A RAINY DAY IN CAMP

The plans of the camper, like those of other men, "gang aft agley." The morrow, which he proposed to devote to some long-desired hunting or fishing trip, is no more apt to dawn propitiously on him than on the husbandman, the mariner, or any other mortal who looks to the weather for special favor. On the contrary, instead of the glowing horizon and the glory of the sunburst that should usher in the morning, the slow dawn is quite apt to have the unwelcome accompaniment of rain.

The hearing, first alert of the drowsy senses, catches the sullen patter of the drops on tent or shanty, their spiteful, hissing fall on the smouldering embers of the camp-fire, and with a waft of damp earth and herbage stealing into his nostrils, the disappointed awakener turns fretfully under his blanket, then crawls forth to have his lingering hope smothered in the veil of rain that blurs the landscape almost to annihilation.

He mutters anathemas against the weather, then takes the day as it has come to him, for better or for worse. First, to make the best of it, he piles high the camp-fire, and dispels with its glow and warmth some cubic feet of gloom and dampness. Then he sets about breakfast-making, scurrying forth from shelter to fire, in rapid culinary forays, battling with the smoke, for glimpses of the contents of kettle and pan. His repast is as pungent with smoke as the strong waters of Glenlivat, but if that is valued for its flavor of peat-reek, why should he scorn food for the like quality?

Then if he delights in petty warfare with the elements, to bide the pelting of the rain, to storm the abatis of wet thickets and suffer the sapping and mining of insidious moisture, he girds up his loins and goes forth with rod or gun, as his desire of conquest may incline him.

But if he has come to his outing with the intention of pursuing sport with bodily comfort, he is at once assured that this is unattainable under the present conditions of the weather. Shall he beguile the tediousness of a wet day in camp with books and papers?

Nay, if they were not left behind in the busy, plodding world that he came here to escape from, they should have been. He wants nothing here that reminds him of traffic or politics; nothing of history, for now he has only to do with the present; nothing of travel, for his concern now is only with the exploration of this wild domain. He does not wish to be bothered with fiction, idealized reality is what he desires. Neither does he care for what other men have written of nature. Her book is before him and he may read it from first hands.

Looking forth from his snug shelter on the circumscribed landscape, he marvels at the brightness of a distant yellow tree that shines like a living flame through the veil of mist. The blaze of his sputtering camp-fire is not brighter. He notices, as perhaps he never did before, how distinctly the dark ramage of the branches is traced among the brilliant leaves, as if with their autumnal hues they were given transparency. Some unfelt waft of the upper air casts aside for a moment the curtain of mist and briefly discloses a mountain peak, radiant with all the hues of autumn, and it is as if one were given, as in a dream, a glimpse of the undiscovered country. He realizes a dreamy pleasure in watching the waves coming in out of the obscurity and dashing on the shore, or pulsing away in fading leaden lines into the mystery of the wrack.

In the borders of the mist the ducks revel in the upper and nether wetness, and with uncanny laughter the loon rejoices between his long explorations of the aquatic depth. A mink, as heedless of rain as the waterfowl, comes stealing along the shore, thridding the intricacies of driftwood and web of wave-washed tree roots, often peering out in inquisitive examination of the quiet camp. Less cautious visitors draw nearer—the friendly chickadee, hanging from the nearest twig; the nuthatch, sounding his penny trumpet, accompanied by the tap of the woodpecker, as one creeps down, the other up a tree trunk; the scolding jays, making as noisy protest over human intrusion as if they had just discovered it; a saucy squirrel, scoffing and jeering, till tired of his raillery he settles down to quiet nut-rasping under shelter of his tail.

There are unseen visitors, too: wood-mice, astir under cover of the fallen leaves, and, just discernible among the patter of the falling rain and of the squirrels' filings, footfalls unidentified, till a ruffed grouse starts new showers from the wet branches in the thunder of his flight.

Narrowed to the width of tent or shanty front, the background but a pallid shroud of mist, the landscape yet holds much for pleasant study. But if the weather-bound camper exhausts this or tires of it, he may turn to gun-cleaning or tackle-mending. If a guide be with him, he can listen to his stories of hunting, fishing, and adventure, or learn woodcraft of him and the curious ways of birds and beasts. He may fashion birch-bark camp-ware, dippers, cups, and boxes, or whittle a paddle from a smooth-rifted maple. If he is of artistic turn, he can pleasantly devote an hour to etching pictures on the white under surface of the fungus that grows on decaying trees, and so provide himself with reminders of this rainy day in camp.

So, with one and another pastime, he whiles away the sunless day, which, almost before he has thought of it, merges into the early nightfall, and he is lulled to sleep by the same sound that wakened him, the drip and patter of the rain. And when he looks back to these days of outing he may count this, which dawned so unpropitiously, not the least pleasant and profitable among them, and mark with a white stone the rainy day in camp.