Camping Part 5

After breakfast they gather up all the soiled wash, make out a duplicate list, and have them ready when the man calls at each tent for them.

Quite a clever system that works out all right.

Sunday afternoon is spent on the water or some game is started up. The usual swimming is indulged in, and by supper time everybody is ready to peck a bit of food, even if they have dined later and had a most bountiful repast.

In the evening the fun begins. Generally on Sunday the Literary Society has an open meeting. Everything goes, from a banjo solo to an imitation fight between two noted prize-fighters.

The little boys recite, the big ones give monologues, our celebrated orchestra renders stirring selections, and the entire Camp joins in the chorus.

The instructors cheerfully help out. It matters not what you ask them to do! Sing a solo? Why, yes; he will be delighted. Sing a duet? Pleased to oblige such an appreciative audience. Join in a quartette? Why, nothing would give him greater happiness.

It makes no difference how silly they have to act. They just go ahead.

Anything to please the boys and keep them in good spirits.

Were Hammerstein ever to come out to Camp on a Sunday evening he would find more real talent on our little stage than he has at his own vaudeville house.

The evening ends very happily, all voting it a bully good show. They give three cheers for the performers, and with a final cheer for good measure, "Quarters" are sounded.

It is a happy crowd that slowly wends its way to the tents, and many a laugh is heard as they go over the evening's performance.

The faculty clear the place, leaving everything in apple-pie order for the morrow. "Taps" are sounded by the bugler and another happy day is done.

As we grow older it may take more to please us, but I feel confident that some of these days will be remembered long after we have grown up.

Life would, indeed, be for many of us a very sad thing if we had not childhood's happy days to look back on.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X.

Football.

Why there should be such excitement about a game of football I have never been able to find out. When all is said and done you can hardly see the players. They are bunched together most of the time. They stand bent over, looking for all the world as though they were about to play leapfrog.

Then some under-sized little shrimp of a fellow begins to yell 4-11-44, 7-28-7-11, and all manner of numbers; he grows fearfully excited over the stupidity of his team; they evidently don't understand the signals.

In a perfect frenzy of pa.s.sion and despair he raises his voice and almost weeps. Sometimes he says things that are not in the polite letter writer; not the things that a gentle youth would send in a letter to his best girl, but the rest of the team don't seem to mind it at all.

The other side is doing the same. They have also a man whose special mission in life seems to be howling with all his might while madly springing up and down.

Again they form and await the whistle of the umpire. Every man acts as though the eyes of the entire sporting world were upon him.

Gee! If they can only get the start; what they won't do to the other side! The whistle blows, one yard gained after a terrific struggle; form again, more numbers yelled in a voice hoa.r.s.e from much shouting, then they are off again! A splendid kick causing the ball to form a perfect curve as it sails through the air, one great big chap fairly springs up several feet to catch it as it comes down; he runs, and his side, when the whistle blows, have gained five yards. I stand idly watching them, wis.h.i.+ng that the game was more familiar to me. It must be a good game, after all is said and done, or people would not go wild about it.

The first half is over. Now the umpire is quite a busy man. Let us trust he has taken out a traveling life insurance policy, for he certainly needs it as he wanders up and down. Each side is filing its protests. If he is to believe them they have each been guilty of everything but piracy on the high seas.

Several boys have been knocked out for a minute. They are being attended to by the surgeon and staff--a liberal sprinkling of water besides ma.s.sage sets them up again quite eager to join the fray.

The coach calls his crowd around him, scolds some, praises others, warns all to go carefully. The little chap, whose special mission in life seems to be to cuss and yell numbers as fast as he can get them out, is on hand; watches his opportunity to remind them that when he says 8-7-6-5-4 he does not mean 93-2-15; begs them, for sweet love's sake, to go in and win.

The referee blows the whistle. Both sides form. They toss up for the first choice, and off they go.

In spite of one's desire to sit quietly and let them chew each other up like a pack of Kilkenny cats, until nothing but the tails are left, you find yourself yelling, jumping, running along with the rest of the crowd.

"A goal! a goal!" they shriek, and all because one boy has thrown the ball over. Phew! what excitement! what joy for the winners! sympathy for the losers! a happy blending of praise and blame!

No matter where you go it is just as bad; that is, in any English-speaking country.

This fall I saw, while in Lincoln, England, a tremendous crowd coming out of the railroad station. They were pus.h.i.+ng and jostling each other.

Some were packed six deep in cabs, riding in butchers' carts, on bicycles, on tricycles. I had almost said icicles, because they were going any way so long as they got there. My curiosity at last got the best of me, and I stopped a good-natured looking man. "My friend," I said, "what are you all in such a hurry for? Is there a hanging going on, or has England declared herself a Republic?"

He looked at me with a pitiful smile, as though to pity my ignorance.

"No, Madam," he said, "it is a game of football, and they kick off at 2.30," and off he ran.

On this particular day the Reds won, to the everlasting sorrow of the Blues.

Boys are nice chaps, anyhow. Just as soon as the game is over there is not one bit of hard feeling between victor and vanquished. They shake hands, say better luck next time and are ready for the next game.

If we could carry that spirit with us out into the world, what a lot of good it would do us, as well as the other poor soul who has lost in the game of life. At least let us try and give the other chap a fair show, a run for his money, so to say. Then if we do come out ahead it won't matter so much. A kind word, a loving thought, means a lot to the chap who has lost, while to us it affords some satisfaction to have won modestly, not to fly on the top of the fence, flap our wings and crow like the victorious c.o.c.k.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XI.

Boating.

Boating has always been a much-sought-after pastime. The boat, even as little children, we were very fond of was one called Noah's Ark. Ours was filled with cute little animals, and trees, and houses, that gave us great pleasure to arrange, always taking care to make them walk two by two, each couple of bears or elephants or cats, or any other animal, never on any account to put a rat with a cat or a tiger with a goat, as we were taught that they had to pair off the right way.

Noah's ark was a good old boat. From what I can make out it must have been somewhat like a present-day houseboat, while the lower half was like a cattle carrier.

Jolly time Friend Noah must have had to preserve order. Of course, the fear of being thrown overboard probably kept them behaving fairly well.

Still it must have been a dreary time for all, not like the boating at Camp.

The Vikings with their war vessels manned by dozens of slaves, some of them below decks where they had to sit chained together, plying the long sweeps for dear life--death for them if they failed--death for them at the end always. Poor, poor fellows! I never read about them but my heart aches.

What thousands of human beings have been sacrificed to bring our civilization up to its present humane standard! That was another kind of boating for you.

We can go on and on, down to the present time, and find in every period something to interest, to shock, to awaken our truest sympathy for those who have gone before, but as this is not a history of boats and boatmen, just an account of our outings, I will not digress any longer.

In the beginning of the season we don't care what kind of a boat we go out in so long as it is a boat, but in a few days we begin to notice the great difference between a flat-bottomed boat and a dory, between a canoe-shaped boat and one with bow and stern. The advantages of each and every one are quickly mastered, until at the end of the first week we have pinned our faith to one particular kind, to the exclusion of all others. Then our usual selfishness begins to show. We charter that boat, and woe be to the fellow who takes it.