[5]If your mother and brother have not taught you how toclean fishandpluck 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.
[5]If your mother and brother have not taught you how toclean fishandpluck 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 toboil 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 adirty 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 biscuitsare 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 canbe 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 ofcorn breadtake 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.
Pancakesyou 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. Mixa 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 ofnourishing soupwithout 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 forsplit pea soup. Take with you, if you are likely to need it, also, arecipe 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, substitutesome 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 poneis good. This is just corn bread bakedon 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 makecorn meal mush. With butter and sugar (in case you have no milk) it is excellent. What do you say to somebuckwheat cakeson 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 itmashed potato. It is good to eat and keeps well for paté cakes or a scallop. When hungry,fried potatoescan be eaten with impunity by the most zealous dietarian. Fried potatoes are naughty but nice.Mushroomsare nice, too, but dangerous. If youhave a trained botanist or someone who hasalwaysgathered mushrooms for eating, then perhaps it will be safe to cook this bounty the woods spread before you. If you must havebaconyou cannot get bacon that istoogood.Ferris bacon and hamsare 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 goodbrothfrom 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.”) Awhite saucefor fish and other purposes will be found useful. Melt tablespoonful of butter in saucepan; stir in dessert-spoonful of flour; add1⁄2teaspoonful salt; mix with a cup of milk. Except for the ginger,gingerbreadis 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,1⁄2cup melted butter, and a little cinnamon will make it. You might experiment withChinese tea cakesmade with1⁄4cup butter, one cup brown sugar,1⁄8teaspoonfulsoda, 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 cookiesare 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,1⁄2cup 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,3⁄4cup milk, butter size of a small nut, pinch of salt, one teaspoonful of vanilla,1⁄2cup 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,3⁄4cup milk, 3 tablespoonfuls cocoa, apinch of salt, butter size of small nut,1⁄2cup walnut meats if desired. Cook same as penuche.
Perhaps, in conclusion, I should advise you to learn something about theboiling of vegetablesand tell you not to cut the top off abeetunless 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 cookcabbagethat it is cooked long enough, and has become thoroughly tender. The same is true withparsnipsandcarrots. 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 ofstewed fruitsin it. That will be so much to the good in the camp health. A bottle ofolive oilalso 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 amayonnaise dressingit 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.
Formost 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 weordinarily 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 thatisthe 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 orderingit 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 needhard 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 thoseraging 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 foryour 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 asapple 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.
“The way to prevent big fires is to put them out while they are small.”—Chief Forester Graves.
Lightlydo 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 andpine 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.
NESSMUK RANGE.SMALL COOK FIRE.
NESSMUK RANGE.
NESSMUK RANGE.
SMALL COOK FIRE.
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 forrain 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 mercifulfire-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 haskilled 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 toimprisoned 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.
Therewill 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 tailskills 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 haveto 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 nightand 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.
Anygirl 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. Alsoshe 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, makea 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 thehatchet 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 agood 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.
DR. CARRINGTON’S SLEEPING BAG.“KENWOOD” SLEEPING BAG.RUSTIC CAMP COT.
DR. CARRINGTON’S SLEEPING BAG.
DR. CARRINGTON’S SLEEPING BAG.
“KENWOOD” SLEEPING BAG.
“KENWOOD” SLEEPING BAG.
RUSTIC CAMP COT.
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, noone 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 tar3oz.Olive oil2“Oil pennyroyal1“Citronella1“Creosote1“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.”
[6]“Breck’s Dope:
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 fewother 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 cookingcabin 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 openfires—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 topractice there. Common sense is the law of the wilderness life, and let us be sure that we follow that law.
Oneof 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 faircondition 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.”