[21] The length of tent-poles, as has been previously stated, depends upon the size of the tent.
[22] What are known as "bolt-ends" can be bought at the hardware stores for this purpose.
[23] A flannel dress, the skirt coming to the top of the boots, and having a blouse waist, will be found most comfortable.
[24] It is no novelty for women and children to camp out: we see them every summer at the seaside and on the blueberry-plains. A great many families besides live in rude cabins, which are preferable on many accounts, but are expensive. Sickness sometimes results, but usually all are much benefited. I know a family that numbered with its guests nine ladies, five children ("one at the breast"), and the paterfamilias, which camped several weeks through some of the best and some of the worst of weather. The whooping-cough broke out the second or third day; shortly after, the tent of the mother and children blew down in the night, and turned them all out into the pelting rain in their night-clothes. Excepting the misery of that night and day, nothing serious came of it; and in the fall all returned home better every way for having spent their summer in camp.
[25] The mesh of a net is measured by pulling it diagonally as far as possible, and finding the distance from knot to knot; consequently a three-inch mesh will open so as to make a square of about an inch and a half.
[26] The field allowance in the United States army is nearly 1-1/8 pounds of coffee and 2-1/8 pounds of sugar (damp brown) for two men seven days; the bread and pork ration is also larger than that above given; but the allowance of potatoes is almost nothing.
[27] How to Do It. Published by Roberts Brothers, Boston.
Transcriber's Notes:
Punctuation normalized.