Now we have come to the very tip of the tail of the camp dog. You will be interested to know how an old timer was obliged to laugh at herself. I am ashamed to tell you how recently this occurred. I was in the northernmost wilderness of the state of Maine, and near a big lumber camp, when I saw a “camp dog” lying on the ground, its long axe handle shining from use, its pickaxe blade a bright steel color, and the tooth at the back looking as if it had been often used. I was delighted.
“Oh,” I said to my guide, “look at that camp dog lying there!”
He was particularly attentive to my pronunciation, for he said I pronounced some words, such as “girl,” as he had never heard them pronounced before. I saw a curious expression pass across his face.
Then he began to laugh and he kept right on until the woods echoed with his roars.
“Well,” he said finally, wiping away the tears, “if that doesn’t beat everything! That isn’t a camp dog, that’s a cant dog,--you know what you cant logs and heavy things over with, roll ’em over and pry ’em up with when you couldn’t do it any other way. My grief, to think of your calling that a camp dog all these years!”
Many girls think of outdoor life as of something to be enjoyed if they have plenty of time. As a matter of course they take their daily bath. But the outdoor exercise comes as an accessory. It is still unfortunately true that boys more than girls take camp life for granted. Yet girls, and students particularly, should realize that it is economy of time to be out of doors. This they need both for their work and for their health. Outdoor exercise, with its bath of fresh air and the natural bath of freshly circulating blood it brings with it, its training school for the whole girl, is as essential as the tub or sponge bath. But how many of us think of it in that way?
To be outdoors is to have the nerves keyed to the proper pitch. If fresh air is not a tonic to the nerves, then why is it that moodiness and depression fall away as we walk or row or lie under the trees, and we become saner and more serene? When one is depressed the best thing to do is to go out of doors. Altogether aside from any formal wisdom of book or student or teacher, there is wisdom with nature. _If the head is tired, go out of doors! If the body is fagged, go out of doors! If the heart is troubled, go out of doors!_ The life out there, as no life indoors can, will make for health, for charity, for bigness. Petty things fall away, and with nature equanimity and poise are found again. It isn’t necessary to bother someone about woes real or imaginary. All that is necessary is to get out among the trees and flowers, the sky and clouds, the joyous birds and little creatures of field and wood, and hear what they have to say. There will be no complaining among them, even about very real difficulties.