The Camp- Fire 19 



world that has come down to us in our blood, and 

 of the camp-fire of our tribal ancestors, and of 

 their and our original ancestor who built his camp- 

 fire under the trees of the garden, eastward in Eden. 

 Sitting in its glow we are home again, though we 

 know it not, nor can tell whence cometh the delight. 

 It is rest and freedom from care. The sheltering 

 trees look down upon us with calm pleasure, and 

 soothe us to sleep with their whispered lullaby — a 

 song which the mother yet sings to the baby cradled 

 upon her breast, without knowing who composed it 

 or whence it came. 



There was a rush for home, a tumbling together, 

 and away we flew, two hundred and fifty miles due 

 north, the last dozen of it in a caboose of an iron- 

 ore train, which slacked up for us far out in the 

 trackless forest. The tumbling Brule in front, the 

 charming Chicagoan Lake back of us in the woods, 

 a spring of the sweetest, coldest water at the root 

 of an old hemlock; pines, birches, cedars, maples, 

 all around. The first question that is asked me at 

 home is, "How about the mosquitoes?" — a question 

 which displays ignorance of this high-spirited siren. 

 She is a stickler for etiquette. She demands pre- 

 cedence in the procession and attention to her 

 music. She bites you because you invade her urban 

 temples before she has finished her oratorios. You 

 must wait till she has concluded her outing, sung 

 her last madrigal, and gone over to bite the angels. 

 There is nothing mean about her. She does not, 



