ing to the top of the boots, and
having a blouse waist, will be found most comfortable.

[24] It is no novelty for women and children to camp out: we see them
every summer at the seaside and on the blueberry-plains. A great many
families besides live in rude cabins, which are preferable on many
accounts, but are expensive. Sickness sometimes results, but usually all
are much benefited. I know a family that numbered with its guests nine
ladies, five children ("one at the breast"), and the _paterfamilias_,
which camped several weeks through some of the best and some of the
worst of weather. The whooping-cough broke out the second or third day;
shortly after, the tent of the mother and children blew down in the
night, and turned them all out into the pelting rain in their
night-clothes. Excepting the misery of that night and day, nothing
serious came of it; and in the fall all returned home better every way
for having spent their summer in camp.

[25] The mesh of a net is measured by pulling it diagonally as far as
possible, and finding the distance from knot to knot; consequently a
three-inch mesh will open so as to make a square of about an inch and a
half.

[26] The field allowance in the United States army is nearly 1-1/8
pounds of coffee and 2-1/8 pounds of sugar (damp brown) for two men
seven days; the bread and pork ration is also larger than that above
given; but the allowance of potatoes is almost nothing.

CHAPTER XI.

DIARY.

By all means keep a diary: the act of writing will help you to remember
these good times, and the diary will prove the pleasantest of reading in
after-years. It is not an easy thing to write in camp or on the march,
but if it costs you an effort you will prize it all the more. I beg you
to persevere, and, if you fail, to "try, try again." I cannot overcome
the desire to tell you the results of my experience in diary-writing;
for I have tried it long, and under many different circumstances. They
are as follows:--

First, Any thing written at the time is far better than no record at
all; so, if you can only write a pocket diary with lead pencil, do that.

Second, All such small diaries, scraps, letters, and every thing written
illegibly or with lead pencil, are difficult to preserve or to read, and
are very unhandy for reference.

Third, It is great folly to persuade yourself that after taking notes
for a week or two, or writing a hurried sketch, you can extend or copy
and