How to Camp Out Part 10

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 quant.i.ties 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter 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 seash.o.r.e 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 ca.n.a.l 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 appet.i.te 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] A flannel dress, the skirt coming to the top of the boots, and having a blouse waist, will be found most comfortable.

[24] It is no novelty for women and children to camp out: we see them every summer at the seaside and on the blueberry-plains. A great many families besides live in rude cabins, which are preferable on many accounts, but are expensive. Sickness sometimes results, but usually all are much benefited. I know a family that numbered with its guests nine ladies, five children ("one at the breast"), and the _paterfamilias_, which camped several weeks through some of the best and some of the worst of weather. The whooping-cough broke out the second or third day; shortly after, the tent of the mother and children blew down in the night, and turned them all out into the pelting rain in their night-clothes. Excepting the misery of that night and day, nothing serious came of it; and in the fall all returned home better every way for having spent their summer in camp.

[25] The mesh of a net is measured by pulling it diagonally as far as possible, and finding the distance from knot to knot; consequently a three-inch mesh will open so as to make a square of about an inch and a half.

[26] The field allowance in the United States army is nearly 1-1/8 pounds of coffee and 2-1/8 pounds of sugar (damp brown) for two men seven days; the bread and pork ration is also larger than that above given; but the allowance of potatoes is almost nothing.

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 circ.u.mstances. 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, sc.r.a.ps, 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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, SAt.u.r.dAY.=

_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 s.e.xton, 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 pa.s.sage 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.