The Honest Man already had in stock a 12 × 14 tent, and a small A-tent. The Lazy Man bought a 10 × 12 tent for himself and wife, and the next size smaller for his daughter. Each family brought bed-clothing and personal apparel. (It was a first-rate opportunity to wear out old clothes.) The communal property, dishes, oil-stove, egg-beaters, and all such were paid for half-and-half. It stood the Lazy Man for outfit just $49.27 all told, and the outfit is now down cellar waiting impatiently for summer to come again, when it will be as good as new and won’t cost anything. The summer previous, the Honest Man had gone exploring and found a spot on the Canadian shore of Lake Erie within an hour’s ride on the steamer from his business. A whopping big maple tree, thick and umbrageous, stood a hundred feet or so back from the water’s edge, on a sand slope carpeted with wild grape vines. The beach was of fine white sand, without a pebble bigger than a moth-ball, and it slanted so slowly into the water that breast-deep was fully a hundred yards from shore. This made it rather poky for the men-folks when they went in swimming, but it was ideal for the women, to whom a foot of depth is drowning depth. The lake being soft water, nobody can adequately express the joy the women had in washing their hair. This favored spot was a shade more than a mile away from the steamboat pier at which, six or eight times a day, excursion steamers unloaded revelers who sought the pallid ecstasy of a non-alcoholic pleasure resort. (It was Canada, remember, and while you might go in swimming on the Lord’s day, you could not ride upon the giddy-go-round. A district attorney from the smoky city on the American side presumed to fish on Sunday, and got sassy to the constable who said he shouldn’t. Thereupon they snaked him off to a neighboring village to the hardware store where the ’Squire kept court and fined him $20 and the costs.) We were far enough away on the long board walk to miss the transients, and by looking carefully through the trees you could just see one house from our place, the castle of our landlord. I am aware that it’s nice to be exclusive, and get away from common folks, but it’s so blamed expensive. Even millionaires when they want to make sure of getting any place have to travel with the cheap crowd. You can think that over. You will find it’s so, although I haven’t time to work it out in detail.