CHAPTER XV
WOOD CULTURE AND CAMP HEALTH
It is far better for the girl to be out in a wilderness world which demands all the attention of both heart and mind, than to be leading an idle or sedentary life at home. If there is one word which above all others expresses the life of the woods, it is the word WHOLESOME. It is a normal, active, “hard-pan” life which takes the softness not only out of the muscles, but also out of the thoughts and the feelings. It tightens up the tendons of our bodies and the even more wonderful tendons of the mind.
Often, to paraphrase Guts Muths, a girl is weak because it does not occur to her that she can be strong. She fails to lay the foundations of health and strength which should be laid; she fails to make the most of the energy that she has; she fails to think of the future and how important in every way it is that she should be robust and full of an abounding vitality. It is a matter of the greatest importance to the world spiritually, morally, physically, that its girls should be strong. To be out of doors insures abundant well-being as nothing else can. The wilderness instinct, the instinct for camping and all its out-of-door life and sports, is the healthiest, sanest, and most compound-interest-paying investment a girl can make.
But by an intelligent approach to this life, more can be put into it and therefore more can be taken out, than by some blindfolded dive into its mysteries. To know how to do a thing worth doing and to do it well, is both wise and economical. Some of the physical aspects of our life will give all the more value because of the payment of an added attention. A few simple rules for the physical side of camp life will do quite as much for the body as an orderly routine can do for the camp housekeeping.
Simply because you are in camp, never do anything by eating or drinking or over-strain or folly of any sort, that is against the law of health. To break the laws of health is as much a sin in camp as out of it.
Eat an abundance of simple, wholesome foods, using as much cereals, fruits, and vegetables as you can get. Don’t neglect the care of your teeth merely because you are in camp.
Do not drink tea or coffee. Stimulants are unnatural and unwholesome; no girl and no woman should ever touch them. If you have begun to drink tea and coffee, camp is the place to give them up once and for all time. The sooner the better.
If you can get a cool bath in stream or pond and a rub down with a rough towel, so much the better. Exercise both before and after the bath, and be sure, by rub down and exercise, to get into a good glow. The rub down is of especial importance, for it stimulates all the tiny surface veins, is gymnastics to the skin, and frees the pores of any poisonous accumulations which they may be holding. Drink a glass or two of pure water when you get up and the same between meals.
Never wear anything tight in camp or elsewhere. Within the circle of the waist line are vital organs which need every deep breath you can take, every ounce of freely flowing blood you can bring to them, every particle of room to grow you can give them. The Chinese woman who cramps her feet sins less than we who cramp our waists.