Opening Camp 



brings rest to me in the midst of toil ; and 

 when I can slip away and visit it for a few 

 hours, during the outdoor season, the respite 

 is like a dip in the fountain of perpetual 

 youth. 



When I released the brass padlock, and 

 flung open the door of my little camphouse, 

 this morning, the whiff of old associations 

 and delights almost unmanned me in the 

 sense, I mean, of setting me back to boy- 

 hood's days, with their rapture and buoy- 

 ancy and light-heartedness. To one who 

 has never had any associations of the kind, 

 I suppose, the odor of that tightly-closed 

 cabin would have seemed offensively musty 

 and compounded of innumerable rank and 

 disagreeable smells. But to my discerning 

 nostrils it was more grateful than the spicy 

 gales of the Orient. The impact of each 

 separate odor upon my olfactory nerves 

 brought a shock of delightful remembrance. 

 Every tiniest particle of that impalpable 

 dust, which, scientists tell us, emanates from 

 things smellable, had some exquisite report 

 to make to my brain. Ah ! the first whiff 

 of the old camp, when you open it in the 

 spring! Who can describe it? You must 



63 



