On the Trail: An Outdoor Book for Girls - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

hat the Outdoor World Can Do for Girls. How to Find the Trail and

How to Keep It=

There is a something in you, as in every one, every man, woman, girl, and

boy, that requires the tonic life of the wild. You may not know it, many do

not, but there is a part of your nature that only thewild can reach, satisfy, and

develop. The much-housed, overheated, overdressed, and over-entertained

life of most girls is artificial, and if one does not turn away from and leave it

for a while, one also becomes greatly artificial and must go through life not

knowing the joy, the strength, the poise that real outdoor life can give.

What is it about a true woodsman that instantly compels our respect, that

sets him apart from the men who might be of his class in village or town

and puts him in a class by himself, though he may be exteriorly rough and

have little or no book education? The real Adirondack or the North Woods

guide, alert, clean-limbed, clear-eyed, hard-muscled, bearing his pack-basket

or duffel-bag on his back, doing all the hard work of the camp, never loses

his poise or the simple dignity which he shares with all the things of the wild.

3 LINA BEARD & ADELIA B. (ADELIA BELLE) BEARD

It is bred in him, is a part of himself and the life he leads. He is as conscious

of his superior knowledge of the woods as an astronomer is of his knowl-

edge of the stars, and patiently tolerates the ignorance and awkwardness of

the "tenderfoot" from the city. Only a keen sense of humor can make this

toleration possible, for I have seen things done by a city-dweller at camp that

would enrage a woodsman, unless the irresistibly funny side of it made him

laugh his inward laugh that seldom reaches the surface.

To live for a while in the wild strengthens the muscles of your mind as well

as of your body. Flabby thoughts and flabby muscles depart together and

are replaced by enthusiasm and vigor of purpose, by strength of limb and

chest and back. To have seems not so desirable as to be. When you have

once come into sympathy with this world of the wild-which holds our cul-

tivated, artificial world in the hollow of its hand and gives it life-new joy,

good, wholesome, heartfelt joy, will well up within you. New and absorbing

interests will claim your attention. You will breathe deeper, stand straighter.

The small, petty things of life will lose their seeming importance and great

things will look larger and infinitely more worth while. You will know that

the woods, the fields, the streams and great waters bear wonderful messages

for you, and, little by little, you will learn to read them.

The majority of people who visit the up-to-date hotels of the Adirondacks,

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