Harper's Outdoor Book for Boys

by Joseph H. Adams

Now carefully “tap” the back end for the chimney, and insert a piece of stove-pipe if handy. A hole from four to six inches will give a good draught. Wet the inside of the oven, and smooth over the walls so that the mud presents a hard finish, and leave to dry for a day. When you are ready to bake, build a good fire in the oven, and when it is well heated remove the fire, scrape out all ashes, and place the pans of dough inside. Close up the entrance with a board, and cover with mud so as to keep in all the heat. With proper care this oven will last several weeks.

A bank may not be handy in which to build an oven of the kind described above; if such proves the case, it is not a difficult matter to construct a good oven on the level ground by following the method below. If a flour-barrel is handy, use it; if not, make use of willow twigs stuck in the ground and bent over so as to form a mould. Over the barrel or willow mould plaster a stiff mortar made of mud, commencing at the base. Lay it on about six inches thick. Allow it to dry for a day or two, and when nearly dry cut out a door at one end and the flue at the other. A small mud chimney will increase the draught if a piece of stove-pipe is not at hand. If a barrel has been used as the mould it may be burned out without danger to the oven. Carefully remove all dirt, and keep up a fire for half a day before attempting to bake. Fig. 34. (See page 321.)

Camp-cooking

Even the finest of camps is a dreary place unless the commissary department is well organized. “Uncle Harry,” who is an old and experienced camper-out, gives some useful suggestions to his nephews, and other boys will doubtless appreciate his lectures on things culinary.

“Let us suppose,” begins Uncle Harry, “that you have gotten the camp into ship-shape order, and after your hard day’s work are ravenously hungry and very impatient for supper, or rather dinner, for the last meal of the day in camp is always the most important one. We will appoint Aleck as cook, and while he is busy over the fire neither of the others shall interfere with him or his duties, for no axiom is more true than that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.’

“Ben and Bob must see that the cook is well supplied with water and has plenty of small-split firewood close at hand. Then Bob will set the table, while Ben goes a-fishing and catches half a dozen trout or other small fry from the lake. In the mean time Aleck has pared and washed a dozen potatoes. These are placed in a kettle nearly full of water, and hung over the fire half an hour before supper-time. He will keep them boiling furiously until he can run a sliver of wood easily through the largest one. Then the water must be drained from them, and, still in the kettle, they must be set aside, but near enough to the fire to keep hot until wanted.

“Ben’s fish all weigh less than a pound, and so are too small to do anything with but fry. After they are cleaned, Aleck rolls them in corn-meal and lays them carefully in the frying-pan, which is already on the stove, and in which a small quantity of cotton-seed oil is sizzling merrily. If you should have no oil, pork fat will do nearly as well, only have it boiling hot before placing the fish in it.

“Aleck has heard of half a dozen methods of making coffee, and hesitates before deciding which to try. He has been told to put his coffee in cold water and let it come to a boil, and that the coffee must not see the water until it is boiling; he has heard that coffee must never be boiled, and that the only way to extract its strength is to boil it; and so in thinking it all over he is much perplexed. Finally he remembers a method which his old uncle who is in the army has mentioned to him, and decides to try it.”

“Oh, Uncle Harry, you are not a bit old,” interrupts Aleck.

“In preparing coffee by his old uncle’s method,” continues Captain Archer, only noticing the interruption with a smile, “Aleck fills the coffee-pot with water, and sets it on the broiler wires, which he has laid across from one log to the other of the stove. While it is coming to a boil he measures out his coffee at the rate of a heaping table-spoonful for each cup to be made, puts it into his tin cup, pours in all the hot water it will hold, and sets it in a warm place on the stove. As soon as the water in the coffee-pot boils, he pours off some, so as to leave the pot about three-quarters full, and empties in his cupful of soaked coffee. Setting the pot back, he allows its contents to again come to a boil, and then lifts it from the fire. He pours out a tin cupful of the coffee, and pours it slowly back into the pot, throwing away the residue of grounds that remain in the cup. For about a minute, or while the rest of the dinner is being served, the coffee-pot stands in a warm place near the fire, and then its contents are ready for drinking.