When the party crawls out to the early breakfast, after it has washed
its faces in the lake, it is disorganized, but cheerful. Nobody
admits much sleep; but everybody is refreshed, and declares it
delightful. It is the fresh air all night that invigorates; or maybe
it is the tea, or the slap-jacks. The guides have erected a table of
spruce bark, with benches at the sides; so that breakfast is taken in
form. It is served on tin plates and oak chips. After breakfast
begins the day's work. It may be a mountain-climbing expedition, or
rowing and angling in the lake, or fishing for trout in some stream
two or three miles distant. Nobody can stir far from camp without a
guide. Hammocks are swung, bowers are built novel-reading begins,
worsted work appears, cards are shuffled and dealt. The day passes
in absolute freedom from responsibility to one's self. At night when
the expeditions return, the camp resumes its animation. Adventures
are recounted, every statement of the narrator being disputed and
argued. Everybody has become an adept in woodcraft; but nobody
credits his neighbor with like instinct. Society getting resolved
into its elements, confidence is gone.
Whilst the hilarious party are at supper, a drop or two of rain
falls. The head guide is appealed to. Is it going to rain? He says
it does rain. But will it be a rainy night?
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