Did you ever camp in the woods on a moonlight night and listen to
nature's voices? Have you seen the light flicker through the trees,
and glisten on the little brook, its ripples breaking into molten
silver as it glides away between banks o'erhung with fern and trailing
grasses?
Did you ever sit by the camp fire after a day's climb over rocks and
treacherous trails, or after whipping the stream up and down for the
speckled beauties, and watch the flames climb higher and higher, the
sparks flying upward as you throw on the dry pine branches, and listen
to the trees overhead, swayed by the gentle breeze, croon their drowsy
lullaby? Thus were Hal and I camped one night in June, at Ben Lomond,
in the Santa Cruz mountains, and I shall never forget the glory of
that moonlight night.
There is a delightful, comforting feeling about it, and somehow it
always reminds me of a theater, one of God's own handiwork, whose dome
is the blue vault of heaven, studded with its millions of stars. The
silver moon just peeping over the mountain, throwing into grand relief
its rugged seam-scarred sides, the calcium light; the pine trees with
waving plumes, rising file on file like shrouded specters, form the
stage setting; the mountain brook, on whose bosom the moon leaves a
streak of molten silver, the footlights; while all the myriad voices
of the night, harmoniously blended, are the orchestra. Even the birds
in their nests, awakened by the firelight, join their sleepy chirpings
to the chorus.
It has something primeval about it, and one almost expects to see
Robin Hood or Friar Tuck step out into the firelight. The camp fire
carries one back to the days when the red men roamed the woods, sat
round their camp fires, listened to the talking leaves, and boasted of
their prowess.
What sweet memories linger round the camp fire, where the song of the
cricket brings to us recollections of boyhood's days on the farm, when
we listened to the little minstrel, joined to the voice of the
katydids, as their elfin music came floating up from field and meadow
in a pulsating treble chorus. Dear little black musician of my
childhood! Your note still lingers in my memory and brings before me
the faces of those long since departed, who sat around the fireplace
and listened to your cheery song. There was an unwritten law among us
boys never to kill a cricket, and we kept it as sacredly as was kept
the law of the Medes and Persians.
There is another side to the camp fire: the genial comradery of its
cheery blaze, after the supper is over and the pipes lit, which
invites stories of the day's catch. The speckled beauties are
exhibited, lying side by side on the damp moss at the bottom of the
basket. The tale is told of repeated casts, under the overhanging
boughs, in the shadow of the big rock, where the water swirls and
rushes: how the brown hackle went skittering over the pool, or dropped
as lightly as thistledown on the edge of the riffle, the sudden rise
to the fly, the rush for deep water, of the strain on the rod when it
throbbed like a thing of life, sending a delicious tingle to the
finger tips, the successful battle, and the game brought to the net at
last.
The delicious odor of the coffee bubbling in the pot, the speckled
beauties, still side by side, sizzling in the pan, all combine to
tempt the appetite of an epicure.
The camp fire has strange and varied companions. Men from all walks of
life are lured by its cheery blaze. Here sits the noted divine in
search of recreation, and, incidentally, material for future sermonic
use; a prominent physician, glad to escape for a season the
complaining ills, real or imaginary, of his many patients; a judge,
whose benign expression, as he straightens the leaders in his flybook,
or carefully wipes the moisture from his split bamboo rod, suggests
nothing of justice dispensed with an iron hand; and Emanuel, our
Mexican guide, who contentedly inhales the smoke from his cigarette as
he lounges in the warmth of the blazing camp fire, dreaming of his
señorita.
Who can withstand the call of the camp fire, when the sap begins to
run in the trees, and the buds swell with growing life? The meadow
larks call from the pasture, and overhead the killdee pipes his
plaintive call. One longs to lie in the sunshine and watch the clouds
go trailing over the valley. The smell of the woods and the smoke of
the camp fire are in the air, and that old restless longing steals
over him. It is a malady that no prescription compounded by the hand
of a physician can alleviate. Its only antidote is a liberal dose of
Mother Nature's remedy, "God's Out-of-Doors."
What changes the close contact of nature makes in her loving children!
You would hardly know these men dressed in khaki suits and flannel
shirts, smoking their evening pipes around the camp fire, as the same
men who attend receptions and banquets in the city, dressed in
conventional evening clothes; and I dare say they enjoy the camp fire,
with its homely fare and cheery blaze, far more than electric-lighted
parlors and costly catering.
But the camp fire wanes. A stick burns through and falls asunder,
sending up a shower of sparks. Charred embers only remain. We spread
our blankets with knapsack for pillow. With no sound of traffic to
mar our slumbers, soothed by the wind in the branches, and the gentle
song of the mountain brook for a lullaby, we are wooed to sleep on the
broad bosom of Mother Earth.
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