A pillow is also a useful thing for comfort in camp. For this you only need a strong pillow-case about two feet long by one foot wide. This you can also make for yourself. It will serve as your clothes-bag by day and your pillow by night with your clothes, neatly rolled and packed in it, serving as the stuffing.
I have often used my boots as a pillow, rolled up in a coat so that they don’t slip apart.
Camp Dodges
Camp candlesticks can be made by bending a bit of wire into a small spiral spring; or by using a cleft stick stuck in the wall; or by sticking the candle upright in a lump of clay or in a hole bored in a big potato. A glass candle shade can be made by cutting the bottom off a bottle and sticking it upside down in the ground with a candle in the neck. The bottom of the battle may be cut off
by putting about an inch or an inch and a half of water into the bottle, and then standing it in the embers of the fire till it gets hot and cracks at the water-level. Or it can be done by passing a piece of string round the body of the bottle, and drawing it rapidly to and fro till it makes a hot line round the bottle, which then breaks neatly off with a blow, or on being immersed in cold water. But remember that cut glass is a dangerous thing in camp.
You can make a camp candlestick in a number of different ways.
How to Squat
It is something to know how to sit down in a wet camp. You “squat" instead of sitting. Natives in India squat on their heels, but this is a tiring way if you have not done it as a child. It comes easy if you put a sloping stone or chock of wood under your heels.
South African Boers and other camp men squat on one heel. It is a little tiring at first.
The old camper has his own way of squatting, to keep off the ground.
Fire Building
Indians were always clever with their fires. Four kinds of fires were used. The Council Fire inside the teepee was a formal kind of thing. The Friendly Fire—somewhat larger than the Council Fire—was to warm everybody in the village. The Signal Fire, was built for sending up smoke signals. The Cooking Fire was a very small fire of glowing red-hot embers. Scouts use the same kinds of fires.
Clearing the Ground
Before lighting your fire, remember always to do as every backwoodsman does, and that is to remove all grass, dry leaves, bracken, heather, round the spot, to prevent the fire from spreading to the surrounding grass or bush. Many bad bush fires have been caused by young tenderfoots fooling about with blazes which they imagined to be camp fires. Where there is danger of a grass fire, have branches or old sacks ready with which you can beat it out.
Scouts should always be on the look-out to beat out a bush fire that had been accidentally started at any time, as a Good Turn to the owner of the land or to people who may have herds and crops in danger.
Laying the Fire
It is no use to learn how to light a fire by hearsay. The only way is to pay attention to the instructions given you, and then practise laying and lighting a fire yourself.
In the book called Two Little Savages, instructions for laying a fire are given in the following rhyme:—
“First a curl of birch bark as dry as it can be, Then some twigs of soft wood dead from off a tree, Last of all some pine knots to make a kettle foam, And there’s a fire to make you think you’re sitting right at home.”
With a fire built this way, one match may be all you will need.
Remember the usual fault of a beginner is to try to make too big a fire. You will never see a backwoodsman do that— he uses the smallest possible amount of wood for his fire.
First collect your firewood. Green, fresh-cut wood is no good, nor is dead wood that has lain long on the ground. Get permission to break dead branches off trees for it.
To make your fire, you put a few sticks flat on the ground, especially if the ground be damp. On this flooring lay your “punk”—that is, shavings, splinters, or any other material that will easily catch fire from your match.
On this you pile, in pyramid fashion, thin twigs, splinters, and slithers of dry wood, leaning on the “punk” and against each other. These are called kindling.
A good kind of kindling can easily be made by slitting a stick into several slices or shavings, as shown. This is called a firestick. If stood up, with the shavings downwards towards the ground, it quickly catches light and flares up.
A few stouter sticks are added over the kindling to make the fire.
Lighting the Fire
Set light to all this, putting your match under the bottom of the “punk”.
TOMMY THE TENDERFOOT No. 6 - TOMMY BUILDS A FIRE
On lighting of fires he sets everyone right, But his own little bonfire refused to ignite.
When the wood has really got on fire, add more and larger sticks, and finally logs.
“Firesticks” whittled from dr y wood make good fire starters.
A Tenderfoot after lighting his fire will blow out his match and throw it on the ground. A backwoodsman will break the match in half before throwing it away. Why? Because if the match is not really out and is still smouldering it will tell him so—by burning his hand.
Several Kinds of Fires
A great thing for a cooking fire is to get a good pile of red-hot wood embers, and if you use three large fogs, they shouldbe placed on the ground, star-shaped, like the spokes of a wheel, with their ends centred in the fire. A fire made in this way need never go out, for as the logs burn away you keep pushing them towards the centre of the fire, always making fresh red-hot embers there. This makes a fire which gives very little flame or smoke.
The “star fire” consists of logs placed like the spokes of a wheel.
If you want to keep a fire flaming during the night for light or to warm you, use the star fire with one long log
reaching to your hand, so that you can push it in from time to time to the centre without trouble of getting up to stoke the fire.
To keep your fire smouldering overnight, cover it over with a heap of ashes. It will then be ready for early use in the morning, when you can easily blow it into a glow.
Here is a way they use in North America for making a fire for heating your tent:
Drive two stout stakes into the ground about four feet apart, both leaning a bit backwards. Cut down a young tree with a trunk some six inches thick; chop it into four-foot lengths. Lay three or more logs, one on top of another, leaning against the upright stakes. This “reflector” forms the back of your fireplace. Two short logs are then laid as fire-dogs, with a log across them as front
bar of the fire. Inside this “grate” you build a pyramid-shaped fire, which then gives out great heat. The “grate” must, of course, be built so that it faces the wind.