CAMP-FIRES
The day Columbus landed (probably) the natives remarked: "White man fool, make big fire, can't go near ; Indian make little fire and sit happy".
Now we all know that a camp without a camp-fire would be no camp at all; its chief est charm would be absent.
Your first care, then, is to provide for a small fire and prevent it spreading. In the autumn this may mean very elaborate clearing, or burning, or wetting of a space around the fire. In the winter it means nothing.
Cracked Jimmy, in "Two Little Savages", gives very practical directions for lighting a fire anywhere in the timbered northern part of America: thus,
- "First a curl of birch-bark as dry as it can be,
- Then some twigs of soft wood, dead, but on the tree.
- Last of all some pine-knots to make the kittle foam,
- And there's a fire to make you think you're settin' right at home."
If you have no birch-bark, it is a good plan to shave a dry soft-wood stick, leaving all the shavings sticking on the end. in a fuzz, like a Hopi prayer stick. Several of these make a sure fire kindler. Fine splinters may be made quickly by hammering a small stick with the back of the axe.
And in the case of a small party and hasty camp, you need nothing but a pot-hanger of green wood for a complete kitchen, ..text pokračuje
