Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-09-20
The Campfire.

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The Campfire.
If, as Warner says in his Backlog
Studies" ''the open fire furnishes the
ROOM" the campfire does more for the
camp. Il is its life; life that throbs out
in every flare and flicker to enliven the
surroundings, whether they be the trees of
the forest, the expanse Of prairie shadowed
only by the clouds of night, or the barren
stretch of sandy shore. Out of the en-
comprising gloom of all these, the camp
fire materializes figures as real to the eye
as flesh and blood, peepling the verge of
darkness with grotesque forms, that leap
and crouch and sway with the rise and
fall, or bending to the wind, of the flame,
and beckon the fancy out to grope in the
mystery of night.
The campfire gives an expression to the
human face that it bears in no other light,
vague intentness, an absorption in moth
ing tangible; and yet not far-away look,
for it is focused on the flame that now
licks fresh morsel of wood, now laps the
empty air; or it is fixed on the shifting
glow of embers, whose bushes flush or
fade under their ashen veil. 1t is not the
gaze of one who looks past everything. at
nothing, or at the stars or the mountains
or the far-away sea horizon; but it is cen
tered on and revealed only by the camp
fire. You wonder what the gazer beholds
the past, the future, or something that
F, is neither; and the uncertain answer you
can only get by your own questioning of
the fiIckering blaze.
As the cutters gather around this cheer
ful center their lips exhale cheerful sto-
ries of adventure by field and flood, as
naturally as the burning fuel does smoke
| and sparks, and in that engendering
| warmth no fish caught or lost, no buck
killed or missed, suffers shrinkage in size
or weight, no peril is lessoned, no tale
shorn Of minutest detail. All these be-
long to the camp fire, whether it is built in
conformity with scientific rules or piled
clumsily by unskilled hands. What satis-
faction is there in the partnership of build
ing this altar of the camp, for though a
master of woodcraft superintends, all may
take hand in its erection, the youngest
and the weakest may contribute stick
that will brighten the blaze.
What hospitality the glow of the camp
fire proclaims in inviting always one more
to the elastic circle of light and warmth,
that if always complete, yet expands to
receive another guest. A pillar of cloud
by day. of fire by night, it is beacon that
guides the wanderer to shelter and COM
| fort.
There is no cooking comparable with
that which the campfire affords. To
whatever is boiled, stewed, roasted, broiled
or baked over its blaze in the glow of its
embers or in its ashes, it imparts dis
tinetive woody flavor that it distills out of
itself or draws from the spiced air that
fans it, and the aroma of every dish in
vites an appetite that is never disap-
pointed if the supply be large enough.
1t cannot be denied that the camp stove
gives forth warmth and with more COM
fort to the cook, serves to cook food of
such tame flavor as one may get at home.
But though the serviceable little imp
loar till its black cheeks glow red as
winter berries, it cannot make shanty or
tent a camp in reality or impart to an
outing its true flavor. This can only be
given by the generous campfire, whose
flames and embers no narrow walls In
close, whose hearth is on every side, whose
chimney is the wide air.-Forest and
Stream.