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Show I desire to say a few words to those liars who have written such glowing descriptions of the pleasures of camping out. In the first place it takes about eight men to pitch a tent. I have seen lots of them pitched, and in ??? one case was it a success unless there were six or seven bosses to one worker. Even then, in many cases, the tent was pitched off a bluff or into the lake. This Ohio party had a fine large tent along, and we put it up on the shore of Little Traverse Bay. We were exactly seven hours getting that tent into position in one of the worst places along the whole shore, and when the last stayrope was hauled taut three hand-to-hand fights were imminent and two lone and very mad men were searching the woods for clubs. Our supper consisted of black coffee, burned ham and crackers, and the first one who suggested that it was romantic was hit in the eye with the onion which the Dayton editor had been wearing on a string around his neck to keep off the ague. At midnight our status was a follows: The Enquirer man had a chill; The Cattle man had the ear-ache; the Commercial representative was groping around in the dark after his lost liverpad[?]; the two Dayton editors were disputing about a missing blanket; the Toledo philosopher had something down his back which he believed was a lizard, and he was in doubt as to whether he had best climb a tree or jump into the bay. As for me, I was whooping around with the toothache and trying to quiet the Contributor, who believed that he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. The seven Ohio men had for years been brothers to each other, and yet during our first day of camping out there were no less than four quarrels among them. The slightest excuse such as kicking over the coffee-pot or stepping into the pail of butter, furnished the pretext for a jangle. It somehow fell to me to play the part of peacemaker, but I got tired after awhile and sailed in on the Toledo philosopher for abusing my way of breaking good and bad eggs into the same frying pan. Afer the first day it rained. After the second day it hailed, After the first night the eight of us had sore noses, sore throats, red eyes and a barking cough. After the second night we had lame backs, flying pains and the nightmare about four times per night. The man who says he ever took one hour's solid comfort camping out hadn't better let one of those seven Buckeyes strike his trail. - M. Quad, in Detroit Free Press. |