172 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



five things are essential nay, six are neces 

 sary to real content, and the sixth is a bottle 

 of tar and sweet oil. But of that more anon. 



Thus equipped, we went down to a tiny 

 cottage on the shore. We reached the village 

 at dusk, stopped at &quot;the store&quot; to buy bread 

 and butter and fruit, then went on to the 

 little white house that we knew would always 

 be ready to receive us. It has served us as a 

 hunting-lodge many times before, and has 

 always treated us well. 



There is something very pleasant about 

 going back to a well-known place of this sort. 

 It offers the joy of home and the joy of camp 

 ing, the charm of strangeness and the charm 

 of familiarity. We light the candles and look 

 about. Ah, yes! There are the magazines we 

 left last winter when we came down for the 

 duck-shooting, there is the bottle of ink we got 

 to fill our pens one stormy day last spring in 

 the trout season, when the downpour quenched 

 the zeal even of Jonathan. In the pantry are 

 the jars of sugar and salt and cereals and tea 

 and coffee and bacon; in the kitchen are the 

 oil stoves ready to light; in the dining-room 

 are the ashes of our last fire. 



