CHAPTER XITHE CAMP DOG

“TANALITE” WATERPROOFWALL TENT.TOILET TENT.KHAKI STANDARD ARMY DUCK WALL TENT.TENT STOVE-PIPEHOLE.FRAZER CANOE TENT.WATERPROOF DINING FLYS FORWALL TENT.

“TANALITE” WATERPROOFWALL TENT.TOILET TENT.

“TANALITE” WATERPROOFWALL TENT.

TOILET TENT.

KHAKI STANDARD ARMY DUCK WALL TENT.TENT STOVE-PIPEHOLE.

KHAKI STANDARD ARMY DUCK WALL TENT.

TENT STOVE-PIPEHOLE.

FRAZER CANOE TENT.WATERPROOF DINING FLYS FORWALL TENT.

FRAZER CANOE TENT.

WATERPROOF DINING FLYS FORWALL 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 $3a 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 holidayweeks—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 perfectlyplanned 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.

FRAME FOR BOUGH LEAN-TO.BOUGH LEAN-TO.

FRAME FOR BOUGH LEAN-TO.

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 anitem 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-fivecents 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. Besidesthis, 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.”

WhenI 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,—theresponsible person. He is usually registered and his pay is always good. He needs every dollar he gets and every bit of authority, too, forhe 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 stateare 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 afine 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 donotmean 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 successfullywithout 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 preparedto 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.

Manygirls 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 haveto 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.

BITTERNLOONPARTRIDGERED-BREASTED MERGANSERWOODCOCKMALLARD

BITTERNLOON

BITTERN

LOON

PARTRIDGERED-BREASTED MERGANSER

PARTRIDGE

RED-BREASTED MERGANSER

WOODCOCKMALLARD

WOODCOCK

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 personwho 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....Itmay 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 otherpoet. 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 dinOf 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 scrapedgum 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.

YELLOWBIRDFIELD SPARROWGOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSHSONG SPARROWCHIPPING SPARROWYELLOWBIRD, FIELD SPARROW, SONG SPARROW, CHIPPING SPARROW, GOLDEN CROWNED THRUSHWOOD THRUSHHERMIT THRUSHSWAINSON’S THRUSHWILSON’S THRUSHWOOD THRUSH, HERMIT THRUSH, SWAINSON’S THRUSH, WILSON’S THRUSHPHŒBE BIRDSCARLET TANAGERMARYLAND YELLOWTHROATBLUEBIRDPHŒBE BIRD, SCARLET TANAGER, MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT, BLUEBIRDWRENBLUE JAYCHICKADEERUBYTHROATWREN, BLUE JAY, CHICKADEE, RUBYTHROATWHIP-POOR-WILLNIGHT HAWKSCREECH OWLWHIP-POOR-WILL, NIGHT HAWK, SCREECH OWL

YELLOWBIRDFIELD SPARROWGOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSHSONG SPARROWCHIPPING SPARROWYELLOWBIRD, FIELD SPARROW, SONG SPARROW, CHIPPING SPARROW, GOLDEN CROWNED THRUSH

YELLOWBIRDFIELD SPARROWGOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSHSONG SPARROWCHIPPING SPARROW

YELLOWBIRDFIELD SPARROWGOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH

YELLOWBIRD

FIELD SPARROW

GOLDEN-CROWNED THRUSH

SONG SPARROWCHIPPING SPARROW

SONG SPARROW

CHIPPING SPARROW

YELLOWBIRD, FIELD SPARROW, SONG SPARROW, CHIPPING SPARROW, GOLDEN CROWNED THRUSH

WOOD THRUSHHERMIT THRUSHSWAINSON’S THRUSHWILSON’S THRUSHWOOD THRUSH, HERMIT THRUSH, SWAINSON’S THRUSH, WILSON’S THRUSH

WOOD THRUSHHERMIT THRUSHSWAINSON’S THRUSHWILSON’S THRUSH

WOOD THRUSHHERMIT THRUSH

WOOD THRUSH

HERMIT THRUSH

SWAINSON’S THRUSHWILSON’S THRUSH

SWAINSON’S THRUSH

WILSON’S THRUSH

WOOD THRUSH, HERMIT THRUSH, SWAINSON’S THRUSH, WILSON’S THRUSH

PHŒBE BIRDSCARLET TANAGERMARYLAND YELLOWTHROATBLUEBIRDPHŒBE BIRD, SCARLET TANAGER, MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT, BLUEBIRD

PHŒBE BIRDSCARLET TANAGERMARYLAND YELLOWTHROATBLUEBIRD

PHŒBE BIRDSCARLET TANAGER

PHŒBE BIRD

SCARLET TANAGER

MARYLAND YELLOWTHROATBLUEBIRD

MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT

BLUEBIRD

PHŒBE BIRD, SCARLET TANAGER, MARYLAND YELLOWTHROAT, BLUEBIRD

WRENBLUE JAYCHICKADEERUBYTHROATWREN, BLUE JAY, CHICKADEE, RUBYTHROAT

WRENBLUE JAYCHICKADEERUBYTHROAT

WRENBLUE JAY

WREN

BLUE JAY

CHICKADEERUBYTHROAT

CHICKADEE

RUBYTHROAT

WREN, BLUE JAY, CHICKADEE, RUBYTHROAT

WHIP-POOR-WILLNIGHT HAWKSCREECH OWLWHIP-POOR-WILL, NIGHT HAWK, SCREECH OWL

WHIP-POOR-WILLNIGHT HAWKSCREECH OWL

WHIP-POOR-WILL

NIGHT HAWKSCREECH OWL

NIGHT HAWK

SCREECH OWL

WHIP-POOR-WILL, NIGHT HAWK, 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 afriend. 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.

BLACK SPRUCEBLACK OAKBIRCHESCHESTNUTBALSAM FIRWHITE PINEBALSAM FIR, WHITE PINEBEECHLARCHBEECH, LARCHHORSE CHESTNUTMOUNTAIN MAPLEHORDE CHESTNUT, MOUNTAIN MAPLE

BLACK SPRUCEBLACK OAKBIRCHESCHESTNUT

BLACK SPRUCE

BLACK OAK

BIRCHES

CHESTNUT

BALSAM FIRWHITE PINEBALSAM FIR, WHITE PINEBEECHLARCHBEECH, LARCHHORSE CHESTNUTMOUNTAIN MAPLEHORDE CHESTNUT, MOUNTAIN MAPLE

BALSAM FIRWHITE PINEBALSAM FIR, WHITE PINE

BALSAM FIRWHITE PINE

BALSAM FIR

WHITE PINE

BALSAM FIR, WHITE PINE

BEECHLARCHBEECH, LARCH

BEECHLARCH

BEECH

LARCH

BEECH, LARCH

HORSE CHESTNUTMOUNTAIN MAPLEHORDE CHESTNUT, MOUNTAIN MAPLE

HORSE CHESTNUTMOUNTAIN MAPLE

HORSE CHESTNUT

MOUNTAIN MAPLE

HORDE CHESTNUT, MOUNTAIN MAPLE

Ifthere 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 aremade 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 andpunky 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 tocontrol 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 toknow 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 maybe 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.

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 betwins, 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 thinkthat 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, uninjuredby 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 youknow 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 payto 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 distancewho, 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 havesatisfied 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?

Itis 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 wordWHOLESOME. 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 whichshould 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 anadded 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 notworry 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 worldis 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 anysquad 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 kneeplace 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 realizetoolate, 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 physicalculture 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 undernew 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 ofus 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 spokethe 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]

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