In New England Fields and WoodsRobinson, Rowland Evans
History
In New England Fields and Woods
Robinson, Rowland Evans
Natural history -- New England; Natural history -- Outdoor books
"Camping out" is becoming merely a name for moving out of one's
permanent habitation and dwelling for a few weeks in a well-built lodge,
smaller than one's home, but as comfortable and almost as convenient;
with tables, chairs and crockery, carpets and curtains, beds with sheets
and blankets on real bedsteads, a stove and its full outfit of cooking
utensils, wherefrom meals are served in the regular ways of
civilization. Living in nearly the same fashion of his ordinary life,
except that he wears a flannel shirt and a slouch hat, and fishes a
little and loafs more than is his ordinary custom, our "camper" imagines
that he is getting quite close to the primitive ways of hunters and
trappers; that he is living their life with nothing lacking but the
rough edges, which he has ingeniously smoothed away. He is mistaken. In
ridding himself of some of its discomforts, he has lost a great deal of
the best of real camp life; the spice of small adventure, and the woodsy
flavor that its half-hardships and makeshift appliances give it. If one
sleeps a little cold under his one blanket on his bed of evergreen
twigs, though he does not take cold, he realizes in some degree the
discomfort of Boone's bivouac when he cuddled beside his hounds to keep
from freezing--and feels slightly heroic. His slumbers are seasoned with
dreams of the wild woods, as the balsamic perfume of his couch steals
into his nostrils; his companions' snores invade his drowsy senses as
the growl of bears, and the thunderous whir of grouse bursting out of
untrodden thickets. When he awakes in the gray of early morning he finds
that the few hours of sleep have wrought a miracle of rest, and he feels
himself nearer to nature when he washes his face in the brook, than when
he rinses off his sleepiness in bowl or basin. The water of the spring
is colder and has a finer flavor when he drinks it from a birch bark
cup of his own making. Tea made in a frying-pan has an aroma never known
to such poor mortals as brew their tea in a teapot, and no mill ever
ground such coffee as that which is tied up in a rag and pounded with a
stone or hatchet-head. A sharpened stick for a fork gives a zest to the
bit of pork "frizzled" on as rude a spit and plattered on a clean chip
or a sheet of bark, and no fish was ever more toothsome than when
broiled on a gridiron improvised of green wands or roasted Indian
fashion in a cleft stick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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