gold turn not to vitriol in your hand; for those who have won power, must with it bear responsibility.”
Woodcrafter! that same Fairy Godmother is waiting for you just beyond that bank of pussy willows in the Spring-time, she is waiting in the alder bloom of Summer, and later when the maple reddens the swamp. Faunima, Spirit of the Wild Things and of Woodcraft is she, and very willing to show you the trail if you are of good stuff proven. She it was that told me to write this book, in keeping of the promise that I gave her over forty years ago, when she held the bushes back for me to see the guide-blaze on the tree. Not that I needed any urge to write it, for I know no greater pleasure than showing others the things that mean so much to me. Perhaps you also will come to think of them as the best and most enduring things of life; and know why in the Two Little Savages, I wrote:
“Because I have known the torment of thirst,
I would dig a well where others may drink.”
History of the Woodcraft Movement
The Woodcraft idea has possessed me all my life. In 1875, when I was a boy of 14, I founded in Toronto, a “Robin Hood Club,” whose object was to practice out-door life, combining the Woodcraft of Robin Hood and of Leather-stocking. Among other things, its Rangers were to use only bows as weapons, and abstain from the use of matches in fire lighting. The club did not last long, but the dream never left me, and from time to time I made attempts to realize it.
In the Two Little Savages, I give some of these attempts. The cabin in the ravine north of Toronto and the teepee in the woods of Sanger with Sam and Guy, were personal experiences, and most of the little adventures recorded were actual happenings.
In 1896, after years of roving life on the Plains and in far countries, I settled down near New York, and about 1897 began again with my dream. In furtherance of this, I published in the Ladies’ Home Journal (1902), a series of chapters on the Woodcraft idea and ..text pokračuje
