The Forest | Page 3

only it did seem ridiculous that a man should cumber himself with a
fifth wheel on a smoothly macadamized road.

The next morning Billy and I went cheerfully on our way. We were
carrying an axe, a gun, blankets, an extra pair of drawers and socks
apiece, a little grub, and an eight-pound shelter tent. We had been out a
week, and we were having a good time.

II.
THE SCIENCE OF GOING LIGHT.
"Now the Four-Way lodge is opened--now the smokes of Council rise--
Pleasant smokes ere yet 'twixt trail and trail they choose."
You can no more be told how to go light than you can be told how to
hit a ball with a bat. It is something that must be lived through, and all
advice on the subject has just about the value of an answer to a bashful
young man who begged from one of our woman's periodicals help in
overcoming the diffidence felt on entering a crowded room. The reply
read: "Cultivate an easy, graceful manner." In like case I might
hypothecate, "To go light, discard all but the really necessary articles."
The sticking-point, were you to press me close, would be the definition
of the word "necessary," for the terms of such definition would have to
be those solely and simply of a man's experience. Comforts, even most
desirable comforts, are not necessities. A dozen times a day trifling
emergencies will seem precisely to call for some little handy
contrivance that would be just the thing, were it in the pack rather than
at home. A disgorger does the business better than a pocket-knife; a
pair of oilskin trousers turns the wet better than does kersey; a
camp-stove will burn merrily in a rain lively enough to drown an open
fire. Yet neither disgorger, nor oilskins, nor camp-stove can be
considered in the light of necessities, for the simple reason that the
conditions of their use occur too infrequently to compensate for the
pains of their carriage. Or, to put it the other way, a few moments' work
with a knife, wet knees occasionally, or an infrequent soggy meal are
not too great a price to pay for unburdened shoulders.
Nor on the other hand must you conclude that because a thing is a mere
luxury in town, it is nothing but that in the woods. Most woodsmen
own some little ridiculous item of outfit without which they could not
be happy. And when a man cannot be happy lacking a thing, that thing
becomes a necessity. I knew one who never stirred without borated
talcum powder; another who must have his mouth-organ; a third who

was miserable without a small bottle of salad dressing; I confess to a
pair of light buckskin gloves. Each man must decide for
himself--remembering always the endurance limit of human shoulders.
A necessity is that which, _by your own experience_, you have found
you cannot do without. As a bit of practical advice, however, the
following system of elimination may be recommended. When you
return from a trip, turn your duffel bag upside down on the floor. Of the
contents make three piles--three piles conscientiously selected in the
light of what has happened rather than what ought to have happened, or
what might have happened. It is difficult to do this. Preconceived
notions, habits of civilization, theory for future, imagination, all stand
in the eye of your honesty. Pile number one should comprise those
articles you have used every day; pile number two, those you have used
occasionally; pile number three, those you have not used at all. If you
are resolute and singleminded, you will at once discard the latter two.
Throughout the following winter you will be attacked by misgivings.
To be sure, you wore the mosquito hat but once or twice, and the fourth
pair of socks not at all; but then the mosquitoes might be thicker next
time, and a series of rainy days and cold nights might make it desirable
to have a dry pair of socks to put on at night. The past has been _x_,
but the future might be y. One by one the discarded creep back into the
list. And by the opening of next season you have made toward
perfection by only the little space of a mackintosh coat and a ten-gauge
gun.
But in the years to come you learn better and better the simple woods
lesson of substitution or doing without. You find that discomfort is as
soon forgotten as pain; that almost anything can be endured if it is but
for the time being; that absolute physical comfort is worth but a very
small price in avoirdupois. Your pack shrinks.
In fact, it really never ceases shrinking. Only last summer taught me the
uselessness of