportunity to think a little about those
things of which we have been afraid to think. It is a good opportunity
to meditate, a friendly world to which to go to know ourselves better.
It is an old saying that the first step towards the recovery of health
is to know yourself ill. In that great out-of-door world which our
American camp life represents it is easier to find ourselves morally
than it is indoors, we get more help for one thing. It is almost an
instinct in great trouble or bewilderment or difficulty to escape into
the out-of-door world, to get back to earth and to ask from the great
mother those counsels we hear dimly or indifferently indoors.

Wisdom will not be found in one camp holiday or in fifty or in a
lifetime even. But it is rather strange, isn’t it, that the person whom
we know least is so frequently ourselves? We know very well that the
most learned man or woman is not the one whose head is stuffed with
information, is not necessarily the conspicuous or famous man or woman,
but is, rather, the human being who knows himself. And this human being
may be not our teacher, but our janitor or a nurse who takes care of
the baby or that fellow who seems so simple, the guide who has our
camping trip in charge. Indeed, there is scarcely a class of men who
seem in better control of themselves and who have a better working
knowledge of themselves and others than the highest type of guide. All
the associations of that great out-of-door life, its demands, its
privations, its sudden needs, its great silence, its dumb creatures, its
wonderful beauty, have taught the man of the woods a wisdom no school,
no university, can offer merely through its curriculum. We can’t realize
too early how well worth while that wisdom is for every girl to have.
Not a thing of book learning, but a power that makes one truthful with
oneself, eager to acknowledge what is bad and to change it. Frank,
courageous, tried in commonplace wisdom, and with a knowledge of other
human beings.

There is one kind of idea--and it is worth while meditating in the woods
on the leverage power of even one very little idea--that can always be
found out of doors. I mean a healthful idea, the kind of thought that
makes us stand straighter, that strengthens the muscles of our backbone,
that makes us act as if we were what we wish to be. There is no other
force in the world that can so readily straighten out a crooked boy or a
crooked girl as this same Dr. Dame Nature.




CHAPTER XIV

OTHER CLEANLINESS


Clean? Of course, we all know what cleanliness means. It is not possible
to drive, to ride in a trolley, to go on a train without being impressed
with at least the advertising energy that is put into trying to get or
keep the world clean. Dear me, there are the ever-present, cheerful Gold
Dust Twins, well up with the times, you may believe, and nowadays taking
to aviation. Their aeroplanes may not be very large, but they are clean
as gold dust can make them, and the twins, without any of the friction
that comes from dirt, are flying at last. What’s more, intrepid as some
old Forty-Niner, they are penetrating the camper’s wilderness. Most of
us do not want to be twins, and we certainly do not want to be gold
dusters or any other kind of dusters, yet we should miss these jolly
little youngsters. And there are Sapolio and Sunny Monday advertisements
and Pears’ soap--have you used it?--and a dozen other kinds and goodness
knows what not besides.

Yes, we Americans, and especially American women in the household, know
what it is to make an effort in the midst of heated, dusty or uncared
for streets to keep our houses and everything in them clean. In
Pennsylvania you see the people scrubbing off white marble steps. In New
England they turn the hose on the outside of their white farm houses. In
the West they flood the side-walks to keep the dust and heat down. And
our houses? Well, all houses are being built with bath tubs nowadays,
even our camps, which is more than can be said for very good houses
indeed in other countries than America. Some people think that camping
is an excuse to be dirty. Often they are very nice people, too, but they
keep a dirty camp. They don’t keep even themselves clean.

But there is another kind of cleanliness, not superficial, not that of
the skin, or of the clothes or of the cabin, about which we are coming
to think more and more deeply. It is what might be called vital
cleanliness, the cleanness of stomachs, of the intestines, of all the
vital organs. We begin to realize the truth of what those most helpful
of missionaries, the health culturists, are saying: One may be clean
superficially, that is one may scrub enough and yet vitally be very far
from clean. We know, although it is of the greatest assistance to keep
the skin free and vigorous so that it is able to do its part of the
house-cleaning work for our systems, that vital cleanliness, clean,
strong, internal organs performing their work with the vigor of
well-constructed engines, uninjured by foolish clothing, unharmed by
impure food, keen for opportunity to grow and be vigorous--we know, I
say that that cleanliness is more important than skin cleanliness.
Indeed, without such deep-seated cleanliness it is impossible for the
skin to be really clean.

But clean how? I wonder whether we are clean in the way I mean. Yes, we
are clean in our houses, perhaps in our camps, clean on the outsides of
our bodies, clean probably, on the inside. Yet no one of these kinds of
cleanliness is what I have in mind. Can any girl by the camp fire guess
what it is? I will not say it is more important than household
cleanliness, although it is so,--vastly more so. I will not say that it
is more important than bodily cleanliness, external and internal, yet it
is so,--vastly more so. I could almost say that it is more important
than anything else in the world of human experience. Do you know what
it is now? _It is cleanness of the mind, cleanness of the soul_, and of
that kind of purity the great outdoor world is one indivisible whole.

On this cleanliness of mind and soul all the vital activities of the day
depend, all the growth, the gain, the development. It might be well said
that the way we take up the sun into our bodies--and we could not live
any length of time without some sun--depends upon the cleanness or
uncleanness of this mind and soul of ours. What we shall eat, what we
shall hear, what we shall see, what we shall look forward to, what we
shall care for--all these things will be according to laws as inevitable
as those governing the sun and moon and stars, valuable or worthless,
vicious or sacred, as we feel them and we make them. We dip our fingers
in pitch and pick up a book. What is the result? Any child could tell us
that we ruin the book with our pitch-covered fingers. We dip our minds
into filth, a nasty story, a perverted way of looking at things which in
themselves are good and of God’s plan, or we actually commit some ugly
act ourselves and then we go out into the presence of those things which
are clean, the sunshine, the hills, the lakes, the woods, the white
lives of others, the ideals which, it may be, have been ours. Do you
suppose we feel or see that sunshine, or that we are aware any longer of
the white lives of others, that our past ideals are evident to us when
our hearts and minds are no longer clean? Do you suppose that there is
anything in nature which comes home to us in quite the beautiful way it
once did, the flowers, the birds, the song of the wind, the little
creatures of the wood? Can they ever be entirely the same? No, by an
inevitable law of compensations some of the fullness of our joy in these
things is gone. If we want to be really happy it does not pay to think
evil, to touch evil or to commit it.

When our hands are dirty we know it, and if we have been careless about
them we are ashamed. If people’s bodies or camps are not clean it is
painfully easy to know that, too. But a dirty mind, who could ever tell
anyway that we had one? Who could ever tell? I will tell you: _Every one
knows it_, or perhaps, better, every one feels it. If we are not good,
if our minds are not clean, our presence in some mysterious way
proclaims that fact. If we have injured some one, if we have been
foul-tongued, others will know it with no need for any one to tell them.
Even the little rabbit we meet in the woods will not greet us in so
friendly a way. _We need not think that because we are concealing a bad
thought that it is therefore hidden._ No, indeed, it is screaming away
like some ugly black crow on a spruce tip, and there is no one within
hearing distance who, whether he wishes to or not, does not hear what
it says.

The mind has its plague spots even as the body, and one has to
work--because of one’s environment or some inheritance which has made us
not quite wholesome by nature, or because of friends whose feelings one
would not injure, and yet who are not what they ought to be,--one has
often to work to keep the mind clean. But as you would flee from the
plague, run from a dirty story. Don’t let the camp life be spoiled by
anything to be regretted! Do not let any one touch you with it, even
with a word of it. Keep a thousand miles away if you can from folk who
have an impure way of looking at life, and camp is a good place to get
away from such people. Shut your minds against them. One is never called
upon on the score of duty to have an unclean mind because others have
it. And if through some misfortune, something that is unlovely,
unclean, has been impressed upon you, fight valiantly not to think of
it, to put it away from you. And never forget that to rule our spirits,
to be in command of our minds, to have them wholesome and sweet and
clean as a freshly swept log cabin, is greater than to win such
victories as have come down in the records of history.

I remember that when I was a child, I thought my heart was white and
that every time I said or thought anything naughty, I got a black spot
on its surface. I dare say that in the first place some dear old negro
woman put this fable into my mind. And, dear me, some days it seemed to
me that heart of mine was more spotted than any tiger lily that ever
grew in any neglected garden. Perhaps it was foolish to think such a
thing. I do not know, I only know that there were times when I was
mighty careful of that white heart of mine,--wrapping it up in a pocket
handkerchief would not have satisfied my eagerness to keep it clean.
And what better could one wish than to go on one’s holiday, and on
forever, with the white shining heart of a child?




CHAPTER XV

WOOD CULTURE AND CAMP HEALTH


It is far better for the girl to be out in a wilderness world which
demands all the attention of both heart and mind, than to be leading an
idle or sedentary life at home. If there is one word which above all
others expresses the life of the woods, it is the word WHOLESOME. It is
a normal, active, “hard-pan” life which takes the softness not only out
of the muscles, but also out of the thoughts and the feelings. It
tightens up the tendons of our bodies and the even more wonderful
tendons of the mind.

Often, to paraphrase Guts Muths, a girl is weak because it does not
occur to her that she can be strong. She fails to lay the foundations of
health and strength which should be laid; she fails to make the most of
the energy that she has; she fails to think of the future and how
important in every way it is that she should be robust and full of an
abounding vitality. It is a matter of the greatest importance to the
world spiritually, morally, physically, that its girls should be strong.
To be out of doors insures abundant well-being as nothing else can.
The wilderness instinct, the instinct for camping and all its
out-of-door life and sports, is the healthiest, sanest, and most
compound-interest-paying investment a girl can make.

But by an intelligent approach to this life, more can be put into it and
therefore more can be taken out, than by some blindfolded dive into its
mysteries. To know how to do a thing worth doing and to do it well, is
both wise and economical. Some of the physical aspects of our life will
give all the more value because of the payment of an added attention. A
few simple rules for the physical side of camp life will do quite as
much for the body as an orderly routine can do for the camp
housekeeping.

Simply because you are in camp, never do anything by eating or drinking
or over-strain or folly of any sort, that is against the law of health.
To break the laws of health is as much a sin in camp as out of it.

Eat an abundance of simple, wholesome foods, using as much cereals,
fruits, and vegetables as you can get. Don’t neglect the care of your
teeth merely because you are in camp.

Do not drink tea or coffee. Stimulants are unnatural and unwholesome; no
girl and no woman should ever touch them. If you have begun to drink tea
and coffee, camp is the place to give them up once and for all time. The
sooner the better.

If you can get a cool bath in stream or pond and a rub down with a rough
towel, so much the better. Exercise both before and after the bath, and
be sure, by rub down and exercise, to get into a good glow. The rub down
is of especial importance, for it stimulates all the tiny surface veins,
is gymnastics to the skin, and frees the pores of any poisonous
accumulations which they may be holding. Drink a glass or two of pure
water when you get up and the same between meals.

Never wear anything tight in camp or elsewhere. Within the circle of the
waist line are vital organs which need every deep breath you can take,
every ounce of freely flowing blood you can bring to them, every
particle of room to grow you can give them. The Chinese woman who cramps
her feet sins less than we who cramp our waists.

Sleep ten or eleven hours every night.

Study to make your body well, strong, and useful.

If you do all these things, you need not worry about beauty; you will
possess what is of infinitely more value than a pretty face and abundant
hair, in having a sound, wholesome body, self-controlled, instinct with
joy, with clean, glowing skin, a pleasure to yourself and to everybody
else. Clear vital thoughts and a keener spiritual life will both be
yours. Because of the days in the woods it will be easier to be good,
easier to be happy, easier to do the brain work of school and college.

Part of the title of this chapter is Wood Culture. I have something in
mind that is more than physical culture: The wilderness cure, the lesson
of the woods, a high spiritual as well as physical truth. For the girl
who keeps her eyes open, here are forces at work, mysterious, inspiring,
wonderful, that awake in her all the dormant worship and vision of her
nature. Yet of physical culture in these weeks and days in the woods too
much cannot be said, for, as the world is beginning to realize, on
one’s physical health, cleanness, sanity, rests much of that
close-builded wonderful palace of mind and soul. Every squad of girl
campers should have its physical culture drill, its definite exercises,
taken at a definite time, for ten or fifteen minutes. Ten or fifteen
minutes are probably all that are necessary when practically the
remainder of the day is spent in camp sports, canoeing, fishing,
climbing, hunting and so on. The object of these physical exercises
should be all-around development; the drill should be sharp and light
with especial attention paid to breathing and to the standing position.
A steady unflagging effort should be made to correct round shoulders,
flat chests, drooping necks, and bad positions generally. Many and
varied are the exercises taught in school and college,--exercises to
which all girls have access. I make no apologies for suggesting a few of
the simplest by means of which any squad of girl campers can make a
beginning in physical culture.

(1) From attention (hands on hips), place the palms of the hands flat on
the ground, keeping knees straight. Then bring arms up above head. Do
this eight times.

(2) With hands on the hips and the hips as a socket, rotate the whole
trunk first five times in one direction, then five times in the
opposite, being sure that the head follows the line of the rotating
trunk. The difficulty of this exercise can be increased by placing hands
clasped behind the head, and then later over the head. But the exercise
should be undertaken first with the hands on the hips.

(3) In between each exercise take deep breathing for a few seconds,
rising on the toes as you inhale and lowering as you exhale.

(4) Stand with the feet apart and arms horizontal. Without bending the
knee place the right fist on the ground next to the instep of your left
foot. Then raise the body and reverse, placing the left fist on the
ground next to the right instep.

(5) After this some free exercises with the arms, taken with the head
well up, chest out, and shoulders back, make a good, sharp light finale.

These exercises repeated several times make an excellent beginning for
any day, either in or out of camp. You may unfortunately be going
through a state of mind, when clean skin, good lungs and digestion, seem
to you negligible factors in life. How tragically important these
factors are, be sure you do not realize _too_ late, when both body and
soul, health and morals, have been undermined.

Most girls need to look upon camp life as an incomparably rich
opportunity to gain in an all-round physical development. The life
itself, aside from its possible physical culture exercises and its
sports of rowing, paddling, swimming, climbing and walking, is the big
architect of a splendid substructure for health. By taking thought,
refusing to eat greasy, unwholesome food, getting plenty of sleep,
avoiding over-strain, taking corrective exercises, cool baths and rub
downs, there is no better health builder than the wilderness life. A
wise Danish man said that “He who does not take care of his body,
neglects it, and thereby sins against nature; she knows no forgiveness
of sin, but revenges herself with mathematical certainty.” In the woods
nature keeps reminding you of this fact, and you are never allowed to
forget it for any length of time.

It is only sensible to care for one’s health. It is not necessarily old
maidish or silly to take precautions that the camp health should be at
its zenith all the time. No one would think of criticising a man for
being particularly careful of his horses under new conditions. This is
precisely what we should be for ourselves. Your thorough-paced sportsman
is always regardful of his physical condition. I have spoken about the
drinking of pure water, the care of food, the folly of taking great
risks, and of other details. There are more factors, as well, which will
be at work in obtaining and maintaining good health conditions.

The right sort of underclothing--and women seldom wear suitable
underwear--should be worn. It should be high necked, with shoulder caps
and knee caps, and should be of linen mesh. Every girl who is in fit
condition should see that each day has a brief period at least of hard,
warm, strenuous work in it. A sweat once a day, with a proper rub down
afterwards, is one of the best health makers on record. In “By the sweat
of thy brow shalt thou labor” was enunciated one of the greatest of
natural laws. If it were possible for each one of us to sweat once a
day, we should scarcely ever know what sickness is. But our over-refined
civilization makes even the use of the word an offence to certain middle
class people who care more for the so-called propriety (they are the
folk who say “soiled” handkerchief instead of dirty, and “stomach” when
they mean belly, and yet are ready to use such a detestably vulgar word,
straight out of the mouths of the lowest classes of immigrants, as
“spiel”) of what is said than for its truth and strength. Lay it down,
then, that one of the first of the camp health rules is a sweating every
day. Third among the camp rules is to keep the bowels open. Do you know
what one of Abraham Lincoln’s mottoes for life was? “Fear God and keep
your bowels open,” and in this saying there is no irreverence
whatsoever, nor any sacrilege, but only a profound common sense that is
a credit both to the Maker and the great man who spoke the words.
Cascara is the best and safest laxative for a girl to use in camp. It
should be bought in the purest tablets or liquid form on the market, and
all patent cascara nostrums should be avoided.[7]

  [7] If there is a privy in the camp great care should be taken that,
  for every reason, it is placed at a sufficient distance from cabins
  and tents. It should _not_ be placed on a slope that could possibly
  drain off into any water supply. An abundance of ashes should always
  be kept within the privy and no water of any kind be poured into the
  box. A few cans of chloride of lime should, if possible, be kept on
  hand; and one can opened and in use in the closet. Chambers and slop
  pails should not be emptied in the immediate vicinity of the cabins
  but at some distance and in different localities. There is no greater
  abomination on the face of the earth than a dirty camp, and no place
  which so thoroughly tests one’s love of order, decency and
  cleanliness. If you are following the trail and go into “stocked”
  camps for the night, shake and air the blankets thoroughly, and, out
  of courtesy to those who will follow you in their use, shake and air
  the blankets when you get out of them in the morning.

If a girl is delicate or under the weather in any way, she must take
more than the ordinary care of herself or she may have a head-on
collision with out-and-out illness. The new mode of living, the various
kinds of exposure--especially to wet weather--, the larger quantities of
food eaten because of an appetite stimulated by the vigorous outdoor
life, the temptation to overdoing--all these possibilities should be
kept in mind and avoided as dangers. Don’t be silly about overdoing.
Harden yourself slowly for the life; avoid competition. It is far better
to have lived your camp life successfully and to have come out of it
fresh and vigorous, than it is to have done a few “stunts” and have come
out of it fagged, overstrained and ill. It is well the first days of
camp life to try to eat less than you want; by this act of self-control
you will avoid the plague of constipation which follows so many campers.
Moderate eating will mean more sleep, too. Abundant water drinking and a
few grains of cascara should be able to remedy all the ills to which
camp flesh is heir.

As a girl takes thought about this care and culture of the body, making
herself clean within and without, higher lessons and perfections, both
of the mind and of the soul will come to her as inevitably as the earth
answers to the touch of rain and sun. Do you want to be happy? Very well
then, learn in the woods to be well, consider the laws of health, and
remember first, last, and always that good health, not money or position
or fame or any shallow beauty of feature, is the greatest and soundest
security for happiness.




CHAPTER XVI

WILDERNESS SILENCE


Most friendships among girls, and older people, too, suggest that if
there is one thing which is hated, it is silence. If silence does happen
to get in among us in camp, how uneasy we are! After an awkward pause we
all begin to talk at once,--any, every topic will serve to break the
hush which has fallen upon us. And if we don’t succeed in getting rid of
this silence--something apparently to be regarded as unfriendly and
ominous--we make excuse to do something and do it.

But of silence Maurice Maeterlinck, the great Belgian author of “The
Bluebird” and of many other plays, too, says that we talk only in the
hours in which we do not live or do not wish to know our friends or feel
ourselves at a great distance from reality. But where do we live more
truly than in our camp life? Then he goes on to say what I think is
equally true: That we are very jealous of silence, for even the most
imprudent among us will not be silent with the first comer, some
instinct telling us that it is dangerous to be silent with one whom we
do not wish to know or for whom we do not care or do not trust.

Let us admit at the very beginning that one does well to be on one’s
guard with the people with whom one does not care to be silent,--but one
does not go camping with those people,--or, as the case may be, if we,
ourselves, have a guilty conscience or an empty head much talking serves
its ends. And there is another situation in which it seems almost
impossible to be silent. There is someone for whom we have cared very
much. Things have changed, there has been a misunderstanding, we have
altered or someone else has made trouble between us. And the first
thing we notice is that we no longer dare to be silent together. Speech
must be made to cover up our common lack of sympathy. We talk, how we
talk,--anything, everything! Even when we are happy we run to places
where there is no silence, but now, if only we can be as noisy as
children and avoid the truth of the sad thing which has happened to us!

Again, let us admit at once that there are different kinds of silence:
There is a bitter silence which is the silence of hate, and another
which is that of evil thoughts, and a hostile silence, and a silence
which may mean the beginning of a storm or a fierce warfare. But the
only silence worth having is friendly and it is of that we need to
think, and it is that we can have by the camp fire in our wilderness
life.

Isn’t it true after all that the question which most of us ought to ask
ourselves seriously is not how many times we have talked but how many
times we have been silent. Sometimes one wonders whether we are ever
still and whether if we are to be silent, it is not a lesson which must
be learned all over again. How many times have we talked in a single
day? We can’t tell, for the number of times is so great that we can’t
count them. And the times we have been silent? And I don’t mean how many
times we have said nothing. To say nothing is not necessarily to be
silent. Well, we can’t count the times we have been silent either, but
that is because we haven’t been still at all. Yet there is a big life in
which there is no speech and no need of it. Are we never to give
ourselves a chance to live that?

Do you remember your first great silence? Was it going away from someone
you loved? Perhaps it was a joyous visit to your grandmother or to an
aunt or to see a friend, but it meant leaving your mother and you had
never left her before. Or maybe it was your first year at boarding
school or your freshman year at college. Do you remember the silence
that came over you then and all that filled it? And do you remember how
it wore away but gradually--that grip the stillness had within you and
upon you? You know now that that first silence will never be forgotten.
Or was it a return to those you loved and you realized as never before
how incomparably dear these people were to you and that only silence
could express that dearness? Or was it the silence of a crowd--awe
inspiring silence which foretells the acclaim of some great event of
happiness or a cry of woe? Or the silence of the wilderness as you
looked down from a mountain side into some great valley of lakes? Or was
it the death of someone you loved, and the silence that overcame you
forced you not only to suffer as never before but also to think as you
have never done about the meaning of life?

In that first great silence how many things that are precious revealed
themselves to us. There was love; we did not realize how it was woven
into every fibre of our lives; there was companionship; we did not
realize how bitterly hard it would be to forego it; there was new
experience; till it came we could not have known how much a part of our
lives the old experience was. How many things in us that had been asleep
were suddenly awakened! How much was that great silence worth to us then
and now? Perhaps an unhappy or stricken silence we called it then; but
even if it meant death or separation was it after all completely
unhappy? Have we taken into account the wealth of conviction, of
deepened experience, of increased love it brought us? Could anything so
rich be in any true sense unhappy?

“Silence, the Great Empire of Silence,” cried Carlyle, “higher than the
stars, deeper than the Kingdom of Death.” The world needs silent men but
even more, I think, does it need silent women. Carlyle--and you should
get what you can of his books and read them--calls silent men the salt
of the earth. Might not silent women or silent girls be called double
salt? He says that the world without such men is like a tree without
roots. To such a tree there will be no leaves and no shade; to such a
tree there will be no growth; a tree without roots cannot hold the
moisture that is in the earth and it will soon fade, soon dry up and let
everything else around it dry up, too.

Have you not heard women and girls with an incessant silly giggle or a
titter or a laugh that meant just nothing at all and yet which was
heard, like the dry rattle of the locust, morning, noon and night?
Nervousness partially; empty-headedness maybe, or a mistaken idea of
what is attractive. Silliness of that kind has no place in camp. Nothing
is more wearying, more lacking in self-control than such a manner,
nothing so exhausts other people. Such giggling or laughing or silly
talking is to the mind what St. Vitus’s dance is to the body--an
affliction to be endured perhaps but certainly not an attraction and not
to be cultivated.

Is it not silence that opens the door to our best work? How about that
work you enjoyed so much and did so well? How did you prepare for that?
Yes, I know all about the work you bluffed through and even managed to
get a high record in, but that work you really enjoyed, how was that
done? Is it not silence, too, that opens the door to our dearest and
deepest companionships, our profoundest sorrows, our greatest joys?
Anyway this wilderness silence is all worth while thinking about, is it
not?

Why should this great silence, this friendly wilderness power be
considered anti-social? Really, is it not most social? Does it not bring
us all nearer together, sometimes even when we are afraid to be nearer
to one another? Does it not make us all equal, making us aware of those
profound things in life which we all have in common? Silence can say,
can teach, what speech can never, to the end of the world, learn to
express. It is safe to say that as soon as most lips are silent, then
and then only do the thoughts and the soul begin to live, to grow, to
become something of what they are destined to be, for as Maeterlinck
says, silence ripens the fruits of the soul. Never think that it is
unsociable people or people who don’t know how to talk who set such a
value on silence. No, it is those who are able to talk best and most
deeply, think best and most deeply, who, following the long trail,
recognize the fact that words can never after all express those truths
which are among us--no, neither love, nor death, nor any great joy, nor
destiny can ever be expressed by word of mouth, by speech.




CHAPTER XVII

HOMEMADE CAMPING


It was our second day in camp,--a camp on the edge of the Maine
wilderness. Around us were many lakes--ponds as the natives call
them--Moosehead, Upper Wilson, Lower Wilson, Little Wilson, Trout Pond,
Horse-shoe Pond, and a dozen others. About us on all sides were the
forest-covered mountains, and burning fiercely, twenty miles distant, a
large forest fire which filled the horizon with dense, yellow smoke.

From our camp, consisting of a red shanty, a log cabin in which I am now
sitting, my dog beside me, thinking what I shall say to you about a
remarkable family I saw, and, looking up at the cabin ceiling, its log
ridge-pole and supports between which are birch bark cuts of trout and
salmon caught in the lakes, of which I have spoken--from our camp we
look out and down on a wonderful view. Immediately in front of the log
cabin is a meadow, the last on the edge of this wilderness, then the
serrated line of pointed firs, which marks the edge of the woods at the
foot of the meadow. Beyond this line miles of tree-tops, pines, birches,
maples, beeches, after that the shining lakes, and beyond them the
mountains. There is not a house in sight. For that matter there _is_ no
house to be seen, not even a log cabin.

As was said, there is a meadow in front of the cabin, and over to the
right beyond our view are two other meadows. In Maine--as far north as
this, anyway--the farmers have only one crop of hay, and, when there is
so much forest, and the winter is long, and cattle are to be fed, every
meadow has to be counted upon for all it will bear of hay. It was a
foregone conclusion that somebody would need and use the crop from the
meadow down upon which my cabin looked.

And, sure enough, the second day we were in camp, along the road bumping
and thumping over the big stones came a large hay wagon: behind it,
rattling and jarring, a mowing machine and hay rake. But that hay wagon,
what didn’t it hold? In the first place, there was the driver, then a
big packing box, a tent rolled up, sacks of feed for the horses, a
baby’s perambulator, three children, a woman, a hammock, a long bench,
some chairs, including a rocking chair, and several small boxes, packed
to overflowing with articles of various kinds. For an instant it looked
as if they were house-moving, and then, recollecting that there was no
house to which to move, I came to the conclusion that they were merely
haying.

I watched them spread the big tent-fly and make it fast. I saw them take
out the large packing box, converting that into a table, on which some
of the children put flowers in an old bottle; I watched them set out the
bench and chairs, swing the hammock, lay the improvised table with the
enamel dishes which they took from the little boxes, and, in general,
make themselves comfortable.

The children had pails for berries, and they began to pick berries in a
business-like fashion. The woman sat in the hammock and took care of the
baby--oh, I forgot to mention the baby. The farmer and his lad hitched
and unhitched the horses, starting within a few minutes to work with the
mowing machine, and leaving two of the horses tethered to a tree.
Evidently this was work and a picnic combined--to me a new way of
getting in your hay crop. But the more I watched it and thought about it
the more I liked it. And their dinner with the berries as dessert--well,
I knew just how good, there in the sunshine, with appetites sharpened by
work, it must taste to them all.

Inside the cottage shanty of our camp, one member of the household, at
least, had been doing her work in quite a different spirit. It seemed to
me that there was nothing which this cook, a large, robust woman, with
an arm with the strength of five, had not found fault with and made the
worst of. Her first groan was heard in the morning at six o’clock--in
getting up myself to go to my writing table I had cruelly awakened
her--and, of course, as she went to bed only half after seven the night
before, she had been robbed of her necessary sleep. As I say, I heard
her first groan--the sun was shining gloriously, and I had already had a
sun bath and a cold sponge and my morning exercises--while she continued
to lie in bed and to make every subsequent groan until after seven
o’clock fully audible.

She began that beautiful day and its work in resisting everything. She
had never been in such a place before, and a very nice convenient camp
we, ourselves, thought it. She groaned while she pumped water--I do not
know whether she or the pump made the more noise. She complained loudly
because of the mice. Oh, no, she could not set a mouse trap: she had
never done such a thing before! And then, when we got a cat, she
complained because of the noise the cat made in catching the mice. I do
not know precisely what kind of a cat she expected, possibly a
noiseless, rubber-tired cat, that would catch noiseless, rubber-tired
mice. She would not carry water--even a two-quart pail full--her back
was not strong enough. She had never seen such dishes as these we were
using, nice, clean enamel ware dishes, with blue borders. She had never
heard of such a thing as hanging milk and butter in a well to keep them
cool. Dear me, she never even thought of going to such a place where
they did not have ice that would automatically cool everything, and
which the ice-man kindly handed to her in pieces just the size which
she preferred. She said the spring--a beautiful spring whose waters are
renowned for their purity and healthfulness much as the waters of Poland
Spring are--she said that the spring had pollywogs in it and frogs. She
could not string a clothes-line, but stood in tears near the big trunk
of a balsam fir, holding the line helplessly in her hands and looking up
to the branch not more than two inches above her head. While one of us
flung the end of the clothes-line over the branch and made it fast to
another she remarked with contempt, sniffing up her tears, that it was
not a clothes-line, anyway, which was perfectly true, for it was only a
boat cord, but it did quite as well. When she walked down from the
meadow, that glorious golden meadow, where the happy family was
picnicking and hay-making at the same time, and through which wound a
little path down to the spring’s edge, she lifted her skirts as if she
were afraid they might be contaminated by the touch of that clean,
sweet-smelling, long grass. Still groaning she would fetch about a quart
of water. And groaning, still groaning, she went to bed at night
“half-dead,” as she expressed it, as the result of about five hours of
work, in which she was all the time helped by somebody else.

Of course she was “half-dead.” It is a wonder to me now, as I think of
it, that she did not die altogether. Instead of taking things as they
were in the sun-filled day, with its keen, crisp air, its wonderful
view, instead of feeling something of the beauty and health and sun and
wind-swept cleanness of it all, she had resisted every detail of the
day, every part of her work, she had, in short, found fault with
everything. This day, that would have seemed so joyous to some people,
had not meant to her an opportunity to make the best of things and to
be grateful for the long sleep, the sunshine, the invigorating air, the
beauty, the light work, but merely a chance to make the worst of things,
to throw herself against every demand made upon her.

Out in front of the cabin the farmer swept round and round with his
mowing machine, his big, glossy horses glistening in the sunshine, the
sharp teeth of the machine laying the grass in a wide swath behind him.
He seemed peaceful and contented, although it was warm out in the direct
sunlight, and the brakes were heavy and the horses needed constant
guiding. Down below, nearer the spring, his wife swung in the hammock,
and the children picked berries, fetched water, and were gleefully busy.
It was a scene of simple contentment with life.

When the father came back for his dinner, which was eaten under the
spread of a tent-fly and from the top of a packing box, decorated in the
center with flowers and around the edges by contented faces, I said to
him: “You seem to be having a jolly time.”

“Why, yes, so we are,” was his reply. “I offered the folks who own this
meadow such a small sum of money for the hay crop I didn’t think I’d get
it. I thought some one else was sure to offer them more, but I guess
they didn’t, for I got it. You see, it’s pretty far away from my farm to
come out here haying.”

“And so you make a picnic of it?”

“Yes, we are making a picnic of it. The children like it. It’s great fun
for them, and it gives my wife, who isn’t very strong, a chance to rest
and be out of doors. I enjoy it, too. I like to see them have a good
time.”

“Well,” I said, before I realized I was taking him into my confidence,
“I wish you could make our camp cook see your point of view.”

“Why, don’t she like it?” he asked innocently.

“Like it? I am afraid she doesn’t. The other day it rained and leaked in
through the kitchen roof onto her ironing board, and when we found her
she had her head on the board and was crying.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he said. “Why didn’t she take that board out of
the way of the leak? We don’t mind a little thing like a leak around
here, especially when folks are camping. Having her feel that way must
make a difference in your pleasure. Well, there is ways of taking work.
Now, probably, she’s throwing herself against her work, and making it
harder all the time.”

“That’s exactly what she is doing,” I commented dryly.

“It’s a pity.” There was sympathy in his voice. “For it’s such a lot
easier to make a picnic out of what you are doing--homemade camping, we
call this. My folks always feel that way about it. Even the hardest
work is easier for taking it the right end to. My children are growing
up to think, what it doesn’t hurt any man to think, that work is the
best fun, after all. It’s the only thing you never get tired of, for
there is always something more to do.”




CHAPTER XVIII

THE CANOE AND FISHING


It was my somewhat tempered good fortune, several years ago, to spend
two or three weeks in an exceedingly bleak place on a far northern
coast. The only genial element about this barren spot was its sea
captains, and whence they drew their geniality heaven only knows. They
made me think of nothing so much as of the warm lichen which sometimes
flourishes upon cold rocks. There strayed into this neighborhood a
couple of canoes. “Waal,” exclaimed one of the old salts, viewing this
water craft skeptically, “it’s the nearest next to nothing of anything I
have ever heard tell on.”

And that is precisely what the canoe is: the nearest next to nothing in
water craft which you can imagine. It is in precisely this nothingness
that its charm lies, its lightness, its grace, its friskiness, its
strength, its motion, its adaptability to circumstances. There are times
when it acts like a demon, and there are other times when its
intelligence is almost uncanny. The canoe is always high spirited, and,
with high-spirited things, whether they be horseflesh or canoe, it does
not do to trifle. The girl who expects to take liberties with the canoe
has some dreadful, if not fatal, experiences ahead of her. Several years
ago I was out in a motor boat with some friends. Two of them had been,
or were, connected with the United States Navy; another was my sister,
and a fourth was a college friend. My friend happened to see a pistol
lying on a seat near her. She had never had anything to do with pistols,
and, on some insane impulse of the moment, she picked it up and leveled
it at me. I was stunned, but not so the men on the boat. Such a shout
of rage and indignation, such a leap to seize the pistol, and such a
rebuke, I have never been witness to before. These men were navy men,
and they knew how criminally foolish it is to fool with what may bring
disaster. It is those who know the canoe best and are best able to
handle it, who are most cautious in its use. Those of you who expect to
treat it as you might the family horse would do well to look out.

The canvas-covered cedar canoe is the best. If you are going to take a
lot of duffle with you, the canoes will have to be longer than you need
otherwise have them: about eighteen feet, and only two people to a
canoe. The canoe will cost you from twenty-five dollars up, and this
item does not include the paddle. The paddle should be bought exactly
your own height; it will then be an ideal length for paddling. Its cost
will be a little more or a little less than a dollar and a half. You
should have a large sponge, tied to a string, on one of the thwarts.
This you will use for bailing when necessary.

If you have had any experience with a canoe, you will not abuse it, and
will not need to be told not to abuse it. If it is a light one, and you
are a strong girl, you should learn to carry it Micmac fashion on the
paddle blades, a sweater over your shoulders to serve as cushion. Watch
a woodsman and see the way he handles a canoe. One of the very first
things you will observe is that he never drags it about, but lifts it
clean off the ground by the thwarts, holding the concave side toward
him. Also, you should observe his soft-footed movements when he is
stepping into a canoe. If a canoe is not in use it should be turned
upside down. Never neglect your canoe, for a small puncture in it is
like the proverbial small hole in a dike. If you let it go, you will
have a heavy, water-soaked craft or a swamped one. Water soaking turns
a seemingly intelligent, high-spirited canoe, capable of answering to
your least wish or touch, into the most lunk-headed thing imaginable, a
thing so stupid and so dead and so obstinate, that life with it becomes
a burden. Remember that the wounds in your canoe need quite as much
attention as your own would.

The balance of a canoe is a ticklish thing. To the novice, the day when
she can paddle through stiff water while she trolls with a rod under her
knee and lands a two- or three-pound salmon unaided, seems far off. I am
by no means a past-master in the art of canoeing, yet I have often done
this, and am no longer troubled by the question of balance in a canoe.
So much for encouragement! Most of an art lies, granting the initial
gift for it, in custom or habit. Make yourself familiar with the traits
of your canoe, work hard to learn everything you should know about it,
and your lesson will soon be learned.

When you are going to get into it, have your canoe securely beside a
landing, and then step carefully into the center and middle. Bring the
second foot after the first only when you are sure that you have your
balance. The next thing is to sit down. Be certain that it is not in the
water. The only satisfactory recipe for this delicate act is to do it.
No girl should step into a canoe for the first time without some one at
the bow to steady it. Very quickly you will learn clever ways of using
your paddle to help in keeping the balance. Until you do, you can’t be
too careful, or too careful that others should be careful. Take no
chances in a canoe. If any are taken for you, hang on to your paddle. It
is well to have an inflatable life-preserver, but, best of all, is it to
know how to swim. Never move around in a canoe, or turn quickly to look
over your shoulder. A canoe is a long-suffering thing, but once
“riled” and its mind made up to capsize, heaven and earth cannot prevent
that consummation and your ducking or even drowning.

[Illustration: BROOK TROUT]

[Illustration: RAINBOW TROUT]

[Illustration: SMALL-MOUTH BASS]

[Illustration: BROWN TROUT]

[Illustration: ROCK-BASS]

[Illustration: WHITE BASS]

[Illustration: SHEEPSHEAD]

[Illustration: YELLOW PERCH]

[Illustration: PIKE]

[Illustration: PIKE PERCH]

[Illustration: PICKEREL]

[Illustration: CATFISH]

Become skillful in the use of the paddle, and the best way to learn is
through some one who knows how. Paddling is an art and a very delightful
one, requiring much skill of touch and strength. Although as a girl I
cared most for rowing, I have in the last ten years become so devoted to
the paddle stroke, to its motion and touch and efficiency, that rowing
only bores me. Get some one, a brother, a father, a friend, a guide, to
teach you the rudiments of paddling. These once learned, canoeing is as
safe as bicycling and not more difficult. It is all in learning how.

[Illustration: ROD.]

[Illustration: HOOKS.]

[Illustration: SIMPLE WINCH REEL.]

[Illustration: TROUT FLY.]

[Illustration: TROLLING SPOONS.]

The writer is an old-fashioned fisherwoman and goes light with tackle.
However, I have noticed that the simplicity of fishing tackle does not
in the least interfere with luck. If you are going to fish with worm,
hook, and sinker, you will need no advice. Perch, pickerel, black bass,
cat-fish, and others to be caught in still fishing, will be your quarry.
As a rule you will troll for pickerel and pike, and there is no sport
more pleasant in the world than that which is to be had at the end of a
trolling spoon: the motion of the boat, the vibration of the line, the
spinning of the spoon, and then the sudden strike, with all its
possibilities for taking in big fish. I defy anyone to have a more
exciting time than netting a salmon from a trolling line and landing it
successfully in a canoe. But this is not a thing to be attempted by the
novice. Much better let the salmon go and save yourself a ducking.

The finest art of all fishing is fly-fishing. One either does or does
not take to it naturally, after one has been taught something of the art
by brother, father, or guide. Alas, that the fish greediness of campers
is making good fly-fishing, even in the wilderness, more and more
difficult to get! Personally, if I am after trout or salmon, “plugging”
or “bating,” as it is called, seems to me an unpardonably coarse and
stupid sport. Yet our lakes have been so abused by this process that
fly-fishing is frequently impossible. To sit or stand in a canoe,
casting your line, the canoe taking every flex of your wrist; to see the
bright flies, Parmachenee Belle or Silver Doctor--or whatever fly suits
that part of the country in which you are camping--alight on the surface
as if gifted with veritable life, and then to be conscious of the rush,
the strike, and to see a rainbow trout whirling off with your silken
line, is to experience an incomparable pleasure. To have a strike while
the twilight is coming on, a big fellow, with the line spinning off your
reel as if it would never stop, to see your salmon leap into the air and
strike the water, to reel him in, then plunge! and down, down he goes;
to feel the twilight deepening as you try to get him in closer to the
canoe again; to know suddenly that it is dark and that the hours are
going by; to feel your wrist aching, your body tense with excitement; to
think that you are just tiring him out, that you have almost got
him--almost, then a rush, a plunge, the line slackens in your hand, and
he is gone. That is fisherman’s luck, and great luck it is, even when
the fish is lost.

[Illustration: ROD CASE.]

[Illustration: FELT-LINED LEADER BOX.]

[Illustration: CASE FOR TACKLE.]

[Illustration: LANDING NET.]

[Illustration: CREEL.]

Only a few words about fishing tackle. Have a good rod or two, but don’t
begin your experience at fishing with expensive tackle. The cheaper rod
will do quite as well until you learn what you want. For trolling the
best rod is a short steel one. For fly-fishing you will always use split
bamboo or some similar wood. You will have accidents, so have reserve
tackle to fall back upon. In any event do not buy a heavy rod, and
never buy anything with a steel core in it. If you can afford it, get a
first-class reel, one that works easily and is of simple mechanism. A
simple winch reel is the best. Avoid patented contraptions. While you
are using them hang your rods up by the tips. In any event keep them dry
and in as good condition as possible. Enameled silk line you must have
for all trout fishing. For other kinds of fishing it does not so much
matter what you do use, provided the line is strong and durable. Be sure
to have extra lines to fall back on.

[Illustration: ANGLING KNOTS.]

Leaders, the details about flies to be used, their color, angling knots
made in fastening leaders or line or fly, methods for keeping your flies
in good order and condition, the use of the landing net, necessary
repairs to be made, the skill of the wrist in casting, the best sort of
trolling, the care of fish, all these things will come to you through
experience, and all suggest how much, how delightfully much, there is
to be learned in the best of all sports.

Go to some first-rate sporting goods’ house for your flies; they will
tell you what kinds you need, as well as answer other questions.




CHAPTER XIX

THE TRAIL


A girl who has learned to camp will not only have her own pleasures
greatly increased, but she will also add to those of her friends,
becoming a better companion for her chums, her father, her brother; for
camping, if it is anything, is a social art. It is far better for a girl
to be out in the world which demands all of one’s attention, one’s eyes
and ears and nose and feet and hands and every muscle of the entire
body, than to be leading a sedentary life at home, or analyzing emotions
or sentimentalizing about things not worth while. The big moose which
unexpectedly plunges by provides enough emotions to last a long time;
the land-locked salmon that threatens to snap the silken line, enough
excitement.

You can’t learn all that there is to be learned in the school of the
woods through one camping expedition. It would be rather poor sport if
you could. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about what you don’t know.
Keep on asking them until you are wood-cultivated. The wilderness is
your opportunity to make up for those vitally interesting facts about
life which are not taught in schools. Above all, have a map of the
country in which you are, and study it. Keep that map by you as if it
were Fidus Achates himself, and refer to it whenever there is need. The
girl or woman in camp who never knows where she is is a bore, sponging
upon the good-nature and intelligence of others who have taken the
trouble to familiarize themselves with the lie of the land. Such a girl
never makes any plans, never takes the initiative, never gives anyone a
sense of rest from responsibility. There are girls and older women who
think it rather clever to be unable to tell east from west, north from
south. I may say here that in camp they belong to the same class of
foolish incompetents who in college boast that they cannot
spell--presumably because they are devoting themselves to a much higher
call upon their intelligence than anything so superficial as spelling!
If camping means anything in the world, it means coöperation, and this
coöperation should be all along the line.

[Illustration: THE DIPPER.]

If you have an innate sense of direction, train it. If you have none, do
not venture out into the wilderness except with someone who has. Always
tell people where you are going. If you are not familiar with the use of
a rifle you would better have a shrill whistle or a tin horn to use in
case you want to summon anyone. Sun and wind should be part of your
compass; the trees, too. You will, of course, learn how to blaze a
trail, and the sooner you do this the better, for it is good training in
following out a point of the compass. The wilderness is full of signs
of direction for your use, some of which are certain to be serviceable
at different times, and some of which will not prove dependable. The sun
rises in the east and sets in the west. At high noon of a September day,
if you turn your back squarely to the sun, you will be looking directly
north. The wind is a helper, too. When the sun rises, notice the
direction of the wind, and, while it does not shift, it will prove a
good compass or guide. If it is very light, wet the finger and hold it
up. By doing this the wind will serve you as a compass. Remember, also,
that the two lowest stars of the Big Dipper point toward the North Star,
which is always a guide to be used in charting a wilderness way. Also on
the north sides of trees there is greater thickness to the bark and more
moss. This is, I suppose, because the trees, being unexposed to the
sunlight on the north side, retain the moisture longer there. Some
say, too, that the very topmost finger of an evergreen points toward the
north. Even in civilization they usually do. To become familiar with a
compass is a very simple matter. Every boy learns this lesson, and there
is no reason why girls should not do the same. Never buy a cheap
compass; it is not to be relied upon. To the amateur in the woods a good
one is not a friend at which to scoff. A few expeditions out behind the
cabin will teach you all you need to know about its use. If by some
miscalculation a girl should get lost, let her realize then that the
great demand is that she shall keep her head on her shoulders, where it
has been placed, and where she will need to make use of it. Let her sit
down and think, reviewing all that has happened, and trying to solve the
problem of what she is to do. A panic is the last and worst thing in
which she can afford to indulge. To most people at some time or other
comes the conviction that they are lost--a conviction happily
dispelled in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand. In
this, as in everything, a miss is as good as a mile, and one does well
to make light of unavoidable mistakes.

[Illustration: FAWN]

[Illustration: DOE]

[Illustration: BUCK]

[Illustration: CARIBOU]

[Illustration: MOOSE]

If, by any chance, you should be lost, don’t run around. If you have no
compass or if darkness is coming on, settle down where you are. Devote
your energies to occasional periods of shouting and to building a camp
fire, keep your body warm and dry and your head cool. _You will be
found._ And remember that there are no wild creatures to be feared in
our camping wilderness. You have nothing of which to be afraid except
your own lack of common sense. Here is a chance for your “nerve” to show
itself.

[Illustration: RED SQUIRREL]

[Illustration: FLYING SQUIRREL]

[Illustration: GRAY SQUIRREL]

[Illustration: RABBIT]

[Illustration: AMERICAN SABLE]

[Illustration: CHIPMUNK]

[Illustration: WEASEL]

[Illustration: MINK]

[Illustration: RACCOON]

[Illustration: BLACK BEAR]

[Illustration: PORCUPINE]

[Illustration: SKUNK]

[Illustration: WOODCHUCK]

[Illustration: RED FOX]

As you go through the woods, cross the ponds and lakes, climb mountains,
your luncheon in your pocket, compass and knife and cup and match-box
all ready and friendly to your hand; as you feel the wilderness
becoming more and more your empire, be sure that you do not abuse the
privileges which are revealed to you. The more gentle and considerate
you are in this life which has opened itself up to you, the more it will
tell you its secrets. That you should leave disfiguration and
destruction and bloodshed behind you does not prove that you are in any
sense a true sport. The camera is one of the best guns for the
wilderness. It is better to be film-thirsty than bloodthirsty. A girl
who is in earnest about camera shooting can test her “nerves” quite
sufficiently for all practical purposes. How about facing, or chasing, a
six- or seven-hundred-pound moose, plunging down through a cut or a
trail, and having the nerve to press the bulb at just the right moment?
Or a big buck? Or a little bear? Or a porcupine? A good kodak and some
rolls of film are all that is needed to begin the work of photography. A
fine way to do, if you intend to go into the matter seriously, is to
get some book on nature photography and make a thorough study of it.
Other books, too, there are, which will be full of profit for you as you
come to know the wilderness life. Begin with Thoreau, John Burroughs,
John Muir, Stewart White, Ernest Seton Thompson, and these will lead you
on and out through a host of nature books and finally into a more
technical literature on hunting, camping, and the wilderness life in
general.

I believe that in the end an intelligent study of the woods made with
eyes and ears, heart and mind, notebook and book, will bring down more
game than any shotgun or rifle ever manufactured. I have seen
guide-books of northern wildernesses whose collective illustration
suggested only the interior of some local slaughter house. No tenderfoot
myself, for, when the first shotgun was placed against my shoulder, I
was so little that its kick knocked me over, I do not write this way
because I am unfamiliar with the pleasures of well-earned or necessary
game, but because I have tried both ways and I prefer a friendly life in
the wilderness. To kill what you see, just because you do see it, to set
big fires, to be wasteful, to take risks in your adventures, are no
signs that you know the woods--and they are most certainly no guarantee
of your love.




CHAPTER XX

CAMP DON’TS


Don’t forget your check list.

Do make your plans early for the camping expedition.

Don’t be dowdy in the woods. Dress appropriately.

Do keep a clean camp. Otherwise you will go in for hedgehogs, skunks,
flies, and other disease-breeding pests.

If in doubt about drinking water, don’t drink it--at least, not till it
is thoroughly boiled.

Do be independent. Camp is no place for necklaces, however beautiful.

Don’t start out camping with a new pair of shoes on your feet.

Do keep from adding to the things you want to take with you, or you
won’t be able to reach the “jumping off” place.

Don’t forget your fly “dope.”

If your appetite is good, be polite to the cook.

Don’t forget the box of matches.

Don’t be foolhardy. It might take too long to find you. If you feel that
way, have somebody attach a tump line to you.

If you have an open stove, when you go off for the day, be sure to close
it.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions--everybody does.

Do help others with the work.

Don’t cut your foot with the axe. It will not add to the pleasures of
camp life.

Dish-washing is not pleasant work. Do your share just the same.

Don’t step on the gunwale of the canoe, and upset it, or trip over a
thwart. The canoe is a ticklish craft.

Do conform to the camp routine. Don’t keep the dinner waiting, delay
the fishing expedition, or call out a search party.

Don’t be ignorant of the topography of the region in which you camp. By
not studying the map for yourself, you will give others a lot of
trouble.

Listen to what your guide says.

Remember, I shall be glad to answer brief, pointed questions, addressed
to me at

  CAMP RUNWAY,
  Moosehead Lake, Greenville, Maine.


THE END




INDEX


  Beavers, 88-89
  Beds:
    bough beds, 97-100
    browse bed, 100, 101
    sleeping bags, 103
  Birch bark, 9, 40
  Black flies, 10-11
  Blankets, 21
  Bloomers, 4, 18-19. _See_ Clothing
  Blouse, 4, 19, 22. _See_ Clothing
  Books, 20-21, 219
  Breck’s fly “dope,” 102
  Breck’s “Way of the Woods,” 7, 26, 45, 63

  Camera film, 20, 218-219
  Camp Fire Girls, 11, 115
  Camp habit, 139-146
  Camping grounds, 68-76
    sites to be avoided for, 73
    sites to be chosen for, 73-76, 181-192
  Can opener, 8. _See_ Cooking utensils
  Canoes, 193-208
    care in handling, 193-200
    cost of, 196
    length of paddle, 195
    paddling, 200
  Cascara sagrada, 5
  Check lists, 1, 96
  Cleanliness, 147-156, 168
  Clothing, 1-5, 13-20, 21-23, 165-166
    gloves, 5
    hunting suit, cost of, 18
    jacket, 18
  Cold cream, 5
  Combination suits, 3-4, 17, 165-166
  Cook, 37-45
  Cooking utensils, 8, 34-35, 62, 104-105
  Cooler, 8, 32-34

  Dishes, 8, 35
  Duffle bag, 2, 14

  Economy, 5, 107-117
  Equipment, 2, 8-9
    cost of, 8
    poncho, 100
    tents, 110-111
    tools, 9, 35
  Expenses, 107-117
    for food, 114
    for party of four or five, 108-111
    for tents, 110

  Feet, care of, 19
  Fires, 11, 77-86
  Fishing, 193-208
    fly, 202-204
  Fishing tackle, 200, 204-208
  Fly “dope,” 9, 35, 101-102
  Food, 1, 6-8, 24-36
    bacon, 28
    butter, 29
    cleanliness of, 30-31
    dried vegetables, 26-27
    flour, 27
    meat, 28-30
    milk, 32, 37, 114-116
    portage of, 24
  Footgear, 2, 3, 14-16
  Fry pans, 8, 62. _See_ Cooking utensils
  Fuel, 9-10, 40-42
  Furnishings, 11, 94-106

  Gloves, 5. _See_ Clothing
  Guides, 69, 85, 118-126
    assistance to, 123-125, 145
    character of, 122-123
    duties of, 119-121

  Hat, 4, 19
  Head net, 101
  Health:
    clean-working digestion and, 166-168
    eating and, 169
    hygiene and, 127-138
    physical culture drill and, 161-165
    rules for, 159-161
    water and, 10, 42-44, 76, 157-170
  Hunting suit, 18. _See_ Clothing
  Hygiene, 127-138. _See_ Health

  Jacket, 18. _See_ Clothing

  Knives, 8. _See_ Cooking utensils

  Matches, 40
  Moccasins, 2, 16. _See_ Footgear
  Mosquitoes, 10-11
    headnet and, 101. _See_ Hat
    netting for, 35
    tarlatan for, 101

  Neat’s-foot oil. _See_ Waterproofing
  Nesting pails, 8, 34

  Pockets, 4. _See_ Clothing
  Poncho, 100
  Privy, care of, 168. _See_ Sanitation

  Recipes, 45
    apples, 49
    bacon, 62
    baked beans, 59-60
    baking powder biscuits, 55-56
    boiling vegetables, 65-66
    bread-making, 51
    broth, 62
    buckwheat cakes, 61
    Chinese tea-cakes, 63
    chowder, 62-63
    corn bread, 56-57
    corn meal, 48
    corn pone, 60-61
    eggs, 54-55
    fish, 52-53
    fudge, 64-65
    gingerbread, 63
    macaroni, 48
    mashed potatoes, 61-62
    mayonnaise dressing, 66
    molasses cookies, 64
    mushrooms, 61-62
    olive oil, 65
    pancakes, 57-58
    partridge, 53-54
    penuche, 64
    rice, 48
    soups, 58, 59
    stewed fruits, 65
    stock, 46
    vegetable stew, 49
    white sauce, 63
  Reflector baker, 8, 39. _See_ Cooking utensils

  Safety pins, 5. _See_ Clothing
  Sanitation, camp health and, 157-170
    water and, 10, 30-31, 42-44, 76
  Skirt, 4, 17-19
    extra. _See_ Clothing
    khaki, 17
    tweed, 17, 22
  Soap, 5, 20
  Sporting catalogs, 103
  Sporting magazines, _Outing_, _Country Life in America_, _Forest and
    Stream_, _Field and Stream_, _Recreation_, _Rod and Gun in Canada_,
    110
  Stockings, 3. _See_ Clothing
    holeproof, 16, 17, 19
    woolen, 16
  Sweater, 18. _See_ Clothing

  Tents, 110-111. _See_ Equipment and also Expenses
  Tin can camping, 26
  Tools, 9, 35. _See_ Equipment
  Tooth brush, 5
  Tooth paste, 5
  Trail, 209-220
    following the, 211-214
    independence on, 209-211
    lost on, 214-216
    walking, 70

  Vacation Bureaus, 115
  Viscol. _See_ Waterproofing

  Water, 10, 42-44, 76. _See_ Health and also Sanitation
  Waterproofing, 3, 14, 16. _See_ Footgear




  Transcriber’s Notes


  Depending on the hard- and software used to read this text, not all
  elements may display as intended.

  Inconsistent and unusual spelling and hyphenation have been retained;
  spelling and hyphenation differences between the body text and the
  index have not been standardised.

  Page 203: bating: as printed, possibly an error for baiting.


  Changes made:

  Footnotes and illustrations have been moved out of text paragraphs.

  Some missing punctuation has been added, some unnecessary punctuation
  has been deleted silently.

  Page 163: Item (2) has been moved to a new line.







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