PROTECTION OF THE WOODS 



DID you ever stop to think that there is a certain 

 obligation that devolves upon you as a sojourner 

 in the great forests? Throw a stone through a window 

 in the city and the owner pops his head out the hole 

 before you have time to brush the tell-tale dirt from 

 your fingers. Pick a flower in a eity park and you will 

 probably have to eat it to escape the park cop. In 

 other words, the rights of others are protected either 

 by those others themselves or by the representatives of 

 the law. You are constantly under a restraint that will 

 quickly make itself felt if you meander from the 

 straight and narrow path very definitely prescribed for 

 the urban citizen. You are further restrained by cer- 

 tain conventionalities and fear of disgrace which pub- 

 lic opinion will put upon you for breaking the law. 



It is largely to escape this feeling of restraint and 

 these conventionalities that you go to the woods. You 

 want to be free. You want to get where you can leave 

 off your necktie, let your whiskers grow, and go with- 

 out your shirt if the whim strikes you and the mos- 

 quitoes are willing. You want to sleep where and 

 when you please and do what you please. In a word, 

 be your natural self for a while, free from the cares 

 and restraints of a city life. 



It is indeed the proper idea of a true vacation. 

 There is no tonic like it to tune up a frazzled, nervous 

 system, a flabby, neglected body, and a cloudy brain. 

 It is the one infallible thing that will keep a man young 

 and make of him a fit companion for his children. A 

 couple of short weeks of it changes his life for the year. 



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