184 BOONEVILLE TO SARATOGA. 



sociability and our fire in the stove for cooking, and in an 

 hour's time were housekeeping and eating with keenest 

 appetite, and as comfortable as need be. After supper. 

 John took the boat and went oil' to a point covered with 

 hemlock and soon returned with our bed in the rou<^h. 

 which we quickly, by trimming off the small twigs, eon 

 verted into a fragrant couch. 



Tin- cup of the lad was full. This was "real " camping 

 out. \Ye sat around the evening- lire, the elders smoked 

 the peaceful pipe, and told stories under the august trees 

 and the starry night, and then \ve stretched ourselvrv vide 

 by side in the tent for the slumber that seeks tired and 

 happy men. I>u1 the boy could hardly sleep for delight. 

 It was his first, night in a tent in the woods on a bed of 

 boughs, and no veteran of camp and tramp in the forest 

 will wonder that the young heart was running over with 

 exhilarant feeling. Hut finally the hum of the mosquitoes 

 outside of our netting, and the A/y>. ft//> of the wavelets on 

 the beach lulled us to sleep. 



There was, however, a little unaccustomed stretching of 

 limbs, in the morning. There is, indeed, more poetry 

 than softness in a "bed of boughs." \iewed by morning 

 light. But a swim in the lake, and a little racing up and 

 down the sand beach in the " originaKJacobs" bathing- 

 suit, takes out all the kinks and kranks of a night on the 

 ground; and if there is a stick or stone or knoll not exactly 

 adapted to the curves of the body, it is removed or reme- 

 died and forgotten. 



The morning discovered to us neighbors. A thin stream 



