A BOYS' CAMP THAT ALMOST BECAME FAMOUS 147 



birds, all would vary in species and in habit. So, too, with other 

 areas, deep woods, swamps, rocky hillsides. Each has its out- 

 standing features, physical form, plant life and animal life. 



If a wild flower garden is desired, or a fernery, such groupings of 

 plants must be studied to bring each individual to fit its surroimd- 

 ings. 



As Charles Goodrich Whiting says, plants love their own family 

 and their own neighbors and only flourish when transplanted, 

 if some of their neighbors are brought along, too. 



If the nature councilor or teacher can look back on the season's 

 work and say "I have given my charges a broader outlook on nature 

 — a greater desire to see, and to ask worth-while questions, and to 

 find answers to those questions, if within their powers, (or in 

 extreme cases) a realization that there are questions, and greater 

 than all that each being lives not to itself alone, but helps or hinders 

 all neighbors," she or he will have done a great work. 



A Boys' Camp that Almost Became Famous 



By One of the Boys 



Johnny's Island rises above the placid waters of an artificial 

 pond in the town of Northbridge, Massachusetts. Two grammar 

 school boys from the village a mile away, setting out on their 

 first adventure, pitched a small tent under the protecting shade 

 of a few pine trees on this island and there they remained for a 

 week one July during the closing years of the nineteenth century. 

 Their equipment was ill-assorted, but it represented a boy's idea 

 of the necessities of life in the wilds; a cover, a sacking of straw 

 to sleep upon, a blanket, a skillet, a coffee pot and a stew pan or 

 two; and the food while it would not pass the proper tests of a 

 balanced ration to-day was always sufficient as there had been a 

 generous accumulation of griddle-cake flour and crackers, and a 

 milk farm within a half mile was a comforting assurance when 

 the fish failed to bite. The boys however discovered a few things 

 during that week; most of all that camiping had all the pleasures 

 that were anticipated, and when July came again, once more the 

 journey to Johnny's Island was undertaken with an addition to the 

 equipment and to the enrollment. Thus the years went by and 



