Do not tell anybody, least of all yourself, that you 

 love the out-of-doors, unless you have your own path 

 to the woods, your own cross-cut to the pond, your 

 own particular huckleberry-patch and fishing-holes 

 and friendships in the fields. The winds, the rain, the 

 stars, the green grass, even the birds and a multi- 

 tude of other wild folk try to meet you more than half- 

 way, try to seek you out even in the heart of the great 

 city ; but the great out-of-doors you must seek, for it 

 is not in books, nor in houses, nor in cities. It is 

 out at the end of the car-line or just beyond the 

 back-yard fence, maybe far enough away, any- 

 how, to make it necessary for you to put on your 

 tramping shoes and with your good stout stick go 

 forth. 



You must learn to be a good tramper. You thought 

 you learned how to walk soon after you got out of 

 the cradle, and perhaps you did, but most persons 

 only know how to hobble when they get into the un- 

 paved paths of the woods. 



With stout, well-fitting shoes, broad in the toe and 

 heel; light, stout clothes that will not catch the 

 briers, good bird-glasses, and a bite of lunch against 

 the noon, swing out on your legs ; breathe to the 

 bottom of your lungs ; balance your body on your 

 hips, not on your collar-bones, and, going leisurely, 

 but not slowly (for crawling is deadly dull), do ten 

 miles up a mountain-side or through the brush ; and 

 if at the end you feel like eating up ten miles more, 



