CAMP CLOTHES
If you have been camping once, there is no need for any one to help you
decide what wearing apparel to take the next time. Through the mistakes
made and the discomforts involved, the girl will have learned her lesson
too well to forget it. But there is always the girl who has not been
camping. It is chiefly for her benefit that I am writing these chapters
on camp life for girls.
In the first place, there are two kinds of camp clothes to be
considered, for there are two kinds of camping: (1) the expedition which
permits taking a box or trunk with you, and (2) the rougher camping that
allows only the carrying of a duffle bag or a knapsack. If you are
limited to a knapsack or a duffle bag, your kit must be of the most
concentrated sort and chosen with the greatest care. You will find ten
or fifteen pounds the most you wish to tote long distances, although at
the beginning this size of pack may seem like nothing at all to you. As
I have found personally, even seven pounds, with day after day of
tramping, may make an unaccustomed shoulder ache under the strap.
[Illustration: MOCCASIN BOOT]
[Illustration: TOBIQUE MOCCASIN]
[Illustration: HURON INDIAN MOCCASINS]
[Illustration: MOCCASIN SHOE]
[Illustration: MECCOMOC OXFORD]
[Illustration: ELKSKIN MOCCASIN]
If you are to be limited to a small duffle bag, or a fairly capacious
knapsack, what are the articles of clothing without which no girl can
start? Let us take up the most important item first, and that is
foot-gear. Wear a well-made pair of medium weight boots, thoroughly
tanned, soaked with viscol, or rubbed with mutton tallow both on the
inside and the outside, to make them waterproof. _Never start out with a
new pair of boots on your feet._ If necessary, get your boots weeks
beforehand, and wear them from time to time till they are thoroughly
comfortable. In addition to these boots which you wear, take a soft pair
of indoor moccasins. These can be worn when you are tired and loafing
around camp, or while the guide is drying or greasing your boots. If you
have ever worn moccasins and are going to tramp in a moccasin country,
that is, a country of forest trails and ponds, then buy a pair of heavy
outdoor moccasins; larrigans or ankle-moccasins are best. These should
not be too snug. Worn over a heavy cotton stocking, or a light woolen
one, or woolen stockings drawn over cotton, the moccasin is the most
ideal foot-gear the wilderness world can ever know.[1] Neat’s-foot oil
is also excellent for greasing moccasins. Buy from two to four pairs of
hole-proof stockings of some reliable make. If these stockings are
first class and can be depended upon, two pairs will do. One pair you
will wear, the other goes into your knapsack. Have also several
combination suits, some for your bag and one for your back. These suits
should be high-necked and with shoulder and knee caps; of sufficient
warmth for cold days and nights; in any case porous and of two weights.
[1] If you have room take with you an extra pair of shoes. When you
have become a real woodswoman you will never be without woolen socks
and moccasins. The thick, soft sole of sock and moccasin spare tender
feet which are not accustomed to hard tramping and rough paths.
If you are going to tramp in a skirt, as you must if your route touches
upon civilization, _see that it is short_. Six inches off the ground is
none too much, and twelve is a good deal better. In an outing of this
sort it is as poor form to wear a long skirt as it would be to wear a
short skirt at an afternoon tea in civilization. The skirt should be of
some good quality khaki, army preferably, or a tweed; it should be
thoroughly shrunk, and if it seems desirable, it should be possible to
put this camp skirt in water and wash it.[2] Have ample pockets on
either side of the front seams. If I had to choose between the best of
sweaters and a jacket with a lot of pockets in it, I should always
choose the latter, and that is not on account of the pockets alone, but
because it is a more convenient article of clothing. In case of cold
weather it affords better protection, also better protection against
rain as well as cold. You can have it made with two outside pockets and
several inside--the more the merrier. Underneath the skirt wear a pair
of bloomers. The lighter and stouter these are, the more of a comfort
they will be. I have found a good quality of percaline to be the best
investment. Percaline is light, strong, slimsy after a little wearing,
and washes well. I have never yet found a silk that was practicable in
the woods. Silk bloomers go well with the comforts of civilization, but
they are not fit to endure the test of roughing it. A flannel shirtwaist
or blouse, a Windsor or string tie, a soft felt hat--you may have it as
pretty as you wish, provided it is not too large or over
trimmed--complete the outfit which you carry on you, so to speak.
[2] You can buy an ideal hunting suit at any of the big shops in
Boston, New York or Chicago for from $8 to $10.
Now to return to the outfit you carry in your pack and not on your back.
A pair of indoor moccasins, an extra pair of hole-proof stockings (these
you must have, not only on account of a possible wetting, but also
because the stockings must be changed every day, for you cannot take too
good care of your feet), two coarse handkerchiefs of ample size, a silk
neckerchief to tie around your neck, an extra combination suit, a few
safety pins clipped one into another until you have made a string of
them, a tooth brush, a little tube of cold cream and a tube of tooth
paste (the tubes are not breakable and take up the least room, they are
therefore the best to carry), a cotton or linen shirtwaist of some kind,
a nail file, a comb, a small vial of cascara sagrada tablets, several
rolls of film for your camera--the camera itself can be slung on a strap
from the knapsack--a pair of garden gloves for rough work with sooty
pots and kettles, a good-sized cake of the best castile soap, a towel, a
good stiff nail brush, and one or two books.
Personally I feel that the books are as indispensable as anything in the
knapsack, for in moments of weariness, or when storm-bound, they prove
the greatest comfort and resource. The volume taken must not be a novel
which read through once one does not care to read again. Better to take
some book over which you can or must linger. I have tramped scores of
miles with the “Oxford Book of English Verse” in my knapsack, and it has
proved the greatest imaginable pleasure and solace. A small anthology
or a book of essays, or something that you wish to study, as, for
example, guides about the birds or the trees or the flowers, are good
sorts of volumes to tote with you--besides, of course, this camping
manual.
Your kit for the rougher kind of camping, provided you have guides or
men folks who will carry the food, or “grub,” as it is called in camp
parlance, and the blankets, is now complete. But for the one girl who
goes on this rougher sort of camping expedition, twenty go into the
woods to be happy in a quite civilized log cabin or shanty. These girls
will be taking a camp box with them, or a trunk, and can add to their
wardrobe. There is no excuse, however, for adding the wrong sort of
thing. There is no excuse for wearing unsuitable, unattractive old rags
about camp, clothes which have served their civilized purpose and have
no fitness for the wilderness life. Let me give you one other word,
from an old timer at camping, about what you should wear. _Don’t be
foolish and put in any finery._ The finery is as out of place in camp as
your camp boots would be at a garden party at home. But several middy
blouses, more shoes, more stockings, another skirt, a number of towels,
a few more books--all will prove just that much added food for pleasure;
first, last, and always, be comfortable in camp. There is no reason for
being uncomfortable unless you enjoy discomfort. Anything, however, over
and above what you actually need will be only a hindrance. Those who go
camping, if they go in the right spirit, are looking for the simple
life; they want to get rid of paraphernalia, not to add to it. To learn
the happy art of living close to nature, means stripping away
unnecessary things. There is no place in camp life for fussiness or
display of any sort. All that is beyond the daily need is so much
litter and clutter, making of camp life something that is a burden,
something that is untidy, uncomfortable, confused. Of no thing is this
more true than of a girl’s camp clothes.