“Yes, we are making a picnic of it. The children like it. It’s great fun for them, and it gives my wife, who isn’t very strong, a chance to rest and be out of doors. I enjoy it, too. I like to see them have a good time.”
“Well,” I said, before I realized I was taking him into my confidence, “I wish you could make our camp cook see your point of view.”
“Why, don’t she like it?” he asked innocently.
“Like it? I am afraid she doesn’t. The other day it rained and leaked in through the kitchen roof onto her ironing board, and when we found her she had her head on the board and was crying.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” he said. “Why didn’t she take that board out of the way of the leak? We don’t mind a little thing like a leak around here, especially when folks are camping. Having her feel that way must make a difference in your pleasure. Well, there is ways of taking work. Now, probably, she’s throwing herself against her work, and making it harder all the time.”
“That’s exactly what she is doing,” I commented dryly.
“It’s a pity.” There was sympathy in his voice. “For it’s such a lot easier to make a picnic out of what you are doing—homemade camping, we call this. My folks always feel that way about it. Even the hardest work is easier for taking it the right end to. My children are growing up to think, what it doesn’t hurt any man to think, that work is the best fun, after all. It’s the only thing you never get tired of, for there is always something more to do.”