If "the open fire furnishes the room," the camp-fire does more for the
camp. It is its life--a life that throbs out in every flare and flicker
to enliven the surroundings, whether they be the trees of the forest,
the expanse of prairie, shadowed only by clouds and night, or the barren
stretch of sandy shore. Out of the encompassing gloom of all these, the
camp-fire materializes figures as real to the eye as flesh and blood. It
peoples the verge of darkness with grotesque forms, that leap and crouch
and sway with the rise and fall and bending of the flame to the wind,
and that beckon the fancy out to grope in the mystery of night.
Then imagination soars with the updrift of smoke and the climbing galaxy
of fading sparks, to where the steadfast stars shine out of the
unvisited realm that only imagination can explore.
The camp-fire gives an expression to the human face that it bears in no
other light, a vague intentness, an absorption in nothing tangible; and
yet not a far-away look, for it is focused on the flame that now licks a
fresh morsel of wood, now laps the empty air; or it is fixed on the
shifting glow of embers, whose blushes flush or fade under their ashen
veil. It is not the gaze of one who looks past everything at nothing, or
at the stars or the mountains or the far-away sea-horizon; but it is
centred on and revealed only by the camp-fire. You wonder what the gazer
beholds--the past, the future, or something that is neither; and the
uncertain answer you can only get by your own questioning of the
flickering blaze.
* * * * *
As the outers gather around this cheerful centre their lips exhale
stories of adventure by field and flood, as naturally as the burning
fuel does smoke and sparks, and in that engendering warmth, no fish
caught or lost, no buck killed or missed, suffers shrinkage in size or
weight, no peril is lessened, no tale shorn of minutest detail. All
these belong to the camp-fire, whether it is built in conformity to
scientific rules or piled clumsily by unskilled hands. What satisfaction
there is in the partnership of building this altar of the camp, for
though a master of woodcraft superintends, all may take a hand in its
erection; the youngest and the weakest may contribute a stick that will
brighten the blaze.
* * * * *
What hospitality the glow of the camp-fire proclaims in inviting always
one more to the elastic circle of light and warmth, that if always
complete, yet expands to receive another guest. A pillar of cloud by
day, of fire by night, it is a beacon that guides the wanderer to
shelter and comfort.
* * * * *
The Indian weed has never such perfect flavor as when, contending with
heat and smoke, one lights his pipe with a coal or an elusive flame,
snatched from the embers of the camp-fire, and by no other fireside does
the nicotian vapor so soothe the perturbed senses, bring such lazy
contentment, nor conjure such pleasant fancies out of the border of
dreamland.
* * * * *
There is no cooking comparable with that which the camp-fire affords. To
whatever is boiled, stewed, roasted, broiled or baked over its blaze, in
the glow of its embers or in its ashes, it imparts a distinctive woodsy
flavor that it distills out of itself or draws from the spiced air that
fans it; and the aroma of every dish invites an appetite that is never
disappointed if the supply be large enough.
* * * * *
It cannot be denied that the camp stove gives forth warmth and, with
more comfort to the cook, serves to cook food of such tame flavor as one
may get at home. But though the serviceable little imp roar till its
black cheeks glow red as winter berries, it cannot make shanty or tent a
camp in reality or impart to an outing its true flavor. This can only be
given by the generous camp-fire, whose flames and embers no narrow walls
inclose, whose hearth is on every side, whose chimney is the wide air.