Nov. 2, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
555 
Houseless Housekeeping 
By FRANK A. WAUGH 
THE MORNING MIST ARISING. 
“rr^HE wisdom of the ancients’’ never greatly 
appealed to me. Their habit of “sleeping 
with their fathers” seems to have been 
peculiarly reprehensible and i{i most cases fatal. 
Yet in some of their other domestic arrange¬ 
ments they positively had the right idea. For 
example, take their practice of living in tents. 
That was good. In one hundred different ways 
it was better than living in city flats, and though 
no sane person could ever doubt it, we have been 
proving it in our own tents this summer. I don’t 
mean that one of us had a cute little striped tent 
on the garden lawn in which he slept through an 
occasional pretty night, but the whole big family 
of us emigrated to the mountains, established 
ourselves in six khaki army tents, and there lived, 
cooked, read, wrote and entertained company for 
weeks at a stretch and were sorry only when a 
stupid routine of a stupider civilization called us 
away to live in a house with plumbing and flies 
and gas bills. 
Now a good tent is a thoroughly proper 
place of residence, and suited to all the reason¬ 
able activities of housekeeping. It is cool in hot 
weather and warm enough in cold weather. Men 
and women of delicate health now practice out¬ 
door sleeping in tents or porches all winter, which 
proves they are better off without the hot air 
furnace. And a good tent is perfectly dry in wet 
weather if one really cares to miss the joy of 
the rain. In a tent one can keep as dry as he 
wishes and still enjoy largely the benefits of the 
rain. This morning I lay abed two glorious 
extra hours and heard the steady pat-pat-patter 
of a heavy rain storm on the fly. I got up for 
a moment to tie back the tent curtains so that 
I could see the heavy mists of rain drifting 
through the treetops. Do any of the most luxur¬ 
ious millionaires in their palaces on Fifth avenue 
have that pleasure? Why, not even their maids 
and butlers can get a taste of it. 
Thus in our houseless housekeeping do we 
find the necessities, the comforts and the luxuries 
of life provided. The real luxuries, native and 
primal, not the spurious luxuries, invented latter¬ 
ly to mitigate the hardships of civilization. Even 
the amenities of life are by no means forgotten. 
As I write these lines during the pleasant rain 
which continues steadily to pour, a cheery camp¬ 
fire blazes on a flat stone in front of my tent 
door, and the wreath of smoke on the slender 
stem of flame makes a domestic picture which 
the best appointed parlors cannot match. Over 
yonder in the city, people find this a cold, un¬ 
pleasant morning, and perhaps the most fortu¬ 
nate of them have a gas log to light. What a 
substitute for a camp-fire! No slender spire of 
smoke, no incense of burning birchwood, no 
amiable crackle of coals sputtering in the rain. 
At the focus of our camp on a convenient 
level green is the social camp-fire. All the tents 
look out toward it. Every evening when the fire 
is lighted this forms the center of the picture. 
The inviting blaze throws into relief the big 
surrounding trees which seem to advance with 
dignified playfulness out of the mysterious brood¬ 
ing gathering shadows all around. The light 
flickers on the tents and their denizens, unable 
to resist the appeal, come and gather into the 
social circle for the evening. Was there ever 
any such domestic opportunity as this in houses? 
Can any family anywhere find itself touching 
elbows round a steam radiator? An artist might 
delight to paint that picture—the thread of white 
smoke in the midst and the fire surrounded by 
the family on upturned sap tubs and the circle 
of big guardian trees. And as an artist might 
paint it, a saint might bless it. 
Our houseless housekeeping is as convenient 
as it is simple. People talk about household con¬ 
veniences, but all the modern inventions only 
complicate life, while simplification offers the 
greatest convenience of all. We have good beds. 
In this case they are not made of balsam boughs, 
though we could well wish they were. But they 
serve admirably. We have a table with benches 
alongside. We have napkins. They are made 
of paper and can be thrown away cheaper than 
hemstitched napkins can be laundered. We have 
water from the spring—fresh, cool water which 
tastes better than seltzer and has no germs in it. 
We have an extra suit of clothes apiece hanging 
against the tent poles, and another pair of shoes 
under the bed. Heart could not desire more. 
Of if it did we have a shelf of books, too, the 
shelf having been built u'ith Our own hands, as 
were the table and benches, and we have a game 
of pinochle if we were not too much occupied 
with other entertainment ever to play it, and 
there is a flute which leads the singing around 
the evening camp-fire. The picture which hangs 
in the lady’s tent is newly painted by the artist 
in the family. On the walls of houses in the 
city they have pictures cut from Sunday papers. 
Those people live among the comforts of civili¬ 
zation. 
After dilating on such glorious blessings as 
those of our sleeping rooms and our camp-fire, 
it might seem like an anti-climax to mention 
our eating. Yet in camp we do truly eat—eat 
with a frequency and a fervor which bring as¬ 
tonishment and delight to all, even to the cook. 
For of all the departments of housekeeping in 
which tent life surpasses house life, the cooking 
and eating department has the surest supremacy. 
The simplicity of it is most engaging, as the re¬ 
sults are satisfying. The boy scout shows us 
how to start a fire in the rain, the other young¬ 
sters fetch wood, and in a jiffy there is a roar¬ 
ing cook fire. Over this there steams a kettle 
of chile con carne, reminiscence of the great 
southwestern desert, or a kettle of pea soup. 
