llen only the day before) my efforts to kindle a fire were
unavailing. Upon this, I considered using some pages from my notebook,
but another alternative suggested itself:

"Why not Montaigne?"

With that I groped for the familiar volume, and with a curious sensation
of satisfaction I tore out a handful of pages from the back.

"Better Montaigne than Grayson," I said, with a chuckle. It was amazing
how Montaigne sparkled and crackled when he was well lighted.

"There goes a bundle of quotations from Vergil," I said, "and there's
his observations on the eating of fish. There are more uses than one for
the classics."

So I ripped out a good part of another chapter, and thus, by coaxing,
got my fire to going. It was not difficult after that to find enough
fuel to make it blaze up warmly.

I opened my bag and took out the remnants of the luncheon which Mrs.
Clark had given me that morning; and I was surprised and delighted to
find, among the other things, a small bottle of coffee. This suggested
all sorts of pleasing possibilities and, the spirit of invention being
now awakened, I got out my tin cup, split a sapling stick so I could fit
it into the handle, and set the cup, full of coffee, on the coals at the
edge of the fire. It was soon heated, and although I spilled some of it
in getting it off, and although it was well spiced with ashes, I enjoyed
it, with Mrs. Clark's doughnuts and sandwiches (some of which I toasted
with a sapling fork) as thoroughly, I think, as ever I enjoyed any meal.

How little we know--we who dread life--how much there is in life!

My activities around the fire had warmed me to the bone, and after I
was well through with my meal I gathered a plentiful supply of wood and
placed it near at hand, I got out my waterproof cape and put it on, and,
finally piling more sticks on the fire, I sat down comfortably at the
foot of the tree.

I wish I could convey the mystery and the beauty of that night. Did you
ever sit by a campfire and watch the flames dance, and the sparks fly
upward into the cool dark air? Did you ever see the fitful light among
the tree-depths, at one moment opening vast shadowy vistas into the
forest, at the next dying downward and leaving it all in sombre mystery?
It came to me that night with the wonderful vividness of a fresh
experience.

And what a friendly and companionable thing a campfire is! How generous
and outright it is! It plays for you when you wish so be live