mbs,
boughs and browse. Anything small enough for a cow or deer to masticate
was browse. And that is just what you want for a camp in the forest.
Not twigs that may come from a thorn, or boughs that may be as thick as
your wrist, but browse, which may be used for a mattress, the
healthiest in the world.

And now for a little useless advice. In going into the woods, don't
take a medicine chest or a set of surgical instruments with you. A bit
of sticking salve, a wooden vial of anti-pain tablets and another of
rhubarb regulars, your fly medicine and a pair of tweezers will be
enough. Of course you have needles and thread.

If you go before the open season for shooting, take no gun. It will
simply be a useless incumbrance and a nuisance.

If you go to hunt, take a solemn oath never to point the shooting end
of your gun toward yourself or any other human being.

In still-hunting, swear yourself black in the face never to shoot at a
dim, moving object in the woods for a deer, unless you have seen that
it is a deer. In these days there are quite as many hunters as deer in
the woods; and it is a heavy, wearisome job to pack a dead or wounded
man ten or twelve miles out to a clearing, let alone that it spoils all
the pleasure of the hunt and is apt to raise hard feelings among his
relations.

In a word, act coolly and rationally. So shall your outing be a
delight in conception and the fulfillment thereof; while the memory of
it shall come back to you in pleasant dreams, when legs and shoulders
are too stiff and old for knapsack and rifle.

That is me. That is why I sit here tonight with the north wind and
sleet rattling the one window of my little den, writing what I hope
younger and stronger men will like to take into the woods with them and
read. Not that I am so very old. The youngsters are still not anxious
to buck against the muzzleloader in off-hand shooting. But, in common
with a thousand other old graybeards, I feel that the fire, the fervor,
the steel, that once carried me over the trail from dawn until dark, is
dulled and deadened within me.

We had our day of youth and May;
We may have grown a trifle sober;
But life may reach a wintry way,
And we are only in October.

Wherefore, let us be thankful that there are still thousands of cool,
green nooks beside crystal springs, where the weary soul may hide for a
time, away from debts, duns and deviltries, and a while commune with
nature in her undress.