Roughing it with boys; actual experiences of boys at summer and winter camps in the Maine woods

Contents

Chapter Page

I. The Passing of the Camp I

II. A Winter Hike to Sebasticook Lake .... 4

Preface

A tale of real travel may not be as exciting as a fictitious story of adventure ; each has its value. A more skilful writer might have made the following pages bristle with thrilling adventure, but the camp life of real boys is made up of rather commonplace incidents, as the days come and go. It may be best that boys understand that successful camp life, for boys and their leaders, does not necessarily consist of hair-breadth escapes and blood-curdling incidents.

There is no fiction in this book. The boys who were part of the camp life of these pages were real boys and are still living. The chapters were first printed in a monthly publication with no thought that they would ever be put in permanent form. They are records of experiences so pleasant that the thought of them quickens my blood, and fills me with determination to make opportunities for other outings with real boys.

G. W. Hinckley.

Hinckley, Maine, December, 191 3.

Early in the year I asked a man how many boys in the United States would camp out in the summer of 1 9 10, His reply was interesting. After careful thought he said that two hundred and fifty thousand boys would spend some part of the summer in camp, the periods varying from a few days to a number of weeks; that this was a conservative estimate and should it be proven that twice two hundred and fifty thousand was nearer the exact number, he would not be surprised. The figures are worth attention because they are given by a man who, on account of his position, his work and his knowledge of what is in progress among boys, is better qualified to estimate than any other person in the country. His estimate does not include the multitudes who are sleeping in tents, in their front yards or at sanatoriums, in a fight with the "White Plague," nor does it include adults at all.

It is a healthy trend. Our race began its career in the open. After a time it began to build houses. The houses were made closer and closer, tighter and tighter, until air was shut out. If a man were feeble, it was understood that the most dangerous thing he could do was to breathe air out-of-doors after sunset until the sun was well into the heavens again; night air was believed to be deadly though it was all that was available. The race was dying; dying of its own stupidity; dying from in-doorness.

Then there arose apostles of fresh air; they preached the doctrine of out-doorness ; the race was getting its breath again, and coming into its own.

But the camp — the real thing — is passing; it makes a man smile to hear men and boys tell about camping out ; it smacks of absurdity.

The way men do it now is thus: Someone gets the fever to camp out; he reads much about camp life and his enthusiasm rises; he scans the advertisements of men who have " Camps" and he opens correspondence. In process of time all arrangements have been made; the man is going to ''camp out." After a day's journey — more or less — in a parlor car — he arrives at the terminal; the porter helps him from the car, carries his luggage to the boat and receives his tip. Another porter takes him in charge until the wharf is reached. A boy from the camp is on the wharf to meet him, and he is escorted up a plank walk to the " Camp. " It is built of logs, shingled, fitted with windows and doors; out of his "room" opens a bath with open plumbing, porcelain tub and hot and cold water; the camp is lighted with electricity or some new illuminating gas. In another end of the "camp" is the dining room where he is served with the same varieties of food that he would get at the best hotel in the city and served in the same manner. He goes fishing; the guide rows the boat, lands the fish, maintains his own rugged health and iron muscle; the man who is "camping" sits and sees it done. "It is just glorious to camp out, you know; and really there are no great hardships." It is the up-to-date way of doing things; one must have all modern conveniences if he is going into "camp."

But why call it camping? And why deceive your self with the thought that you are engaged in the nerve building, muscle hardening, life prolonging pastime of camping out? It is a counterfeit, a farce, and should be called by some other name; call it an "outing" but not camping.

Many boys' camps are conducted on the same general principle. It seems to be assumed that a boy does not know how to do any one of a hundred things that would prove a positive benefit ; and that because he does not know he should never learn.

Three years ago, I camped out with four or five boys; it was the real thing. We had taken our blankets, cooking utensils and all needed implements with us; we had cut some poles, fitted them to the tent and put the canvas in position. Then I left the boys alone for an hour saying to them :

"Make a fireplace and build a fire, stir up some griddle-cakes, and have them ready when I return; I'll be hungry"

When I returned the boys had done what I told them to do; they had done it according to their best knowledge, and I judge they had worked Uke beavers. A hole had been dug in the ground about fourteen inches deep; it was round as a saucer and three feet in diameter. In this hole they had built a fire, piled on dry wood until they had a mass of flames and coals as broad as the hole but completely filling it and rounding it up. It was immense. One of the boys had stirred the batter; he was holding a shorthandled frying-pan in his hand and trying to cook the griddle-cakes in it! The fire was so hot that he could not hold the pan near it for more than three or four pujse beats at a time and he was thrusting the pan toward the fire, drawing it back again, and each time blowing on his scorched hand. He was red in the face and beads of sweat were on his forehead. As he extended the pan towards the fire and drew it back to blow on his hand again and again he was saying : f

"Gracious (puff, puff) I didn't know it was (puff, puff) such (puff, puff) hot work. Guess (puff) I'll burn my hands (puff, puff) off and — "

"See here," I interposed, "that's not the way to do it; I supposed you knew how. I forgot that you had never really camped before. Look at this. ' '

And then in three minutes the thing was done correctly — two or three stones for a fireplace, a stick first shaved and then whittled for shavings; a lighted match, a little blaze, some dry twigs added; a few small sticks, and the same boy was cooking the griddle-cakes to ain appetizing brown. He had learned how not to do it ; he had also learned how to do it.

Once three boys camped out; this also was the genuine thing. They were not a thousand miles from home nor one-tenth of that distance, but they were far enough so that the change was complete; and they were isolated. They pitched the tent under a heavy growth of hemlocks; the shade was heavy and at night the darkness was intense. Here was one good lesson, for though they have camped since they never again made that mistake. The location of the tent gave them ample opportuinity to observe the effect of shade and sunlight as well as to study the growth of mildew and the decay of vegetation so that the mistake had in it some valuable lessons for them.

The water in the pond was good for some purposes but they had read more or less about the peril in poor drinking water and resolved not to drink it. They wanted to live ; but if they were going to die they preferred death from thirst to death by typhoid — it would be cleaner and sooner ended. As they must have good water and the nearest farm house with its usual supply was a long way off, the youthful trio must needs find a spring near camp; this they did, and the crystal water ran through the crevice in a rock.

Their provisions consisted chiefly of yellow cornmeal, salt pork and beans; the nearest field, by arrangement with its owner, yielded them some green corn of the common farm variety but it was wonderfully sweet to those fellows; a few berries could be gathered in the openings in the woods. The chief diet was fish ; the only fish in the pond were hornpout and yellow perch, with an occasional pickerel, but as a man can live longer on yellow perch than on any other fish without becoming weary of it, these boys were not conscious of monotony in their fare. It was monotonous — fearfully so; but they did not know it, because it was food which they themselves had procured by conquest in the water.

There were one or two variations from the regular diet of fried fish. One came when a pickerel nearly two feet long was captured by one of the boys. It was not big enough to meet the requirements of Izaak Walton's recipe which begins: ''Take a pickerel three feet long" but it was too large to be cooked in the ordinary way in the frying-pans ; that is, the boys said it was. Cutting it into pieces so it would go into the fat would rob it of all its dignity, and it was conceded that such a splendid specimen was entitled to special treatment. It took a long time to decide what to do with this monarch of the pond. Then a little hole was dug a foot and a half deep in the ground ; a fire was built in it and abundant fuel furnished. After an hour the coals were taken out and the hole carefully cleared of ashes;

green corn husks were laid on the hot bottom of the hole ; the only piece of brown paper in camp was soaked in cold water and wrapped about the fish; it was laid in the hole, green corn husks were placed over it and these were covered with half an inch of earth. Then a fire was built over it and kept burning for an hour. When taken out and opened, the pickerel was found to be cooked to perfection; the boys vowed they had never eaten anything so fine; and, though they did not think of it, they had been learning something worth knowing, as the cooking was in process.

A still greater triumph came to these same boys when one of them shot something. It will never be known just what it was, save that it was a bird and web-footed. Canvas-back ducks are web-footed; this was not a canvas-back. Loons are web-footed ; this was not a loon. The successful hunter was regarded as a hero by his comrades for a full day ; it took two days, however, to decide how the prize should be cooked. Several councils were held, but no agreement reached ; a meal prepared in a wrangle is not likely to be eaten in peace. But finally, when the web-footed trophy was sure to spoil for lack of attention, it was amicably arranged that it should be prepared for the table thus :

It was picked and drawn ; into it was put a layer of bread crumbs made from the remnants of the one loaf of bread brought into camp; then a layer of green corn shaved finely from the cob, butter and salt; another layer of crumbs, another of green corn, butter and salt, and so on to the end.

When the bird was full or "stuffed" as the boys declared, it was laid on its back in the kettle; two squirrels previously shot and dressed were laid in the bottom of the kettle, one on each side of the fowl; the whole was covered with water from the spring and set to boiling. There were many surmises as to how it would come out. Just before the kettle was taken off, the water was thickened with more bread crumbs and green corn, butter was added and the thing was done.

Oh, that I knew the name of that fowl, something between a canvas-back duck and a loon! Oh, that I knew just the proportions of bird and squirrel, of green corn and crumbs, of salt, pepper and butter ; for those who put the component parts together, built the fire, and watched the kettle boiling declare — and I have implicit confidence in their utterances — that the dish was fit for a king, yes fit for two kings, and that the like was never before and will not be again. Who could have cooked that mess so much to their liking as the boys themselves? And while they were doing it they were doing something else also — something worth doing, for they were mastering little details of out-door chemistry.

These boys slept on beds of boughs; from soon after dusk until sunrise they were as motionless as logs and as unconscious ; they woke each morning to a new day of conquest. If the larder were empty more fish must be caught ; if more than was needed were caught and cooked, the hole in the ground covered with green boughs kept them cool till the next day; if the anchor-rope was broken it must be spliced and there was a way to do it: when the anchor was finally lost a substitute had to be provided; when the oar-lock dropped overboard a make-shift had to be adopted; when the tent leaked without apparent reason, the cause had to be searched out in the night and the offending twig which, made heavy by dampness, rested upon the canvass, had to be removed from the overhanging branch ; when the rain shortened the tent ropes and pulled the stakes out of the ground, threatening to let the canvas down over their heads they learned by experience the wisdom of attending to tent ropes in time; when the flood came in the night and to their surprise the trench around the tent filled with rain water and overflowed to their bough beds, it took them a long time to discover that a stone had in some way been rolled into the trench and had caused the trouble ; when the kindlings which could easily have been put under the tent before dark were water-soaked in the morning, and in all the land — in all their little woodsy-world — there was not a dry sliver or shaving, they learned two things; first, not to get caught in that way again ; and second, what to do if they did.

They learned that there are two ways of washing dishes in camp; first to use hot water, or second, to take them to the shore and give them a scrubbing with sand and mud; that matches cannot be kept dry and serviceable in a pocket and that instead of a paper box an empty bottle with a cork is always a safe receptacle for them; that in the dark in a strange place one can find the matches if they are kept beside a ticking watch, for the tick guides; that the time to fish is before eleven o'clock in the morning or after four o'clock in the afternoon; that there are ways of knowing what o'clock it is without clock or watch if the sun be shining, and other things more than I need to mention.

They were in touch with nature ; life was full of interest and profit; the camp experiences were a factor in the development of character. They were acquiring habits of observation ; they were learning to do things when they needed to be done; they were becoming self-confident, self-reliant, and efficient. They did things, working on them till they were done, even though the sun had set and the day had been long. Somehow, it is the long day men who have accomplished in this world the things that have lived ; eight-hour micn may be good machines but they do not achieve. If the day comes when no man will labor or study beyond eight hours per day, the world's progress will be at a perpetual end ; there will be no further achievement.

Camp life develops the achieving ability; it is the basis of ruggedness; it is without an equal in

THE PASSING OF THE CAMP II

Stimulating manly qualities in boys. There are some who will not believe this because they have seen so many boys "camp" who showed no progress as a result. But the camp should not be held responsible for all the inane things which are done in the name of "camping out." Life at a summer hotel is not camping; even though the hotel be built of logs or of canvas, and too many "camps," so called, are shorn of all the factors which have commended camping to the thoughtful.

A few years ago, I had a party of boys in camp; a cottage near the tent was also available and the food was cooked in it. Several boys in the party preferred to sleep in the close chambers of the cottage; others slept in the tent until a wet night came and then deserted and went under a roof. For myself it was a joy to lie down under the canvas each night; I thought then, and I still think, that the boys who stood by the tent could have been selected by a stranger at a moment's notice. They had camped before and showed the benefit of former experiences.

The word "camp" is suggestive. It is pure Anglo-Saxon and means a "battle" or a "conflict;" this is the primitive meaning. Real camp life is a battle, a conflict; if you choose, it is a conquest. Those who enter it conquer or are conquered ; those who conquer are ready for enterprise, for successful conflict in other fields.

But the camp is passing. Too much is done for the boys in many cases, and they are not left to their own resources as much as is good for them ; it should hardly be called ' ' camping out. ' '

Many of the camps are so large that things must be done on the same scale as at a good-sized hotel ; for all practical purposes the boys might as well be at a hotel if only it were in the woods or an open field. It is quite possible to breathe fresh air at an opened chamber window; it is quite possible to close a tent so tight that the air will become quickly poisoned ; it is quite possible for a boy to spend days and weeks in a " camp " with little or no benefit.

A comparatively new thing has come into sudden prominence; it is the "summer camp" robbed of those features which make the real camp worth while. I am told that one boys' camp had many dishes to wash; it took two men to "do" them. A dish washing machine was purchased at a cost of $200; now it takes two men to run the machine.

Thousands of dollars have been expended in "camps" this year upon tennis courts, base-ball fields, and other forms of amusement which the boys could have at their homes, or in any village, or at a summer hotel; it is quite customary for the leaders of a camp to show visitors their splendid equipment, and many of them are splendid. There are real benefits accruing to boys who spend the summer, or a part of it, at such places, but the benefits are those which come from out-door life anywhere ; in the meantime the woods are calling to boys to enjoy the test and development of primitive ways of living; the boys are not responding because an easier — even a luxurious — substitute is offered.

A little roughing it for the boy is the finest of all experiences; he is not likely to take it, even for his own good, so long as the softer thing is popularized and made the only thing in sight. Real camping — the conquest with natural forces, the quest for one's own food, the battle against odds in primitive living, though undertaken for fun and change and personal benefit — is passing.