Immediately we, that is to say, Eddie, began to buy things. It is
Eddie's way to read text-books and to consult catalogues with a view of
making a variety of purchases. He has had a great deal of experience in
the matter of camp life, but being a modest man he has a fund of respect
for the experience of others. Any one who has had enough ability, or
time, to write a book on the subject, and enough perseverance, or money,
to get it published, can preach the gospel of the woods to Eddie in the
matter of camp appointments; and even the manufacturers' catalogues are
considered sound reading. As a result, he has accumulated an amazing
collection of articles, adapted to every time and season, to every
change of wind and temperature, to every spot where the tent gleams
white in the campfire's blaze, from Greenland's icy mountains to India's
coral strand. Far be it from me to deride or deprecate this tendency,
even though it were a ruling passion. There are days, and nights, too,
recalled now with only a heart full of gratitude because of Eddie's
almost inexhaustible storehouse of comforts for soul and flesh--the
direct result of those text-books and those catalogues, and of the wild,
sweet joy he always found in making lists and laying in supplies. Not
having a turn that way, myself, he had but small respect for my ideas of
woodcraft and laid down the law of the forest to me with a firm hand.
When I hinted that I should need a new lancewood rod, he promptly
annulled the thought. When I suggested that I might aspire as far as a
rather good split bamboo, of a light but serviceable kind, he dispelled
the ambition forthwith.
"You want a noibwood," he said. "I have just ordered one, and I will
take you to the same place to get it."
[Illustration: "It was a field day for Eddie and he bought more."]
I had never heard of this particular variety of timber, and it seemed
that Eddie had never heard of it, either, except in a catalogue and from
the lips of a dealer who had imported a considerable amount of the
material. Yet I went along, meekly enough, and ordered under his
direction. I also selected an assortment of flies--the prettiest he
would let me buy. A few others which I had set my heart on I had the
dealer slip in when Eddie wasn't looking. I was about to buy a curious
thing which a trout could not come near without fatal results, when the
wide glare of his spectacles rested on me and my courage failed. Then he
selected for me a long landing net, for use in the canoe, and another
with an elastic loop to go about the neck, for wading; leaders and
leader-boxes and the other elementary necessaries of angling in the
northern woods. Of course such things were as A, B, C to Eddie. He had
them in infinite variety, but it was a field day and he bought more. We
were out of the place at last, and I was heaving a sigh of relief that
this part of it was over and I need give the matter no further thought,
when Eddie remarked:
"Well, we've made a pretty good start. We can come down here a lot of
times between now and June."
"But what for?" I asked.
"Oh, for things. You haven't a sleeping bag yet, and we'll be thinking
of other stuff right along. We can stay over a day in Boston, too, and
get some things there. I always do that. You want a good many things.
You can't get them in the woods, you know."
Eddie was right about having plenty of time, for this was January. He
was wrong, however, about being unable to get things in the woods. I
did, often. I got Eddie's.