100 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



accounts that it may well be called the palm of this 

 region. Uncle Nathan, our guide, said it was 

 made especially for the camper-out; yes, and for 

 the woodman and frontiersman generally. It is a 

 magazine, a furnishing store set up in the wilder- 

 ness, whose goods are free to every comer. The 

 whole equipment of the camp lies folded in it, and 

 comes forth at the beck of the woodman's axe: 

 tent, water-proof roof, boat, camp utensils, buckets, 

 cups, 2:)lates, spoons, napkins, table-cloths, paper 

 for letters or your journal, torches, candles, kind- 

 ling-wood, and fuel. The canoe birch yields you 

 its vestments with the utmost liberality. Ask for 

 its coat, and it gives you its waistcoat also. Its 

 bark seems wrapped about it layer upon layer, and 

 comes off with great ease. We saw many rude 

 structures and cabins shingled and sided with it, 

 and haystacks capped with it. Near a maple- sugar 

 camp there was a large pile of birch- bark sap- buck- 

 ets, — each bucket made of a piece of bark about 

 a yard square, folded up as the tinman folds up a 

 sheet of tin to make a square vessel, the corners 

 bent around against the sides and held by a wooden 

 pin. When, one day, we were overtaken by a 

 shower in traveling through the woods, our guide 

 quickly stripped large sheets of the bark from a 

 near tree, and we had each a perfect umbrella as 

 by magic. W^hen the rain was over, and we moved 

 on, I wrapped mine about me like a large leather 

 apron, and it shielded my clothes from the wet 

 bushes. When we came to a spring. Uncle Nathan 



