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.

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.

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.

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.