IN CAMP
"I've a nice long vacation ahead of me," announced Father Blair at
breakfast one hot summer morning, "and I've set my heart on going to
Maine on a camping trip. I don't want any guide to take care of me, yet
I do need some one who will help me cook. I had thought of asking you to
go, Jack, but as 'boys don't cook'--of course--"
"Oh, but they do camp cooking!" Jack exclaimed enthusiastically; "all
sorts of things--bacon, and fried eggs, and corn-bread--"
"But, you see, you can't make any of those, and my digestion being
delicate, I don't feel that I can be experimented upon," said his
father, with a twinkle in his eye. "Now if only you had taken lessons
all these months as the girls have, I might consider taking you."
"I'll learn right off, honestly I will! I'll begin this very day. And I
can make cheese dreams, and--and boil eggs, now."
"How long do you boil them, Jack?"
"Till they're done!" said Jack, triumphantly.
Father Blair went off laughing, and said he was afraid he wouldn't be
able to stand his son's cooking.
Jack spent a nervous day. Would his father really take him to Maine, to
the camp in the woods he had always heard about, where his father and
his men friends went nearly every year? Or would he be left at home
merely because he did not know how to cook? At last he consulted his
mother.
"I think Father will surely take you," she said comfortingly; "and he is
just pretending about the cooking; he can do all kinds of camp cookery
beautifully, and up there he will teach you himself how to make things."
So, sure enough, in just a week, Jack and his father were off for the
woods of Maine, to a lake where the fishing was wonderful. They had a
little log-cabin to sleep in, with a lean-to for their stores and
cooking things, and there was a circle of stones, all blackened from
other fires, where they could cook out of doors. The trees ran right
down to the water's edge, and it was so still, and cool, and lovely
that, if they had not been so hungry they could have sat and looked out
at the lake for hours. As it was, as soon as they were settled and the
guide had paddled off, they decided to have supper at once.
The first thing was to make a fire, and Jack brought an armful of twigs
and began to lay them in the stone fireplace.
"No, that's not the way," said his father. "There are several kinds of
camp-fires, and the one we want to-night is the quick one. You must get
two green sticks, about three feet long, with crotches at the top, and
stick them well into the ground so they will cross at the top; then you
can fill the kettle with water and hang it up, two feet from the fire,
and under it you arrange loosely some very dry small twigs; have some
larger ones at hand to put on as they burn up; that makes a hot, quick
fire; some campers call it a 'wigwam' fire, because they build it up in
that pointed shape. To-night, however, the first thing to do is to start
the coffee; this is the way to make it:"
CAMP COFFEE
1 pint of cold water.
3 heaping tablespoonfuls of ground coffee.
As soon as the water bubbles, and before it really boils, take the
kettle off and let it stand for ten minutes where it is hot. Pour
a tablespoonful of cold water down the spout to settle it.
While the coffee was making, they cut a large slice of ham from the
whole one they had brought with them, and after the frying-pan was
heated on the coals, they put this in it to cook. Then Jack got out four
eggs to have them ready, while Father Blair gave him this simple rule:
HAM AND EGGS
Cut off the rind; when the pan is hot, put the meat in; turn
often; season with pepper. Take up, put on a hot dish, and cover;
break the eggs into the hot fat, and when they are set, turn each
one carefully over and brown it.
[Illustration: The First Supper in Camp]
"You cook bacon exactly in this way, too; only you must be careful not
to cook it too long; you take it up when it is still transparent and
before it turns to dry chips. Now, if you will get out the cups and
sugar and condensed milk, and the bread and butter, supper will be
ready."
They slept that night rolled up in their blankets in the bunks built on
the cabin walls, and woke very early to hear the birds singing at the
top of their little lungs. When they had had a dip in the lake and the
fire was burning brightly and the kettle was on, Jack said he wanted
more ham and eggs for breakfast.
"Not a bit of it!" said his father. "We are too far from civilization to
have eggs every day; remember, the guide will not be back for a week
with any more, and we must be saving of these. This morning we will have
bacon--lots of it--and corn-cakes; by dinner-time, if we have any sort
of luck, we shall have some fish to fry."
[Illustration: Jack Gets Breakfast]
As they had two frying-pans, Jack used the smaller one on one side of
the fire for the bacon, while his father, after mixing the cakes, baked
them in the larger one. As the strips of bacon grew a little brown and
curly, Jack took them up one by one and kept them hot till the cakes and
coffee were ready too.
"Pour out all the bacon fat from the pan and save it," said his father,
as Jack finished the last piece. "It's the best thing in the world to
cook with in camp, for it flavors everything just as you want it. We'll
need all we can get of it. And here's your receipt for the cakes."
CORN-CAKES
1/2 pint of corn-meal.
1/4 pint of flour.
1 rounded teaspoonful of baking-powder.
1 rounded teaspoonful of sugar.
1/2 teaspoonful of salt.
Mix all together, and then gently add cold water and stir till you
have a thick batter. Have ready a hot frying-pan, well greased,
and put the batter in in spoonfuls; they will run together as they
bake, but you can cut them apart; turn them over and brown on the
under side.
After breakfast they heated some water and washed up all the dishes,
made their beds, and picked everything up around the cabin. Jack hated
to waste time doing this, he was in such a hurry to go fishing, but his
father would not leave till it was all done. "Campers often let things
go," he said, "and soon the whole place is full of empty tin cans, and
half-burned sticks, and all sorts of rubbish, and it's a horrid place to
live in. You'll find it pays to keep everything about a camp in decent
shape. But now we will get off."
The lake was full of bass, and long before noon they had several fine
ones, enough for two meals. "Some day soon we will go into the deep
woods and fish for trout," said Father Blair. "This is too easy;
trout-fishing is the real sport for us."
Then Jack had his first lesson in scaling and cleaning a fish, and found
it no joke; however, after a time it went more easily, and then his
father left him, to make a new kind of fire.
"This is what I call a lasting fire," he said. "The quick kind we made
first goes out too soon to leave a bed of coals which we need to bake
with. This is the way I do: I make a little pile of twigs just as
before, but close up to a rock; then I stand several large sticks up in
front and lean them back so they rest on the rock--so; then, as they
burn, they fall down into the twig-fire and make coals. By adding wood
from time to time I could keep this for hours. Now for my oven!"
He dug a hole about eight inches deep and a foot long right under the
edge of the fire, and was soon able to fill it with hot coals. "When
that is hot, say in ten minutes, I shall take the coals out and put my
potatoes in."
BAKED POTATOES
Wash potatoes of even size; put them in the oven under the fire,
cover with ashes, and put coals on top; new potatoes will cook in
half an hour, old ones in forty minutes.
"Now how is your fish getting on? Luckily you don't have to scale all
our fish; some you can skin, and some, like trout, you simply clean and
cook just as they are. This is the way you do a good-sized fish:"
BROILED FISH
Scale or skin, clean, and wipe dry. Spread open the broiler and
rub the wires with bacon rind or pork; cut the head off and split
the fish open down the back, and lay it in; hold the broiler over
the coals and turn it often; sprinkle with salt and pepper.
It was only a moment before the fish began to sizzle deliciously, and by
the time it was done, the potatoes were done too, and white as snow
after their black coats had been taken off. Together they made a
wonderful meal, and there was enough fish left for supper.
WARMED-OVER FISH
1 pint of fish.
1 pint of hot mashed potato.
1 beaten egg.
Salt and pepper.
Use any kind of cooked fish, removing the skin and bones. Mix the
ingredients, make into little cakes, and fry brown in a little hot
fat.
BOILED POTATOES
Choose those which are the same size, so they will all be done at
once. Peel them, dropping each one in cold water till all are
done, and then put them in a pot of boiling, salted water, and
cook gently half an hour. When soft, pour off the water, stand the
pot, uncovered, close to the fire, and let them get dry. Eat them
with salt and butter as they are, or mash them in the kettle,
adding the same seasoning.
Jack cooked these, and mixed the cakes and got them all ready to brown.
"What else are we going to have, Father Blair?" he asked anxiously. "I
don't think these will be half enough."
"I think I feel just like pancakes," said his father, throwing down the
book he had been reading. "I hope there's plenty of that prepared flour,
Jack. I think I shall want about six cakes; how many will you need?"
Jack said he thought he could manage with eight, if they were pretty
good-sized.
PANCAKES
Take two cups of prepared flour and mix with water (or use half
water and half condensed milk) until it makes a batter like thick
cream. Have ready a hot, greased frying-pan; pour in the batter
from a small pitcher.
"Sometimes I have these instead of bread to eat with meat, and then we
have gravy on them. Then sometimes we have maple-syrup, and call them
dessert."
"Syrup for me!" said Jack, struggling to turn his fish-cakes without
breaking them. "But I didn't know you were so much of a cook, Father."
"Jack, while we are eating, I'll tell you a true story, one of the dark
secrets of my eventful life; that will explain to you why I believe a
man should know how to cook."
So when the pancakes were finished and Jack had time to listen, his
father told him the story of how, when they were first married, the
Blairs had taken a trip across the prairie, and had camped a long way
from a town; how Mother Blair had been taken ill and could not do the
cooking, and poor Father Blair had to do everything for her and himself
too, and did not know how to cook an egg, or make a cup of tea, or a bit
of toast; and what a time it was! "I tell you, Jack, after that was
over, I went to work and learned how to do a few things; and now, as you
say," he added complacently, "I'm quite a cook. And the sooner you learn
to cook, the better, for some day you'll need to know how; all men do."
"S'pose so," Jack murmured thoughtfully.
[Illustration: The Next Day was Perfect for Fishing]
The next day was perfect for trout-fishing, so they started early with
some lunch, and went back into the deep woods where there was a brown
stream all full of little rocks and hollows, and there Jack took his
first lesson in fly-fishing, and at night he was the proudest of boys
when they looked at their basket of speckled beauties, four of which he
had caught. It was great fun to cook them too, when they got back to
camp.
SMALL FISH, BROILED
Clean the fish; put them on a green stick, passing it through
their gills; put a slice of bacon or salt pork between each two
fish; have a hot bed of coals, and hold them over this till done,
turning often.
Several of the larger ones they strung on a string and put away in a
dark, cool place among the rocks, and kept them till the next day, when
they cooked them in a different way, and had:
PANNED FISH
Clean the fish; cut off the heads and break the spines, to keep
them from curling as they cook. Put three slices of bacon or pork
into a frying-pan, and, when this is done, take it out and put in
the fish; cook quickly and turn often.
One day a rain-storm came on, so they could not go fishing, but had to
stay in and play games and read and write letters. At noon, they went to
a sheltered corner of the rocks and made a quick fire, where the rain
could not reach it, and cooked their dinner; they had:
CORNED-BEEF HASH
1 can of corned beef.
1 onion.
2 large cups of cold boiled potato.
Pepper and dry mustard.
Cook the onion, after slicing it fine, in a little fat. Chop the
potatoes and beef and add these, with the seasoning; when the
under side is brown, turn it like an omelet.
For supper they had to go to their stores again; this time they had
STEAMED SALMON
Turn the salmon into a dish; take out the bones and fat, and pour
away the juice; season with salt and pepper; put in a covered can
and stand in a kettle of boiling water till very hot.
"We'll have fried potatoes with the salmon, Jack. Can you make those all
alone?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Jack, who by this time could do a great many things.
FRIED POTATOES
Slice cooked or raw potatoes; heat a frying-pan, put in enough fat
to cover the bottom when melted, and cook the potatoes till brown;
scrape them up from the bottom often, so they will not burn.
The potatoes and salmon made a very good supper, but Jack was not sorry
to hear that, when the guide made his weekly visit the next day, he
would bring eggs and milk and vegetables.
"And I'm going to send for a little light sheet-iron stove made
especially for campers," said Mr. Blair. "Then we'll have real
corn-bread, and baked fish, and biscuits. Don't you want to learn to
make biscuits like Mildred's, Jack?"
Jack grew red all through his tan as he looked at his father's teasing
face.
"Well," he said doubtfully, "I suppose biscuits are all right, and I'll
learn to make them if you say so. But, Father, you won't want me ever to
make cake or desserts, will you? I draw the line there!"
"We'll see!" laughed his father. "Perhaps you'll change your mind about
that, some day."