Gould John Mead
How to Camp Out
SUMMER-HOUSES, SHEDS, AND BRUSH SCREENS
There is little to be said of the summer-houses built at the seaside near our large cities, since that is rather a matter of carpentry; nor of portable houses; nor of lattice-work with painted paper; nor even of a "schbang" such as I have often built of old doors, shutters, outer windows, and tarred paper: any one who is ingenious can knock together all the shelter his needs require or means allow. But, where you are camping for a week or more, it pays you well to use all you have in making yourself comfortable. A bush house, a canopy under which to eat, and something better than plain "out-of-doors" to cook in, are among the first things to attend to.
If you wish to plant firmly a tree that you have cut down, you may perhaps be able to drive a stake larger than the trunk of the tree; then loosen the stake by hitting it on the sides, and pull it out. You can do this when you have no shovel, or when the soil is too hard to dig. Small stakes wedged down the hole after putting in the tree will make it firm.
ETIQUETTE
Some things considered essential at the home table have fallen into disuse in camp. It is pardonable, and perhaps best, to bring on whatever you have cooked in the dish that it is cooked in, so as to prevent its cooling off.
You will also be allowed to help yourself first to whatever is nearest you, before passing it to another; for passing things around in camp is risky, and should be avoided as much as possible for that reason.
Eat with your hats on, as it is more comfortable, and the wind is not so apt to blow your stray hairs into the next man's dish.
If you have no fork, do not mind eating with your knife and fingers. But, however much liberty you take, do not be rude, coarse, or uncivil: these bad habits grow rapidly in camp if you encourage them, and are broken off with difficulty on return.
If there is no separate knife for the butter, cheese, and meat, nor spoon for the gravy and soup, you can use your own by first wiping the knife or spoon upon a piece of bread.
Be social and agreeable to all fellow-travellers you meet. It is a received rule now, I believe, that you are under no obligations to consider travelling-acquaintances as permanent: so you are in duty bound to be friendly to all thrown in your way. However, it is not fair to thrust your company upon others, nor compel a courtesy from any one. Try to remember too, that it is nothing wonderful to camp out or walk; and do not expect any one to think it is. We frequently meet parties of young folks walking through the mountains, who do great things with their tongues, but not much with their feet. If you will refrain from bragging, you can speak of your short marches without exciting contempt.
Avoid as much as possible asking another member of the party to do your work, or to wait upon you: it is surprising how easily you can make yourself disliked by asking a few trifling favors of one who is tired and hungry.
MOSQUITOES, BLACK FLIES, AND MIDGE
These pests will annoy you exceedingly almost everywhere in the summer. In the daytime motion and perspiration keep them off to some extent. At night, or when lying down, you can do no better than to cover yourself so that they cannot reach your body, and have a mosquito-bar of some sort over your head. The simplest thing is a square yard of mosquito-netting thrown over the head, and tucked in well. You will need to have your hat first thrown over the head, and your shirt-collar turned up, to prevent the mosquitoes reaching through the mesh to your face and neck.
A better way than this is to make a box-shaped mosquito-bar, large enough to stretch across the head of the bed, and cover the heads and shoulders of all that sleep in the tent. It should be six or eight feet long, twenty to twenty-six inches wide, and one yard or more high. It will be more durable, but not quite so well ventilated, if the top is made of light cloth instead of netting. The seams should be bound with stout tape, and the sides and ends "gathered" considerably in sewing them to the top. Even then the side that falls over the shoulders of the sleepers may not be loose enough to fill the hollows between them; the netting will then have to be tucked under the blanket, or have something thrown over its lower edge.
Sew loops or strings on the four upper corners, and corresponding loops or strings on the tent, so that you can tie up the bar.
Bobbinet lace is better than the common netting for all of these purposes. It comes in pieces twelve to fourteen yards long, and two yards wide. You cannot often find it for sale; but the large shops in the principal cities that do a great business by correspondence can send it to you.
Oil of cedar and oil of pennyroyal are recommended as serviceable in driving off mosquitoes, and there are patented compounds whose labels pretend great things: you will try them only once, I think.
Ammoniated opodeldoc rubbed upon the bites will in a great measure stop the itching, and hasten the cure.
They say that a little gunpowder flashed in the tent will drive out flies and mosquitoes. I saw a man try it once, but noticed that he himself went out in a great hurry, while the flies, if they went at all, were back again before he was.
A better thing, really the best, is a smudge made by building a small fire to the windward of your tent, and nearly smothering it with chips, moss, bark, or rotten wood. If you make the smudge in an old pan or pot, you can move it about as often as the wind changes.
HOW TO SKIN FISH
When you camp by the seaside, you will catch cunners and other fish that need skinning. Let no one persuade you to slash the back fins out with a single stroke, as you would whittle a stick; but take a sharp knife, cut on both sides of the fin, and then pull out the whole of it from head to tail, and thus save the trouble that a hundred little bones will make if left in. After cutting the skin on the under side from head to tail, and taking out the entrails and small fins, start the skin where the head joins the body, and pull it off one side at a time. Some men stick an awl through a cunner's head, or catch it fast in a stout iron hook, to hold it while skinning.
Cunners and lobsters are sometimes caught off bold rocks in a net. You can make one easily out of a hogshead-hoop, and twine stretched across so as to make a three-inch mesh.25 Tie a lot of bait securely in the middle, sink it for a few minutes, and draw up rapidly. The rush of water through the net prevents the fish from escaping.
EXPENSES
The expenses of camping or walking vary greatly, of course, according to the route, manner of going, and other things. The principal items are railroad-tickets, horse and wagon hire, trucking, land-rent (if you camp where rent is charged), and the cost of the outfit. You ought to be able to reckon very nearly what you will have to pay on account of these before you spend a cent. After this will come the calculation whether to travel at all by rail, supposing you wish to go a hundred miles to reach the seaside where you propose to camp, or the mountains you want to climb. If you have a horse and wagon, or are going horseback, it will doubtless be cheaper to march than to ride and pay freight. If time is plenty and money is scarce, you may perhaps be able to walk the distance cheaper than to go by rail; but, if you lodge at hotels, you will find it considerably more expensive. The question then is apt to turn on whether the hundred miles is worth seeing, and whether it is so thickly settled as to prevent your camping.
To walk a hundred miles, carrying your kit all the way, will take from one to two weeks, according to your age, strength, and the weather. We have already stated that there is little pleasure in walking more than sixty miles a week. But if you wish to go as fast as you can, and have taken pains to practise walking before starting, and can buy your food in small quantities daily, and can otherwise reduce your baggage, you can make the hundred miles in a week without difficulty, and more if it is necessary, unless there is much bad weather.
The expense for food will also vary according to one's will; but it need not be heavy if you can content yourself with simple fare. You can hardly live at a cheaper rate than the following:—
ONE WEEK'S SUPPLY FOR TWO MEN
Ten pounds of pilot-bread; eight pounds of salt pork; one pound of coffee (roasted and ground); one to two pounds of sugar (granulated); thirty pounds of potatoes (half a bushel).26 A little beef and butter, and a few ginger-snaps, will be good investments.
Supposing you and I were to start from home in the morning after breakfast; when noon comes, we eat the lunch we have taken with us, and press on. As the end of the day's march approaches, we look out to buy two quarts of potatoes at a farmhouse or store; and we boil or fry, or boil and mash in milk, enough of these for our supper. The breakfast next morning is much the same. We cook potatoes in every way we know, and eat the whole of our stock remaining, thus saving so much weight to carry. We also soak some pilot-bread, and fry that for a dessert, eating a little sugar on it if we can spare it. When dinner-time approaches, we keep a lookout for a chance to buy ten or twelve cents' worth of bread or biscuits. These are more palatable than the pilot-bread or crackers in our haversack. If we have a potato left from breakfast, we cook and eat it now. We cut off a slice of the corned beef, and take a nibble at the ginger-snaps. If we think we can afford three or four cents more, we buy a pint of milk, and make a little dip-toast. And so we go; sometimes we catch a fish, or pass an orchard whose owner gives us all the windfalls we want. We pick berries too; and keep a sharp lookout that we supply ourselves in season when our pilot-bread, sugar, pork, and butter run low. Some days we overtake farmers driving ox-carts or wagons; we throw our kits aboard, and walk slowly along, willing to lose a little time to save our aching shoulders. And in due time, if no accident befalls, nor rainy weather detains us, we arrive at our seashore or mountain.
You may like to know that this is almost an exact history, at least as far as eating is concerned, of a twelve days' tramp I once went on in company with two other boys. There was about five dollars in the party, and nearly two dollars of this was spent in paying toll on a boat that we took through a canal a part of the way. We carried coffee, sugar, pork, and beef from home, and ate potatoes three times a day. We had a delightful time, and came home fattened up somewhat; but I will admit that I did not call for potatoes when I got back to my father's table, for some days.
In general, however, it will be noticed that those who camp out for the season, or go on walking-tours, do so at a moderate expense because they start with the determination to make it cheap. For this purpose they content themselves with old clothes, which they fit over or repair, take cooking-utensils from their own kitchen, and, excepting in the matter of canned foods, do not live very differently from what they do at home.
Nearly all the parties of boys that I have questioned spend all the money they have, be it little or much. Generally those I have met walking or camping seem to be impressed with the magnitude of their operations, and to be carrying constantly with them the determination to spend their funds sparingly enough to reach home without begging. It is not bad practice for a young man.
Here I wish to say a word to parents—having been a boy myself, and being now a father. Let your boys go when summer comes; put them to their wits; do not let them be extravagant, nor have money to pay other men for working for them. It is far better for them to move about than to remain in one place all the time. The last, especially if the camp is near some place of public resort, tends to encourage idleness and dissipation.
When you return home again from a tour of camping, and go back to a sedentary life, remember that you do not need to eat all that your appetite calls for. You may make yourself sick if you go on eating such meals as you have been digesting in camp. You are apt also upon your return to feel as you did on the first and second days of your tour; this is especially liable to be the case if you have overworked yourself, or have not had enough sleep.
CHAPTER XI
DIARY
By all means keep a diary: the act of writing will help you to remember these good times, and the diary will prove the pleasantest of reading in after-years. It is not an easy thing to write in camp or on the march, but if it costs you an effort you will prize it all the more. I beg you to persevere, and, if you fail, to "try, try again." I cannot overcome the desire to tell you the results of my experience in diary-writing; for I have tried it long, and under many different circumstances. They are as follows:—
First, Any thing written at the time is far better than no record at all; so, if you can only write a pocket diary with lead pencil, do that.
Second, All such small diaries, scraps, letters, and every thing written illegibly or with lead pencil, are difficult to preserve or to read, and are very unhandy for reference.
Third, It is great folly to persuade yourself that after taking notes for a week or two, or writing a hurried sketch, you can extend or copy and illuminate at your leisure.
Consequently, write what you can, and let it stand with all its blots, errors, and nonsense. And be careful, when you are five years older, not to go through the diary with eraser and scissors; for, if you live still another five years, nothing will interest you more than this diary with all its defects.
I find after having written many diaries of many forms, that I have now to regret I did not at first choose some particular size, say "letter-size," and so have had all my diaries uniform. I will never again use "onion-skin," which is too thin, nor any odd-shaped, figured, cheap, or colored paper. I do not like those large printed diaries which give you just a page or half-page a day, nor a paper whose ruling shows conspicuously.
I like best when at home to write in a blank book; and when I go off on a summer vacation I leave that diary safely at home, and take a portfolio with some sheets of blank paper upon which to write the diary, and mail them as fast as written. These answer for letters to the friends at home, and save writing any more to them. They also, when bound, form a diary exclusively of travels. When I return I write an epitome in the home-diary, and thus prevent a break of dates in that book. The paper for the diary of travels is strong, but rather thin and white. I buy enough of it at once to make a volume, and thus have the diary sheets uniform.
I am quite sure that you will do well to write a diary of your summer vacation, upon the plan just named, whether you keep one at home or not. Try to do it well, but do not undertake too much. Write facts such as what you saw, heard, did, and failed to do; but do not try to write poetry or fine writing of any kind. Mention what kind of weather; but do not attempt a meteorological record unless you have a special liking for that science. If you camp in Jacob Sawyer's pasture, and he gives you a quart of milk, say so, instead of "a good old man showed us a favor;" for in after-years the memory of it will be sweeter than the milk was, and it will puzzle you to recall the "good old man's" name and what the favor was. If you have time, try to draw: never mind if it is a poor picture. I have some of the strangest-looking portraits and most surprising perspectives in my diaries written when fifteen to twenty years old; but I would not exchange them now for one of the "old masters." Do not neglect the narrative, however, for sake of drawing.
I have noticed that when my paper is down in the bottom of a valise, and the pen in a wallet, and the penholder in a coat-pocket, and portfolio somewhere else, it is not so easy to "find time to write" as when I have penholder, pen, and paper in the portfolio, and the portfolio and ink in my haversack. Under these favorable conditions it is easy to snatch a few moments from any halt; and a diary written on the spur of the moment is a diary that will be worth reading in after-life. If it is impossible, however, as it so often is, to write oftener than once a day, you will do well to make a note of events as fast as they happen, so that you shall not forget them, nor have to stop to recall them when your time is precious.
I have heard of diaries with side-notes on each page, and even an index at the end of the book; but not many men, and but few boys, can do all this; and my advice to the average boy is, not to undertake it, nor any thing else that will use the time, patience, and perseverance, needed to write the narrative.
You will find it convenient for reference if you make a paragraph of every subject. Date every day distinctly, with a much bolder handwriting than the body of the diary; and write the date on the right margin of the right page, and left margin of the left page, with the year at the top of the page only. Skip a line or two instead of ruling between the days. Thus:—
1876.
JANUARY 1,
SATURDAY.
Pleasant and mild.
Vacation ends to-day.
Jo. Harding is full of going on a walk to the White Mountains next summer, and he wants me to go too.
Made New-Year calls on Susie Smith, Mary Lyman, Ellen Jenkins, Christie Jameson, and Martha Buzzell.
JANUARY 2,
SUNDAY.
Warm again and misty.
Went to church. Mr. Simpson's pup followed him in; and it took Simpson, Jenks the sexton, and two small boys, to put him out.
Accompanied Susie Smith to the Baptist's this evening, and went home by way of Centre Street to avoid the crowd. Crowds are not so bad sometimes.
JANUARY 3,
MONDAY.
Still mild and pleasant, but cooler.
Went to school, and failed in algebra. This X business is too much for me.
Abel's shoe-factory, next to our schoolhouse, caught fire this afternoon while we were at recess, and Mr. Nason dismissed the school. We all hurrahed for Nason, and went to the fire. Steamer No. 1 put it out in less than ten minutes after she got there.
Home all the evening, studying.
If you are like me, you will be glad by and by if you note in your diary of the summer vacation a few dry statistics, such as distances walked, names of people you meet, steamers you take passage on, and, in general, every thing that interested you at the time, even to the songs you sing; for usually some few songs run in your head all through the tour, and it is pleasant to recall them in after-years.
Do not write so near the margins of the paper that the binder will cut off the writing when he comes to trim them.