March, 1920 
FOREST AND STREAM 
111 
of young maples will give you plenty of 
long, slender, straight poles for the same 
purpose. A pair of them should be lashed 
on the shears along both sides of the 
tents, to which to fasten out the wall 
guy-ropes. It saves a multitude of pegs, 
and much tripping. 
As to the site of the Maine Camp, a 
cleared, level spot on a point is by far 
the best in the North Woods, where there 
are seven distinct kinds of biting in- 
Eating table and stool 
sects; in the Pennsylvania, New York 
and New England hardwood forests, 
where the mosquito is the only pest, any 
good spot on the lake side, reasonably 
near a spring, will answer. 
H AVING set up our two tents and 
their fly between, how will we fur- 
nish them for a summer’s stay? For 
sleeping arrangements 1 do not believe 
that you can beat the folding canvas 
camp cot, in the long run. Two kinds 
come to mind, the one with wooden legs 
and a pole frame stretching the canvas, 
2' 4" wide by 6' 6" long, weighing about 
fourteen pounds ; and a lower and lighter 
one, weighing but eleven pounds, with the 
legs joined by a steel framework which 
holds the legs rigidly upright, and col- 
lapses to a single bundle with a shove of 
the hand. Both cots are comfortable, 
and sold for $3.50 and $4.50 each before 
the war, but their price has risen to five 
and six dollars since. We will need four 
of them for the two tents, and, as they 
are designed to rest their feet on a level 
floor, it behoves the camper to get a series 
of flat stones and bed them to a level line 
on his tent floor, to form solid rests for 
the feet of the cot. If out of true, it will 
rack the cot, and its life will be much 
shorter, if set up any old way and the 
feet allowed to find their own resting 
places. 
Another thing that I discovered, long 
ago, about canvas camp cots is that they 
simply must have some sort of a mat- 
tress underneath one, or they will be cold, 
even on a June or August night. A set 
of muslin or ticking bags 27" x 78", car- 
ried along and filled with a few inches 
of browse or dead leaves will answer. 
Without them you will surely sleep cold. 
Pillows are another necessity for a per- 
manent camp. A little, comfortable one 
of feathers, say 14 inches square, is 
enough, and a set of them will take up lit- 
tle room. As to bedding, we have found 
it more economical to leave the house 
blankets at home and provide, instead, 
four sleeping bags made of brown sateen, 
36" x 7', quilted on seven bats of Aus- 
tralian fleece wool to each side. Such a 
bag used to cost about three dollars, and 
is comfortable on even really cold nights. 
What else then, in the two tents besides 
the cots? Well, what to do with unused 
clothes is a question, and also with small 
toilet articles and small duffle of all sorts, 
which will get lost, or wet with damp- 
ness, if allowed to stay on the floor. For 
clothes, a regular tree, like the one sold 
to hang clothing on, is good, only this is 
a real tree, cut in the forest, with five or 
six stubs left on its upper end, and the 
lower end sharpened and driven deep 
into the duff, in the space at one end of 
the camp cot. It is better than any 
clothes-line scheme inside the tent that I 
know of. In the space at the end of the 
other cot goes the wash-stand for the 
tent, made of three stakes driven in the 
ground, with a folding canvas wash basin 
hung between them. The basin is about a 
foot across, and three inches deep, hold- 
ing a gallon of water, and weighs half a 
pound. You will have to tie three loops 
to its ring to hang over nail ends in the 
stakes, for of course it must be taken off 
to empty when done with. Under the 
wash-stand goes a folding canvas water 
bucket, and the nozzle type is far prefer- 
able, being less likely to spill, and not 
gushing it,s contents out all over the 
floor when inadvertently upset. Other 
conveniences, such as nails on the stakes 
on which to hang toothbrushes, combs 
and hair brushes, and a birchbark scoop 
to hold soap, will come to mind. On the 
tent wall, back of the stand, hangs a steel 
military mirror for shaving and hair 
brushing, and there you are, as civilized 
as in any summer hotel room. 
As to the small articles of all kinds, 
the best place for them is in a set of 
canvas wall pockets hung on a pair of 
stakes driven in at the head of each cot. 
In these go your camera and films, your 
flashlight, ties, socks, handkerchiefs, re- 
serve matches, tooth paste, diamond rings 
and other small duffle without number. A 
final bit of furnishing for the bedroom 
tents is a folding camp stool, mighty con- 
venient to sit on while shaving, for the 
walls of the tent are not high enough to 
hang the mirror up where you can see 
standing, and useful to sit upon when 
reading, cleaning guns or tackle, or put- 
ting on mocs and socks. 
A final bit of furnishing for the sleep- 
ing tents would be two folding candle 
lanterns. You do not want much light, 
when going to bed, nor want it long. The 
carbide is too much trouble to set going 
and keep in order, except for a bright 
light wanted for a long period of time. 
One of these in the living room is fine, 
but the candle lantern is ample for sleep- 
ing quarters. And the flash light, to 
hunt out and exterminate any singing 
varmint that may have flown into your 
sleeping quarters, is invaluable, before 
going to bed. Needless to say, your tent 
Cot and wall pocket 
flap has its own gauze door, sewed inside 
it, and plenty of tapes to secure the en- 
trance before retiring. In the North 
Woods only cheesecloth or hospital gauze 
is fine enough to keep out punkies. 
Mosquito netting is about as good as free 
air, for both them and black flies! 
W E now come to the living room, 
made by the fly over the rafter 
pole connecting the two tents. 
Here are the living, eating and cooking 
quarters of the camp. The fly overlaps 
the two tents about a foot, the tops of the 
shears being cut off for that purpose, but 
its angles are different from the tent 
roofs, being flatter except on the rear 
side. This may follow down to a cross 
pole about the height of the tent walls, 
leaving space for the fireplace and camp 
stove to project out under it. The front 
edge is tied to a cross pole and held up 
a little above a man’s head by posts 
guyed out to stakes. A curtain of strong 
scrim netting is sewed about a foot in- 
side the fly, along front and sides, being 
stretched flat down to bottom poles, 
against which stones and earth are 
banked to keep insects from getting un- 
der. You then have a gauze tent all 
around the living room, and we have 
found that drop curtains inside of awn- 
ing canvas or American drilling, are 
very useful for cold, windy and stormy 
days. 
The back wall will have two fires filling 
part of it, and a cupboard the rest. In 
the center is a rock fireplace for log 
fires, with a short chimney, mudded up 
to carry the sparks, some four feet above 
the eaves. Such a fire-place may be two 
feet wide and eighteen inches deep, made 
of rocks gathered in the forest, and 
chinked with clay. Over all, it will be 
about four feet wide, which leaves three 
feet on each side for the cupboard and 
cook stove. The cupboard will be two 
feet wide by eighteen inches high and 
nine deep, of the folding type with three 
shelves. Under it goes the provision box, 
and the rest of the space is then poled 
and thatched with browse. 
On the other side of the fireplace goes 
the camp stove, which I would never be 
without. It is the most convenient to 
(continued on pace 147) 
