The Tent Dwellers

by Albert Bigelow Paine

"Oh, let it go," he said. "It'll be there for you in the morning. I always leave mine, and my soap and towel, too."

He threw his towel over a limb, laid his soap on a log and faced toward the camp. I hesitated. I was unused to leaving my things out overnight. My custom was to hang my towel neatly over a rack, to stand my toothbrush upright in a glass on a little shelf with the dentifrice beside it. Habit is strong. I did not immediately consent to this wide and gaudy freedom of the woods.

"Suppose it rains," I said.

"All the better—it will wash the towels."

"But they will be wet in the morning."

"Um—yes—in the woods things generally are wet in the morning. You'll get used to that."

It is likewise my habit to comb my hair before retiring, and to look at myself in the glass, meantime. This may be due to vanity. It may be a sort of general inspection to see if I have added any new features, or lost any of those plucked from the family tree. Perhaps it is only to observe what the day's burdens have done for me in the way of wrinkles and gray hairs. Never mind the reason, it is a habit; but I didn't realize how precious it was to me until I got back to the tent and found that our only mirror was in Eddie's collection, set in the back of a combination comb-brush affair about the size of one's thumb.

Of course it was not at all adequate for anything like a general inspection. It would just about hold one eye, or a part of a mouth, or a section of a nose, or a piece of an ear or a little patch of hair, and it kept you busy guessing where that patch was located. Furthermore, as the comb was a part of the combination, the little mirror was obliged to be twinkling around over one's head at the precise moment when it should have been reflecting some portion of one's features. It served no useful purpose, thus, and was not much better when I looked up another comb and tried to use it in the natural way. Held close and far off, twisted and turned, it was no better. I felt lost and disturbed, as one always does when suddenly deprived of the exercise of an old and dear habit, and I began to make mental notes of some things I should bring on the next trip.

There was still a good deal to do—still a number of small but precious conveniences to be found wanting. Eddie noticed that I was getting into action and said he would stay outside while I was stowing myself away; which was good of him, for I needed the room. When I began to take on things I found I needed his bed, too, to put them on. I suppose I had expected there would be places to hang them. I am said to be rather absent-minded, and I believe I stood for several minutes with some sort of a garment in my hand, turning thoughtfully one way and another, probably expecting a hook to come drifting somewhere within reach. Yes, hooks are one of the small priceless conveniences, and under-the-bed is another. I never suspected that the space under the bed could be a luxury until I began to look for a place to put my shoes and handbag. Our tent was just long enough for our sleeping-bags, and just about wide enough for them—one along each side, with a narrow footway between. They were laid on canvas stretchers which had poles through wide hems down the sides—the ends of these poles (cut at each camp and selected for strength and springiness) spread apart and tacked to larger cross poles, which arrangement raised us just clear of the ground, leaving no space for anything of consequence underneath. You could hardly put a fishing rod there, or a pipe, without discomfort to the flesh and danger to the articles. Undressing and bestowing oneself in an upper berth is attended with problems, but the berth is not so narrow, and it is flat and solid, and there are hooks and little hammocks and things—valuable advantages, now fondly recalled. I finally piled everything on Eddie's bed, temporarily. I didn't know what I was going to do with it next, but anything was a boon for the moment. Just then Eddie looked in.

"That's your pillow material, you know," he said, pointing to my medley of garments. "You want a pillow, don't you?"