Opening Camp 



I took the pail and went, in a kind of 

 dumb awe at the intuition of women. I 

 had indeed cherished, that day, wild, ro 

 mantic dreams of setting up a permanent 

 domicile in the woods, and riding into town 

 on my wheel every day, to do business. But 

 almost any wild notion may be forgiven a 

 man in the first stages of the annual delir 

 ium of camp-fever ! 



I swung a hammock for my wife, in the 

 afternoon, and she lay there rocking in the 

 breeze like an oriole in her pendent nest. 

 But as for me, I could not spend the day 

 otherwise than in a kind of delicious, aim 

 less puttering about camp. If I sat down 

 for a moment, some imperative task not yet 

 performed was sure to occur to me, and I 

 was up in an instant to set about it. Yet 

 what I actually accomplished neither I nor 

 my wife could definitely declare. The camp 

 and all its surroundings looked precisely the 

 same when we left it, late in the afternoon, 

 as it had when I arrived there, early in the 

 morning. Yet I had been as busy as a 

 spring muskrat all day. "Well, never 

 mind," said my wife, "so long as you are 

 satisfied." 



67 



