diagram of fire
On this you pile, in pyramid fashion, thin twigs, splinters, and slithers of dry wood, leaning on the “punk” and against each other. These are called kindling. A few stouter sticks are added over them to make the fire.
A good kind of kindling can easily be made by slitting a stick into several slices or shavings, as shown. This is called a firestick.
If stood up, with the shavings downwards towards the ground, it quickly catches light and flares up.
Log fire
Set light to this, putting your match under the bottom of the “punk.” When the wood has really got on fire, add more and larger sticks, and finally logs, which should be placed star-shape, like spokes of a wheel.
For a cooking fire you want to make lots of red-hot embers, so use sticks about half or three-quarters of an inch thick.
Fire stick
For a signalling fire to make a flare at night use dry gorse, straw, or dry twigs in large quantities.
For a smoke signalling fire use plenty of thin dry sticks and twigs to give burning flame, and add leaves and grass to make the smoke.
One of the ripping things about Girl Scout work is the camp life. You go out either to live in farm buildings, or in an empty house, or in tents.
People talk of “roughing it” in tents, but those people are generally Tenderfoots. A wise Scout does not “rough it”; she knows how to look after herself and how to make herself comfortable by a hundred little dodges.
For instance, if the tents have not turned up she doesn’t sit down to shiver and grumble, but at once sets to work to rig up a shelter or hut for herself. She chooses a good spot for it where she is not likely to be flooded out if a rainstorm comes.
Then she lights up a camp fire, cooks her food, and makes herself comfortable on her mattress of ferns or straw.
But to do this she must, of course, have first learnt how to light a fire, how to prepare and cook her food, and how to weave a camp mattress, and so on, all of which she learns in her ordinary training as a Girl Scout.
scout knelt next to campfire cookingCamp cooking.
Camp cooking.
In camp you learn to make all the different things you want, because there is not always a shop round the corner where you can go and buy them.
The following are a few out of the many things that Scouts learn to do for themselves.
In the Tent.—Scouts are always tidy, whether in camp or not, as a matter of habit. If you are not tidy at home, you won’t be tidy in camp; and if you’re not tidy in camp, you will never be a thorough Scout.
A Scout is tidy alike in her tent, bunk, or room, because she may be suddenly called upon to go off on an alarm, or something unexpected; and if she does not know exactly where to lay her hand on her things, she will be along time in turning out, especially if called up in the middle of the night. So on going to bed, even when at home, practise the habit of folding up your clothes and putting them where you can at once find them in the dark, and get into them quickly.
Cleaning Camp Ground.—Never forget also that the state of an old camp ground after the camp has finished, tells exactly whether the patrol or troop which has used it was a smart one or not. No Scouts who are any good ever leave a camp ground dirty; they sweep up and bury or burn every scrap of rubbish.
bird on groundWoodpecker cleaning up debris
Woodpecker cleaning up debris
It is important to get into this habit of cleaning up your camp ground before leaving it, as then farmers don’t have the trouble of having to clean their ground after you leave, and they are, therefore, all the more willing to let you use it.
The Woodpecker.—When you find that the ground round a tree is strewn with tiny chips of wood you may know at a glance that a woodpecker is making her nest there. The woodpecker chips away the bark and makes a deep hollow in the trunk. But she has sense enough to know that the chips which fall are telltales, so you may see her making efforts to tidy up the place, and in the end she will go to the trouble of flying away with every little chip and scrap in her beak to a distance, so that no enemy can see that she has been cutting a hole in that tree.
gentleman looking at mess left by campers“No more of their camping on my ground!”
“No more of their camping on my ground!”
Bathing.—When in camp, bathing will be one of your joys and one of your duties, a joy because it is such fun, a duty because no Scout can consider herself a full-blown Scout until she is able to swim and to save life in the water.
But there are dangers about bathing for which every sensible Scout will be prepared.
First, there is the danger of cramp. This comes very often from staying in the water too long. Ten minutes is ample time as a rule for a girl to be in the water, five minutes is safer.
If you bathe within an hour and a half of taking a meal, that is before your food is digested, you are very likely to get cramp. Cramp doubles you up in extreme pain so that you cannot move your arms or legs, and down you go and drown.
When bathing is going on there should always be one or two good swimmers on duty as “life savers.” They should not bathe themselves till the others are out of the water, but should be in bathing-dress, ready to jump in at any moment to help any one that they see in difficulties.
This plan is always strictly carried out by Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in camp, and has already been the means of saving many lives and from changing a joy-camp into a camp of mourning.
Water Supply.—A Tenderfoot drinks any kind of water that she finds handy, and consequently gets ill after the first day camping out, and has to go home again.
The old campaigner is very careful indeed about getting clean drinking water, and if she is not certain that it is wholesome she will take care to boil it well before drinking it, as this kills all the little germs of disease which exist more or less in all water, however clear it may be.
Cleanliness.—Take special care to keep your kitchen clean, and it will make you more comfortable and more healthy in camp. More comfortable because flies will notinfest the place unless they find dirt and scraps to feed upon.
More healthy because if there are flies they always bring poison on to your food. So keep the camp kitchen and ground round it very clean at all times. Dig a small pit a couple of feet deep near the kitchen and throw all refuse that won’t burn into this, and fill in the pit with earth every night.
Tidy up as neatly as the woodpecker does.
Drains.—Also do not neglect to dig a long trench to serve as a latrine. Every camp, even if only for one night, should have a sewer trench two or three feet deep, quite narrow, not more than one foot wide, with screens of canvas or branches on all sides.
Earth should always be thrown in after use, and the trench must be filled up before leaving the place. Even away from camp a small pit should always be dug and filled in with earth after use. It is a cleanly habit for the sake of other people, and also makes the camp healthier.
Neglect of this not only makes a place unhealthy, but it also makes farmers and landowners disinclined to give the use of their ground for Scouts to camp on or to work over. So don’t forget it.
Tidiness.—Tidiness in camp means tidiness in the home and also tidiness in the streets or parks or when out picnicing. Scouts have got a splendid name for cleaning up their camp ground when they leave, although it is not a pleasant duty. They do it because a dirty littered bit of ground is not pleasant for other people to look on or use. Therefore out in the streets or parks or countrydon’t throw away the bit of paper that held your candy or cake. It not only makes the place look untidy, but it means work for someone else to clear it up. Therefore, carry your paper to the waste-paper bin, or burn or bury it.
How to make a Bed.—To manufacture a bed in camp is a different thing from “making your bed” in a house. To make a bed for camp use the following is the dodge:—
a giant wood loomUsing a camp loom.
Using a camp loom.
To make a Camp Loom.—Plant a row (1) of five stakes, 2 ft. 6 in. long, firmly in the ground; opposite to them at a distance of 6 ft. to 7 ft., drive in a row of two and a crossbar (2). Fasten a cord or gardener’s twine to the head of each stake in No. 1 row and stretch it to the crossbar in No. 2 and make it fast there, then carry the continuation of it back over No. 1 row for some 5 ft. extra, and fasten it to a loose crossbar or “beam” at exactly the same distance apart from thenext cord as it stands at the stakes. This beam is then moved up and down at slow intervals by one Scout, while the others lay bundles of fern, straw, or heather, etc., alternately under and over the stretched strings, which are thus bound in by the rising or falling on to them.
Bleeding.—When a man is bleeding badly from a wound, press the wound or the flesh just above it—that is between the wound and the heart—press it hard with your thumb to try and stop the blood running in the artery. Then make a pad with something like a flat rounded pebble, and bind it over the wound. If bleeding violently, tie a handkerchief loosely round the limb above the wound, and twist it tight with a stick. [Demonstrate this.] Keep the wounded part raised above the rest of the body if possible. Apply cold water, or ice, if possible, wet rags, etc.
Bleeding from the ears and insensibility after a fall mean injury to the skull. The patient should not be moved at all if possible. It is best even to keep him lying on the spot, and put cold water or ice to his head and keep him quiet till a doctor comes.
Spitting or throwing up blood means internal injury or bursting of a small blood-vessel inside the patient. The case often looks more serious than it really is. If the blood is light red in colour and mixed with froth it means injury to the lungs. In either case keep the patient quiet and give ice to suck or cold water to sip.
Don’t be alarmed at the amount of blood that flows from a patient. It used to be a common thing for the barberto bleed a man to the extent of five or six cupfuls of blood, and the patient feels all the better for it.
S.T.
In addition to the exercises for your body which are given earlier in this book you should understand what they do for you and why you are advised to practise them. It is not forMYamusement! It is for your own health and happiness. And here are a few more tips that will help you to be healthy, and possible wealthy, and certainly wise—if you carry them out.
To make yourself strong and healthy it is necessary to begin with your inside and to get the blood into good order and the heart to work well; that is the secret of the whole thing, physical exercises should be taken with that intention. This is the way to do it:—
(a)Make the heart strongin order to pump the blood properly to every part of the body, and so to build up flesh, bone, and muscle.Exercise:“Swimming” and “Wrist Pushing.”
(b)Make the lungs strongin order to provide the blood with fresh air.Exercise:“Deep breathing.”
(c)Make the skin perspireto get rid of the dirt from the blood.Exercise:Bath, or rub with a damp towel every day.
(d)Make the stomach workto feed the blood.Exercise:“Body bending.”
(e)Make the bowels activeto remove the remains of food and dirt from the body.Exercise:“Body bending” and “Kneading the abdomen.” Drink plenty of good water. Punctual daily move of bowels.
(f)Work muscles in each part of the bodyto make the blood circulate to that part, and so increase your strength.Exercise:Walking and special exercises of special muscles.
The blood thrives on simple good food, plenty of exercise, plenty of fresh air, cleanliness of the body bothinsideand out, and proper rest of body and mind at intervals.
The Japs are particularly strong and healthy. They eat very plain food, chiefly rice and fruit, and not much of it. They drink plenty of water, but no spirits. They take lots of exercise. They make themselves good-tempered. They live in fresh air as much as possible day and night. Their particular exercise is “Ju-Jitsu,” which is more of a game than drill, and is generally played in pairs. By Ju-Jitsu, the muscles and body are developed in a natural way, in the open air as a rule. It requires no apparatus.
Always breathe through the nose.Shut your Mouth and Save your Life.Indians for a long time adopted that method with their children to the extent of tying up their jaws at night, to ensure their breathing only through their nose.
Breathing through the nose prevents germs of diseasegetting from the air into the throat and stomach; it also prevents a growth in the back of the throat called “adenoids,” which are apt to stop the breathing power of the nostrils, and also to cause deafness.
For a Scout nose-breathing is also specially useful.
pappoose hung on a branchIndian cradle: the mouth bandage to induce nose breathing
Indian cradle: the mouth bandage to induce nose breathing
By keeping the mouth shut you prevent yourself from getting thirsty when you are doing hard work. And also at night, if you are in the habit of breathing through the nose, it prevents snoring. Therefore practise keeping your mouth shut and breathing through your nose.
A Scout must be able to hear well. Generally the ears are very delicate, and once damaged are apt tobecome incurably deaf. People are too apt to fiddle about with their ears in cleaning them by using things which are dangerous with such a sensitive organ as the ear, the drum of the ear being a very delicate, tightly-stretched skin which is easily damaged. Very many children have had the drums of their ears permanently injured by getting a box on the ear, or cleaning them out roughly with the hard corner of a towel.
A Scout, of course, must have particularly good eye-sight; she must be able to see anything very quickly, and to see at a long way off. By practising your eyes in looking at things at a great distance they will grow stronger. While you are young you should save your eyes as much as possible, or they will not be strong when you get older; therefore avoid reading by lamp-light or in the dusk, and also sit with your back or side to the light when doing any work during the day; if you sit facing the light it strains your eyes.
The strain of the eyes is a very common failure with growing girls, although very often they do not know it, and headaches come most frequently from the eyes being strained; frowning on the part of a girl is very generally a sign that her eyes are being strained. Reading in bed brings headaches.
Bad teeth are troublesome, and are often the cause of neuralgia, indigestion, abscesses, and sleepless nights.During the Boer war over three thousand of our soldiers had to be sent away, unfit to fight, because their teeth were so bad that they could not eat the food out there. Good teeth depend greatly on how you look after them when you are young. Attention to the first set of teeth keeps the mouth healthy for the second teeth, which begin to come when a child is seven, and these are meant to last you to the end of your life if you keep them in order.
If one tooth is allowed to decay, it will spread decay in all the others, and this arises from scraps of feed remaining between the teeth and decaying there.
A thorough Scout always brushes her teeth inside and outside and between all, just the last thing at night as well as other times, so that no food remains about them to rot. Scouts in camps or in the wilds of the jungle cannot always buy tooth-brushes, but should a tiger or a crocodile have borrowed yours, you can make your teeth just as bright and white as his are by means of a frayed-out, dry, clean, stick.
The troop forms in horseshoe formation, as in the case of Tenderfoot ceremony, the Captain and Lieutenant standing facing the troop.
Captain: “The Scouts (calling the list of names) have satisfactorily passed all the tests required for a Second Class badge, and are duly qualified to receive that badge.”
The Captain then calls forward, one by one, the girlswho are to receive the badge. If there is more than one in a patrol, call all those in the same patrol together with their patrol leader, but go through the form with each individual girl.
Captain: “——————————— (name of girl), do you now pledge yourself to renew your Scout promise, and to fulfill the Scout Law?”
Scout: “On my honor, I now pledge myself to renew the Scout promise and to fulfill the Scout law.”
Captain: “Invest.”
The Scout comes forward and stands at salute while the Captain pins on her sleeve (where it is afterwards to be sewed) the Second Class badge.
Then the Scout salutes and is saluted by the rest of the troop, and returns to her place.
It is of paramount importance to teach the young citizen to assume responsibility for her own development and health.
Physical drill is all very well as a disciplinary means of development, but it does not give the girl any responsibility in the matter.
It is therefore deemed preferable to tell each girl, according to her age, what ought to be her height, weight, and various measurements (such as chest, waist, arm, leg, etc.). She is then measured and learns in which points she fails to come up to the standard. She can then be shown which exercises to practise for herself in order to develop those particular points. Encouragement mustafterwards be given by periodical measurements, say, every three months or so.
Cards can be obtained from the “Girl Scouts” Headquarters, which, besides giving the standard measurements for the various ages, give columns to be filled in periodically, showing the girl’s remeasurements and progress in development. If each girl has her card it is a great incentive to her to develop herself at odd times when she has a few minutes to spare.
Skipping, rowing, fencing, swimming, tennis, and hand-ball are all valuable aids to developing strength.
Remember that sitting still is one form of exercise. How can that be? Well, if you remember how you ought to sit and keep yourself up to it you will gradually strengthen the muscles of your back so that in a few weeks you will sit upright naturally without any effort or thought.
You may ask why shouldn’t I sit like that if it is more comfortable. Well, do it if you like, but remember that a large part of your time is spent sitting, sitting at lessons, at meals, when reading or talking, and so on. Nearly one-third of each day you are sitting, and therefore forming yourself into one shape or the other. The thing is to form yourself into the right one.
The wrong one makes you look pretty dowdy and sloppy when you are going about, but worse than that it lets your lungs slack down and the muscles of the stomach relax, so that instead of drawing the full breath of airinto your chest for renewing your blood you are only breathing in a little driblet almost down in your stomach.
So buck up: correct your position while your muscles are still young and forming themselves; later on, when they are “set” you won’t be able to alter them. So it just depends on you yourself whether you are going to be a fine upstanding healthy woman or a sloppy old thing.